Geek News and Musings

Is Office Finally Coming To The iPhone?

I’m here at the Web 2.0 Expo keynote, where Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, hinted that we may be seeing Microsoft Office make its way to the iPhone some time soon. After his interviewer Tim O’Reilly caught him on the comment, Elop backtracked a bit, stating “not yet, keep watching”. But it’s clear that an iPhone version of Office is on his mind.

Rumors of an Office client for the iPhone have been circling for over a year, as users clamor for a way to edit their Word and Excel files on the go (the iPhone allows them to view them, but doesn’t include any editing functionality).

Unofficial editing suites are also on the way. Today saw the annoucement of QuickOffice, a suite of applications that can edit office files (though it has yet to be released). Also worth checking out is this spreadsheet application.

In other Office-related news, Elop said that Microsoft plans to launch an ad-supported online version of Office for the web, though it won’t be out this year. He also notes that of the 500 million people who use Office, only 250 million actually pay for it. When asked what Microsoft’s biggest fear concerning Office was, Elop said that it was afraid of innovation slowing down, explaining “It’s not about having bolding or underlining in the browser… The real threat is if we’re not continuing to innovate”.

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April Fools: YouTube Flails, Amazon Cloud Computing In A Blimp, 3D Chrome Browsing, Google Masters A.I.

Wow. April Fools Is In full swing.

The Guardian goes all Twitter, ditching the printed version and the website. “Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters.”

Amazon launches a brand new cloud computing service called Floating Amazon Cloud Environment, or FACE. “The FACE uses durable, unmanned helium-filled blimps with a capacity of 65,536 small EC2 instances, or a proportionate number of larger instances. The top of each blimp is coated in polycrystalline solar cells which supply approximately 40% of the power needed by the servers and the on-board navigation, communication, and defense systems. “The government will have absolutely no chance of acting against them, because they will be too busy trying to decide which Federal Air Regulation (FAR) was violated, not to mention scheduling news conferences. “

Meanwhile, Google masters artificial intelligence in a post and description that’s way too geeky for me.

But they’ve created the world’s first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE), which is a computer that’s come alive and is making changes at Google. “Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.”

Another early project for Cadie: making a 3D version of Google Chrome, since “81% of households had red/blue 3D glasses lying around.”

Last and certainly least, and there’s no gentle way of putting this, YouTube just flails with upside down video viewing.

Gmail now has AutoPilot.

Google Brain Search uses CADIE technology to index your brain.

Google Australia introduces the gBall, which will change Australian rules football as we know it.

There is also a featured YouTube video of a panda by the user ‘cadiesingularity’ with a profile stating “Cadie - the world’s first Cognitive Auto-Heuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity”.

When browsing Street View in Google Maps, a panda is shown in the bottom right map instead of the yellow person usually shown.

CADIE even has its own blog on Blogger.

There is also a “CADIE’s recommended places for humans” link in Google Maps, which leads to the “Panda Mapplet” and includes several marked locations with “CADIE’s” commentary. Under Redmond WA a link is listed which will rick roll the viewer.

Meanwhile, Identi.ca has acquired Twitter. A Twitter executive was quoted afterwards saying: “I was worried we were going to have to make a business out of that whole Twitter thing! I’m really glad it’s someone else’s problem now.”

Google is apparently also building a new $100 laptop together with Alienware (Dell). It will have a built-in brain wave reading chip, with sensors that need to be applied onto the user’s skull.

Scientists at CERN have found the cell that basically triggered the Big Bang.

The Pirate Bay sells out to Warner Bros.

There’s a new social network for your nose, a friendspace for your fragrance, a place to share your opinions on perfumes and vote for your favorite smells. They call it smellr and it’s online now.

Opera has moved on from Mouse Gestures and comes out of the closet with Face Gestures.

The entire Internet is being rebooted.

Expedia is offering flights to Mars from $99. In related news, Hotels.com offers rooms on the Moon.

Add a bit of shine to your website with Laminatr.

This new Landmark jQuery plugin will alter the face of the internet.

Yahoo debuts Ideological Search.

Social Media Use Decreases Customer Satisfaction.

This brand new mobile phone works as either a coin-operated or credit/debit card mobile.

BBC’s Top Gear show comes to Hulu.

Woopra takes its Web Analytics suite up a notch and launches a webcam spy-feature for websites.

Woot is selling crap.

Reddit now looks competely like Digg (good one).

Wired: Twitter plans to make money. I’m gonna order that TW-900.

TweetDoubler gives you twice the bird.

Topify got sued by Fedex. “Fedex claims they have a registered patent for delivering faster and better email notifications and they claim we have infringed it.”

Fark now has its own social network. It looks vaguely familiar.

