Yahoo Searching for New CEO

As heard in The Washington Post's article, Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang is stepping down and the company is now in search of a new CEO. It is sad to see this after all the time and passion Yang put into Yahoo from the beginning. It's good that he will still be a part of the company as a board member. However, I agree with The Motley Fool that overall this is a good move for the company. It is important to bring in someone completely new in order to start thinking out of the box. Something different needs to be done. Hopefully, whoever this new CEO ends up being will be able to take the big steps that need to be taken for Yahoo.

Gmail Adds VIDEO Chat

Just wanted to get excited about Gmails new video and voice chat. I don't have a camera on my computer but even voice chat is pretty cool to have. And once I get my Mac one day it will be really neat to have this as an option. It would be super easy to use too.

Obama's Online Following

Now that Obama has this list of millions of e-mails and a following all over the internet, what will he do next?

Well, he has already created a new Web site: http://www.change.gov/. I think this site is brilliant with a section for suggestions, a blog, and an area to tell your personal election day story! Gives Americans the feeling of closeness to Obama and the feeling that he is really listening to them.

The interactivity and openness of the internet can definitely benefit Obama in a lot of ways like this article in the Washington Post points out. However, it could be a negative if he makes anyone upset during his term. This gives them an outlet to react and criticize on. Lets hope it doesn't turn out like that but either way, that's what is so great about the internet! It makes Obama have to be more accountable for what he promises and does.

So Many Music Video Games

Is the rise in video games with creating music and playing instruments starting to make the industry inundated? With many new games coming out soon, there are numerous options to pick from now. Will the games continue to excite and enthuse an audience and which games will stick? Or will it start to die down because of a saturated video game music category?

The good part about this is it makes the video game companies have to produce great, unique products in order to get people to pick their game over the others. Therefore, there are hopefully going to be a lot of notable choices available.

I read in USA Today about a few of the upcoming games - like Guitar Hero World Tour which allows you to record and create music (Check out CNN's story for more info) and Wii Music (picture above) which allows four people to play up to 60 instruments (check out Kris Abel's Tech Life blog for more info).

I will probably be trying Wii Music since I already have a Wii but it sounds like Guitar Hero World Tour already has a lot of hype around it. Hopefully it will live up to its expectation.

Paid Apps Available for Android

Corvida at ReadWriteWeb wrote about a web site online that is good news for application developers. Currently, on the Android Marketplace, applications will all be available for free. Now with Handango, developers will have the option of charging people for uploading their application for T-Mobile and Google's G1. They have more than one option on how they want to sell it too.

G1 customers can download the application on the web and then transfer it to their cell phone. Handango already has a selection of applications including The Weather Channel and FitSync.

The problem for Handango is eventually Google is planning on allowing developers start selling their applications, so I don't know how long Handango will be needed...

Google Phone Released in Six Days

T-Mobile's G1 is a touchscreen cell phone with Google's operating system, Android. It includes a few capabilities the iPhone does not have but with poor hardware. It also only works best on T-Mobile's fastest data plan which is currently in limited locations. Lets take a look at all it's good and bad elements.

Good:

• Price: $299 with a two-year contract; data plans at $25 or $35 a month
• Removable battery
• Multimedia picture messaging w/ better photo quality than iPhone
• Slideout physical keyboard
• Android: Flexible interface and openness for application developers
• Can be used abroad

Bad:

• Not so glamorous hardware: bigger than iPhone with smaller screen
• Slow internet
• No Outlook synchronization or Microsoft Exchange
• No support for Windows Media Player or iTunes for your music
• Irregular coverage

Good and Bad:

• Removable memory for music, videos and pictures but apparently it's hard to remove.

Cool Features:

• Google Maps shows a 360-view with a street-level photograph of where you are
• The Market: Android's version of the iPhone App Store
• Amazon MP3 Store

If the G1 doesn't seem to fit your style, don't worry cause apparently there are many more Google phones to come. Google CEO Eric Schmidt even stated that he foresees thousands of Android devices in the future.

Find more information in today's USA Today article.

