Author: Oliver Wrede
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Document/window sharing in next iChat?
ThinkSecret.com is spreading the roumor that Apple might introduce a new iChat version with sharing. It is the #1 request I have for iChat: it would allow possible to give remote presentations. Yes, there are other applications that had this feature for years (like NetMeeting), but iChat was the only application that actually worked for…
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Hydrogen is no solution
Yesterday I saw a TV report on hydrogen cars. What they did not say (again) and what many people don’t get: it will not solve the peak oil issue. Hydrogen is not an energy source – it is a way to store energy like a battery. The fossil fuel will be consumed in the energy…
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Deforestation via Google Maps
Google Maps offers an unprecedented view on the deforestation of the Brasilian rain forest. I wonder what on the mind of the Brasilian government to allow this amount exploitation.
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Flick off!
Since it’s start in 2002 Flickr has seen an enormous success. Flickr’s design is clean, lean and simple – giving room for the stars of the show: the photos and photographers. Something fundamental about the Internet: stuff like Flickr is not hip because of their interface design. They are hip because of their independence, their…
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Google Talk
A lot of rumors about Googles new instant messaging application last week: today Google Talk was released. It’s possible to log into Google Talk with any Jabber-compatible Instant Messenger (because it uses the XMPP protocol). But while they use Jabber as technology it does not connect to the existing Jabber servers around. That is really…
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Google Maps via Flash
Paul Neave shows how to integrate Google Maps with Flash. Amazing! This example shows the power of Web APIs combined with a cutting edge interactive tool like Flash (you even can rotate the maps via the compass wheel). Now he just needs to find a way to allow people to seamlessly replace the DHTML application…
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Dynamic Speedometers
The Stanford HCI Group is working on car dashboards that discourage drivers from speedig. They’ve put some of their early brainstorming results online.
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diggnation.com
I found these guys being kind of fun to watch. I got this from DTV, but they’re publishing their videos through different feeds. Basically they’re just reading & commenting on stories users have rated high on digg.com – but they’re really into this. If they keep on doing that the next 50 years they probably…
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Ruppert: Crossing the rubicon
»Crossing the Rubicon« claims to be the second largest selling book about the attacks on September 11th after the official Kean Commission report. Michael C. Ruppert (who is running the website fromthewilderness.com) summarizes the claims he is making in this book: In my book I make several key points:1. I name Vice President Richard Cheney…
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Peak oil ads: No easy answers
Everybody needs to understand peak oil. Chevron started a campain called “Will you join us”: Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oli is over. What we do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in…
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Technorati’s devils triangle
Molly Holzschlag has an interesting report of her visit at Technorati. She has some technological insights and especially some words about tagging blog posts for Technorati. There is an animation (20MB) showing the growth rate of tag usage in blogs.
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Topical podcast day
If you are from Germany and you’re considering creating a podcast one day then maybe you should look out for Monday, 29th of August: there will be a podcast day about the german re-election in september. I just learned that some people have founded a Association of German Podcasters…
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BBC Extras
If you liked The Office you might want to see Extras – a new comedy show by/with Ricky Gervais. The main idea: it swaps the roles of stars and extras so that the extras are the stars of the show and the stars are the extras (kind of). But anyway without the stars appearing as…
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Upgraded!
YES! My DSL connection was just upgraded to 6MBit/s downstream. It’s amazing that these speeds are available for consumers for affordable flat rates. I remember a comment made by Derrick De Kerckhove in the final panel of a 4th doors of perception conference about »Speed« in 1996: No body is complaining about the television being…
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DenkWerkzeug 2005
Actually I wanted to join the 2nd DenkWerkzeug meeting in Karlsruhe (organized by Heiko Haller) tomorrow but I can’t make it. I would have been glad to discuss strategies for knowledge tools and possible approaches for a PKM introductory course. Better luck next time…
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Pace, Timing and Rhythm in Information Architecture
Andrew Dillon in December 2004 joined the group of thinkers that question simplistic approaches to effiiciency of communication that ask for speed instead of pace: Is there a temporal aspect to interaction that we should acknowledge? Surely there is a pace that leads to the best fit for each of us between tool and task,…
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Climate waring as Siberia melts
Scientists warn about a depot of 70 billion tons of methane ready to be released into the atmosphere as the permafrost in Siberia melts due to global warming. Methane is 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. An international research partnership known as the Global Carbon Project earlier this year identified melting…
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The Appeal Manifesto
The KDE project has issued a short list of things the’re aiming for in a future release of Linux desktop. Interestingly the first item on their list is »breathtaking beauty«: Breathtaking Beauty putting an emphasis on the form and style of software in addition to the function of it creating visually impactful interfaces that support…
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Bretton Woods II
German e-Zine Telepolis writes about the Bretton Woods II theory that tries to explain the current world economy. Complex stuff if you’re not into world economics. The theory is around for quite some time now. Read about the Bretton Woods System.
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Amazon Maps
We have Google Maps, MSN Virtual Earth – now we get Amazon Maps. The fancy feature of the day at Amazon are Block View Images: you can walk the streets of a number of major US cities…