SocialBlade cracked Digg’s algorithm.

Epistolary Aardvark for Offline Access! “Until now, Aardvark could only be used via instant messenger or email to get answers to your questions within minutes. Through Aair Mail, you’ll be able to send questions via regular postal mail, just like you’d send a letter to a friend.”

Seacom has wired the entire African continent, which now has the fastest internet connection in the world.

AXECollegeHumor

LiveJournal has a Friends Page redesign project.

Microsoft added support for automatic mood detection in Windows Live Messenger. “We’re happy to announce that due to the great breakthroughs from Microsoft Research, we have an alpha version working that monitors your real-time physiological state and translates that into a mood (happy, sad, anxious, etc), such that you would never have to enter an emoticon again.”

Web celebrities (including Michael Arrington) are spotted dancing together, and they got the video to prove it.

The BDFL, having shepherded Python development for 20 years, officially announces his retirement, effective immediately. Following a unanimous vote, his replacement is named (Barry Warsaw).

Google is rumored to be acquiring Palm.

Ford, GM announce the Android Car. It looks cool.

More as they come in. Let us know what you’re finding out there in the comments.

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Remains of the Day: Fixing Facebook Edition [For What It's Worth]

Fix Facebook’s new, much-maligned interface, wave goodbye to Encarta, and enjoy Android tethering while you can in our daily leftovers.

• Three ways to hide the Facebook sidebar with userscripts
  Download Squad rounds up three Greasemonkey scripts that correct the wrongs Facebook users feel the new interface has inflicted. [Download Squad]
• Microsoft to kill Encarta later this year
  Remember the last time you reached for a CD-ROM to look something up? Raise your glass to Microsoft Encarta, which will be officially discontinued later this year. [Ars Technica]
• American to add Wi-Fi service to domestic flights
  American Airlines follows suit with other hip airlines, offering $10-$13 Wi-Fi access on domestic flights. [USA Today]
• Android tethering apps pulled from Market
  Looks like we may have to adjust our iPhone 3.0 vs. Android feature table. [Android Community]
• My painfully poky week with IE 8
  A week with IE8, surprisingly, is not a good time for this tech writer. [CNET]
• Pirate Bay Torrents Spread Via Facebook
  The Pirate Bay integrates with Facebook for some serious torrent sharing. [TorrentFreak]

Confirmed: Facebook Loses CFO Gideon Yu

Facebook is losing its CFO Gideon Yu. The Wall Street Journal broke the news earlier today, and speculated that the reason could be that Facebook might want to make an early bid for an IPO and wants a CFO with public company experience (which is complete nonsense). Yu was previously the CFO of YouTube. At Facebook, he was key to raising money from Microsoft at the famous $15 billion valuation, but as the economy soured he was not able to find as many takers at that same price, despite Facebook’s voracious need for capital to keep up with its growth.

A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed Yu’s departure to us, providing the following statement.

Facebook confirms that CFO Gideon Yu will be leaving the company. Gideon has played an important role in helping us achieve our financial success, building a strong finance team and establishing the core financial operations of our company. We are grateful to Gideon for his contributions to Facebook and what we are trying to accomplish. Despite the poor economic climate, we are pleased that our financial performance is strong and we are well positioned for the next stage of our growth. We have retained Spencer Stuart to lead our search for a new CFO and will be looking for someone with public company experience.

High-level departures are becoming more common at Facebook as it strives to match its managerial talent to its ever-changing needs. Part of Yu’s job was to find capital to keep Facebook’s server farms growing. He was certainly in constant discussions with various investors, even going to Dubai last year looking for deep wallets. But he came home empty-handed.

An early IPO may not necessarily be the best thing for Facebook right now. Its revenues are rumored to be growing faster than many people think, driven by a huge inventory of advertising spots. Even if those ads are sold for pennies apiece, those pennies add up. One insider claims that revenues are on track to exceed $400 million this year. But Facebook would do better to wait until it starts generating substantial profits before testing the IPO waters. Going out too soon may just be a sign that it can’t find funding in the private markets.

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Facebook Hooks Up With Adobe For Richer Social Applications In Flash

Not to be outdone by MySpace announcing a deeper partnership with Microsoft yesterday, bringing Silverlight technology to its development platform and mobile application, Facebook and Adobe are today announcing a partnership and the release of fresh Flash client libraries to make it easier for developers to plug into the Facebook Platform inside their social applications built with Flash.

Flash has been supported since the launch of Facebook Platform in 2007 through tags, embedding Flash in Feed stories, and multiple client libraries, which have helped developers make Facebook API calls directly from ActionScript (see example on the Red Bull website). But Facebook felt the exisiting ActionScript client libraries were not up to par, so it teamed up with Adobe to tweak the open source version to support all Facebook APIs and add some features to better support authentication for both Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect.