So, how do you feel about the G1? Is it a good start for Google phones? What else would you want on your phone that you think this one is lacking?

Social Networks for Babies

How does everyone feel about having your kid on a social network specifically for babies? Cause there are apparently a good several Web sites available. My favorite from the ones I saw was Totspot. You can put up pictures, fill in milestones they accomplish, videos, document their first words.. it's like a journal for your baby. I personally love it. I would just make sure my profile was private, obviously. I think things like this are so fun and I would probably be more likely to document more on my child's special events and monumental moments.

For more conversation on this subject, check out the New York Times article and ParentDish.

MySpace Music: News Corporation and Major Music Companies Combine

A joint project is launching with Myspace (owned by News Corporation) and major music companies like Sony and the Warner Music Group. It's called MySpace Music - taking over their old way of music.myspace.com. MySpace users can create a 10-song jukebox for free, picking from millions of songs. And of course, the question is: How are they going to make money? Well, advertisements like most other things. In addition, users can buy any of the songs in the system through Amazon.com if they want to move the music off of their computer. I think this is so great! Hopefully it will help the music business remake some of the money they have been losing in recent years. One day this online stuff has got to start paying the music business back. That would at least be fair. We will see, though! And now we have tons of songs on MySpace to pick from. The rest of this story can be found in the New York Times.

Too Social on Social Networks

Who would've thought that you could be too social on a social network? Turns out, according to an article in the Washington Post, a girl named Elizabeth Coe was taken off Facebook after sending a message to 100 of her friends. Apparently, she was informing them of where she works now and sending them a link. Facebook took this as spam and decided to take her off of the site.

I thought this was interesting because over the summer when I was interning at the Georgia Aquarium, the same thing happened to us. I was helping them launch their social media campaign. We decided to create a Facebook page for them, replacing their profile that they had already created. We were trying to bring all of their friends they had already made on Facebook and move them to being "fans" on their Facebook "page." So, we had to message all 500 of their friends. In result, the Georgia Aquarium was taken off Facebook as well. Now, you can e-mail Facebook and once you explain what you were doing they will return your page to you. For us, it didn't take long to get it fixed but for Elizabeth, apparently it took her three months to get her profile restored.

I don't know what I think about this. I like that they are trying so hard to keep spammers out of Facebook. But at the same time, Facebook is primarily for socializing, and it is frustrating when something like that can cause you to be taken off the site completely. I will eventually be planning my high school reunion and we were definitely planning on using Facebook. Now, I am going to be nervous about getting my whole profile deleted. I guess we will see...

Tennis Tournaments Utilizing Online Tools

I am a big tennis fan as well as a big social media fan and this summer has been a lot of fun getting to mix the two. It first started with Wimbledon, which is one of the grand slam tournaments in London, and they had someone blogging constantly about the matches in progress. So, I could get a minute-by-minute update on what was going on. It felt like I was there and I LOVED having that option to hear about every little thing that was going on so I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

Now, with the U.S. Open going on currently, I checked their web site and found a bunch of new additions there as well. For example, they have a "Fanbook" section where people can add comments about anything from cheering on their favorite player to just commenting on the tournament in general. This makes the website more personal to it's visitors. Also, they have a widget that you can add to Facebook, Myspace, or iGoogle. This gives you the opportunity to have constant updates on your own personal site. Love it. I think it's really neat that everyone is starting to use all these different tools to make a more friendly and personal environment for their audience on their web sites.

Google Strives for Presence in Mobile Search

Looks like Verizon Wireless and Google has made a deal wih Google to have their default search engine on their phones. According to research by Nielsen IAG (found in the New York Times), "consumers want brand names they know" rather than the phone carrier's personal search engine. This deal could expand to having more of Google's content on Verizon's other services or combining forces on public policy issues. I guess we will see later if this deal becomes any bigger!

High School Robot Competition and Light Emitting Wall Paper

In the Wall Street Journal there was a video of students at New York's Stuyvesant High School performing in there first regional robotics competition. It was too funny watching all these robots racing around the middle of the colliseum. The students are really into it and there is a pretty good sized crowd, including cheerleaders and rockin music like the Marcarena! :)



Also read on Engadget about a new wallpaper that makes designs on the wall with light. The picture really explains it - it looks really cool. Check out the Engadget article

One Huge Boom Box

It's an inflatable boom box for your IPod! I found out about this through the blog Engadget who heard about it from New Launches.