After the PHP, JavaScript and iPhone client library, the all new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is now the fourth officially supported client library for the Facebook Platform. The code can be downloaded here.

Facebook and Adobe Systems will share more about the new partnership on April 2 at a San Francisco event.

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

Microsoft To Shutter Encarta, Read All About It On Wikipedia

Microsoft is preparing to shut down Encarta, the digital encyclopedia it first launched in 1993 as a direct competitor to old reference standbys like Encyclopedia Britannica. The encyclopedia, which for years was based on optical media and eventually made its way to the web too, grew quickly in the mid to late 90’s as a reference guide that was more convenient than book-based encyclopedias and was available for a tiny fraction of the price. According to its FAQ, Encarta’s web sites will be discontinued on October 31, 2009 (Except for Japan, which has until December 31, 2009). Microsoft will also stop selling the Encarta products by June.

From the FAQ:

Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past. As part of Microsoft’s goal to deliver the most effective and engaging resources for today’s consumer, it has made the decision to exit the Encarta business.
Microsoft’s vision is that everyone around the world needs to have access to quality education, and we believe that we can use what we’ve learned and assets we’ve accrued with offerings like Encarta to develop future technology solutions. In doing so, we feel strongly that we are making the right investments that will help make our vision a reality.

In the 2000’s Encarta’s popularity died out, largely due to the incredible growth of Wikipedia, the free web-based encyclopedia. Wikipedia is updated by a community of users from around the world, and is far more efficient than tradional encyclopedias and their online counterparts, which are edited in-house. In 2005 Encarta tried to take the middle ground by allowing users to submit suggestions for article updates, but these were not integrated into articles until they had been approved by Encarta editors.

For a full history of Encarta, be sure to check out its comprehensive Wikipedia entry, which has already been updated to reflect Encarta’s shutdown. Encarta’s entry on itself doesn’t mention anything about its demise, and actually seems to have less information than the Wikipedia article.

Via Ars Technica

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TomTom Realizes Microsoft’s Pointy Patent Stick Is Too Sharp… Settles Patent Dispute
Well, it looks like the ongoing patent battle between TomTom and Microsoft has come to a quick end, with TomTom caving. The company is paying Microsoft to “license” its patents, while dropping its own patent lawsuits against Microsoft. This really isn’t too surprising. Microsoft’s obviously got plenty of money to spend on just such a legal battle (exactly what the company counts on to get companies to pay up), so at some point, the calculation on TomTom’s part has to be whether it’s cheaper to fight or to just pay up. In this case (like so many), the company obviously felt it was cheaper to pay up, rather than fight what it believed were highly questionable patents. That’s too bad — but shows just why the patent system is so widely abused. It’s almost always cheaper to simply pay up rather than fight — which is exactly the sort of situation that Microsoft counts on, as it hypes up it’s “successful patent licensing program,” failing to concede that most of that licensing is done at the end of a large and very pointy stick.

What’s still unclear, however, is how this settlement deals with the questions that were raised over GPL’d software used by TomTom. As we noted, the GPL license that covers components of TomTom’s software forbid it from putting any restrictions on the distribution of the software. A deal with Microsoft could violate the GPL and cause trouble for TomTom down the road. Perhaps the company is betting that any legal battle on that front would be cheaper than fighting Microsoft’s patent lawyers in court.

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Follow the Mobile User
This guest post is written by Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering for Google’s mobile and developer products. (Prior to Google, he spent 15 years at Microsoft, most recently as their GM of Platform Evangelism.) Vic credits his now-7-year-old with forecasting the importance of mobile data access, and now carries at least 4 phones at all times. Fortunately, he had two kids before adopting the possibly-prophylactic habit.

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Focus on the mobile user, and all else will follow Simpler data, better browsers, and a smoother experience Today the mobile industry finds itself in a unique position to do right by its users: Worldwide phone penetration continues to climb at a break-neck pace, with over 4 billion mobile subscribers at last count.¹ (In comparison, the PC industry is forecasted to see its sharpest unit decline in history.²) Prevailing economic conditions will accelerate this trend, as users consolidate pricey communication services into cost-effective, all-in-one mobile devices.³ And for the first time ever, half of all new connections to the internet will come from a phone in 2009.⁴ Google’s mobile traffic reflects these milestones — having quintupled since 2007⁵ — and it underscores users’ appetite for mobile data services. But as a community of operators, device manufacturers and software providers, we continue to get in their way. In short, and as a general rule, we make it too costly, too unfamiliar, and too difficult to do anything beyond voice calls. In reply I offer up three suggestions: simpler data plans, better web browsers, and a smoother on-device experience. And in each case I’ll use Google traffic numbers as a proxy for total internet usage and user happiness.

Hive Five: Five Best Mind Mapping Applications [Hive Five]

Mind mapping is a great way to add structure to brainstorming sessions and visualize your ideas. Check out the applications your fellow readers use to do their best brainstorming.

Earlier this week we asked you to share which mind mapping application helped you brainstorm most effectively. The votes are in and we’re back to share the results and arm you with the tools to make your next think tank meeting that much more productive.

MindMeister (Web Application, Free)

MindMeister is by far the most simplistic mind mapping tool in the top five, but its simplicity is definitely an asset. Once you’re logged into the service, you can create a fully functional mind map using little more than the directional arrows and the Insert key to add new nodes to your map. Additional customizations like font size and node colors are available for when you want to go beyond the basics. In the upper right corner is a navigation window, handy for when your mind maps become larger than the display space. Exporting is also a strong point for MindMeister; you can export your files to a text outline, PDF, JPG, PNG, or GIF. MindMeister’s history function lets you view past versions of your mind map and revert to them if you desire. You can share your maps for public collaboration or hand-select collaborators. Upgrading from the free account to the premium account gives you some handy additional features like map searching, offline editing, and the ability to export your maps to popular software like FreeMind and MindManager.

MindJet MindManager (Windows/Mac, $399)

MindJet MindManager isn't cheap by any means, but you get more than your share of value and sophistication for the hundreds you spend on the program. The interface and feature set of MindManager are very polished, and the primary menus are set up like the Microsoft Office Ribbon. After the initial installation, MindManager walks you through the creation of a sample mind map—helpful both to familiarize you with the interface but also to show you features you may have overlooked. MindManager is definitely oriented towards corporate environments, including extensive integration with the Office suite and support for linking your mind maps directly into common database formats like MySQL and Access. Finding information in large mind maps is easy thanks to topic sorting, filtering, and text search tools. Mind maps can be exported in a variety of formats, but most notably in interactive PDF files and embeddable Flash animations. MindManager is available as a 30 day trial.

XMind (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)

XMind is the kind of free application that makes you forget you’re not paying for the privilege of using it. The interface is simple and intuitive to use. You can quickly move through your entire mind map with only a handful of keystrokes or jump over to the outline view for even quicker navigation. In addition to a basic mind map you can also create fishbone, organizational, tree, and logic charts. You can export charts as HTML, images, or text, and XMind comes a free account on XMind.net which allows you to share your charts online and embed them into blogs and web sites. There is a professional version of XMind which expands on the functionality of the base application and allows you to create online charts and collaborate with others. XMind Pro is $49 per year, but most people will find the free version more than robust enough for their mind mapping needs. Portable versions available for all three supported platforms.

FreeMind (Java, Free)

One of FreeMind's strongest selling points is a Java-based implementation. Whether you use it on Ubuntu or Windows, the features and user interface remain consistent. FreeMind is keyboard friendly with the core functionality well covered by keyboard shortcuts—I made the sample mind map pictured here without ever touching the mouse. The visual elements of your mind maps are highly customizable, including custom icons for flagging nodes on the map, color coding, grouping, and more. Mind maps created with FreeMind can be exported as HTML, PDF, and PNG files, among others.The support wiki for FreeMind is extensive and goes well beyond simply explaining how the application functions, covering things like how to add your own keyboard shortcuts and how to make the application portable.

iMindMap (Windows/Mac/Linux, $99-295)

iMindMap can claim two distinctions among the top five tools. First, it's the biggest download—weighing in at 135MB. Second it's the only application on the list developed by Tony Buzan—who lays claim to being the inventor of the mind map. iMindMap takes a different approach to mapping than the other applications in the list. Rather than create new nodes off the main idea by adding boxes, nodes are created by clicking in the center or the main idea and drawing away from it with the mouse. Each new idea is a branch off the center. Strangely, many of basic feature available in free mind-mapping software are only found in the more expensive versions of iMindMap, like the ability to expand and collapse branches. Mind maps created in iMindMap can be exported as PDF, JPG, PNG and text outline; a 7 day trial is available.

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A small aside: Although we didn’t include it because the topic of this Hive Five was mind mapping software, it bears noting that nearly 20% of the votes went to analog methods like pencil and paper and using a whiteboard. For all your geeky ways, many of you have much love for good old fashioned analog brainstorming.

Now that you’ve seen the contenders for the crown of Master of the Mind Map, it’s time to log your vote for your favorite:

Which Mind Mapping Software Is Best?
( polls)

Agree with the spread? Can’t believe your favorite mind mapping tool didn’t make the top five? Sound off with your opinions in the comments below.

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