There isn't much to it besides that it is huge and inflatable but it does have speakers and you just hook up your Ipod. Pretty neat for a party or something. :)

Phone with Human Skin Feel?

Apparently... LG has come out with a phone that is only in Korea right now but will eventually be here with keypads that feel like human skin! I heard about this through the engadget blog. I can't decide whether I think this is cool or really creepy. I wonder if people will actually buy this...

College Rivals Online Video Game

Apparently, a new online video game is out that was created at Yale last September. It's called GoCrossCampus (GXC).

The game is a competition between colleges, specific groups on just one campus, or even companies. The idea is to win and takeover the most(or all) territory. There are ten different competitions going on at the web site now. A couple of them are over and have a winner. Some of the games have hundreds of people competiting. One example of a game that I saw was called the Florida Championship and many schools in Florida were competiting in this game including, The University of Florida, Florida State, Florida Atlantic, and University of South Florida.

The GXC Overview on the web site said:

10 games
22,356 players
80 teams
182,911 chat posts
1,636,857 armies placed
182 commanders elected
42 commanders impeached
376 spies convicted
1,829 territories conquered

This is also used as a social site during the games because you can chat with people.
One girl in the NYT article said she started playing the game because her mom played and had reconnected with some of her college friends through the web site.

It sounds pretty interesting, kinda funny, but I could understand if you started playing this that it would become addicting. And now there is competition arising with a similar game called Turf. There is more information about this game in Brad Stone's article in the New York Times.

It Takes Work to Stop Work

I read a story (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/fashion/02sabbath.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=technology), today about a reporter who took a day off of technology. He decided he wanted to do this when he was on a plane flight and decided to call someone from their phones on the plane. He realized then that even his one moment where he was allowed to be away from his phone was taken away now. His decision to do this made start worrying that he would make people worry about him because they couldn't get in touch or if something bad happened he wouldn't be able to find out about it. He couldn't decide if he was addicted to technology or if this really was a logical worry. The first day he tried this he said he was ansy for the first part of the day but he read the entire newspaper and kept himself from thinking about all the work he was going to have to do the next day. Now he takes time off regularly and has time to read, take naps and exercise.
I thought this was a great idea. I don't know about an entire day but having some time every now and then set for no technology I think would be a great idea for everyone. The story also talks about other ways people have used this theory. For example, Nathan Zeldes, a principal engineer at Intel, is trying out the idea of every week having one morning where employees come to work but don't work online.

Google's Push to Visit the Moon

I read in the article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/business/22space.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin, that Google is sponsoring a competition to get robots to the moon with $30 million in prizes for the winning teams. The competition is called Google Lunar XPrize. There are ten teams participating including 5 different countries. The first one to get their robot to the moon, to send images and other information back to the earth, to travel 500 meters and send another data package and then returns to the earth will win the XPrize of $20 million. However, the task of building and reaching the moon will be very pricey in itself, costing more money then the overall prize money.

It has been over three decades since the last Apollo astronauts roamed the lunar surface so Google's mission with this competition is to recreate interest in moon exploration and beginning an age of space commerce. To encourage even more exploration, there are bonuses for teams that discover new things or find lunar ice. Google is also making sure that this is done without delay by reducing the prize once it gets to 2012. This is a very interesting subject that Google has decided to push for. I wasn't able to figure out if they had a specific reason to be supporting space exploration.

Blu-ray Wins!

According to the NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/technology/16toshiba.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, if you were planning on buying a high-definition DVD player, you can finally pick one without worrying it will someday be obsolete. After Walmart's decision to only sell Blu-ray formats for their DVD players, it has the most support and enough to make it unofficially seem to have won the war against Toshiba's format: HD DVD. Although this is a sad moment for Toshiba, it sure is nice to finally have only one format to pick from. Not only was this annoying for the consumers, but retailers and movie studios will be excited too because they won't have to shelve and produce two formats anymore. It is also important to end this war quickly because of the increase in downloading movies online. The battle between the two formats gave people the time to start playing with the internet and becoming more comfortable with it. The faster they can get a single format, the more likely Sony can get consumers to come back to DVDs and slow down the online market. Downloading movies is not a huge threat right now, but those in the industry know that it could become one in the future.

Products I Heard About This Week

I heard about a couple things this week that were interesting new media. First of all, I heard that there is a camera now that has a mode on it that records video in the right resolution and format that is recommended for YouTube. That's pretty wild to have a feature on a camera specifically for that.



Also, I was watching a show on television where a man who used to be in Iraq was talking about how most soldiers put chips or something like that with their personal information on it in their shoes and also actually embedded them in their body with all of their personal information on it. This was so that if they were to die or get separated from their leg or something, others would know who they were. I don't know how new this technology is but, even though it is so sad to think about, I thought it was a Very impotant tool to have. I had personally never heard of it before.

Will Book Publishers Make Same Leap as Music Labels?

Amazon is buying Audible, an audiobook seller, for $300 million. This has already led to an increase in stock for both companies and an increase in sales. The company sells not only audiobooks but also spoken-word products from newspapers, radio talk shows, and other media which will be read outloud to you. This is a nice addition to the Kindle, which is Amazon's wireless reading device, because now they can download these audiobooks too. And the product already has power to play the audio on it.

There are many questions that this brings up like what Apple thinks about it since Audible sells their products on iTunes and Amazon is a big competitor of Apple's. Another question is whether publishers will have to think about getting rid of the Digital Rights Management; this is arousing a lot of complaints from the consumers because the audiobooks can't be transfered to all computers and devices, only some. However, the publisher's like the D.R.M because it controls copying of the books. Now, they are going through the same predicament that Music Labels had to go through (which they eventually did get rid of D.R.M.).

We will see!

Even Barbie's Gone Virtual

There is a new game out for girls called Barbie iDesign where you can either dress up your paper doll when you aren't around a computer or you put software in the computer and start working with virtual barbie. You can put the doll (who is now in the computer) on magazine covers or in fashion shows. It is actually a very creative environment for a child because they can customize and create their own fashion shows as well as the magazine covers that can then be printed! A child can either pick already created outfits or they can put together their own outfits for the model. In addition, there are even four computer games with timed design challenges and style-guessing competitions. Barbie is a lot more complex and exciting then it used to be.

Can You Imagine?

Can you imagine driving through your neighborhood and seeing a robot or I guess a "LawnBott" mowing your neighbor's yard? I always wonder what the future will be like for us.. and I think that will be so weird if this type of new media actually sticks and there are robot type machines doing all types of housework. For example, I have already heard about a robot who cleans gutters or those who clean inside the house as well. I just can't imagine ever trusting a robot to do my work. But who knows right?

OR can you imagine your kids or I guess this is already available so can you imagine your friends playing a guitar that isn't actually in their hands. They are acting as if they are playing the guitar but they are really just looking ridiculous playing the air. I do think the air guitar sounds fun. Now, the most strange thing I read about was the MyVus which are sunglasses that play movies on the lenses right next to your eyeballs. I mean, really? I don't know but that seems to me like I'd either go cross-eyed or lose my eyesight quicker because that cannot be good for my eyes. But who knows right?

My first thoughts!

I figured to begin my semester full of new media that I should hear about the Consumer Electronic Show. So, I went to the New York Times Web site to research about it and they even had videos of the show. This is where I learned about a lot of really neat products that are out now. For example, one of the first things they showed was an underwater texting device for scuba divers. Then, there were lots of TV-related products including one TV with the skinniest width I’ve ever seen (the TV was basically like the width of a piece of paper - okay, maybe a little exagerated but man, it was small) and the Flywire, which wirelessly transmits information from High-Definition gear to an HDTV set. Some of my favorites were a GPS watch that had no buttons and a touch “pad” instead, a digital frame where you can send pictures from your phone and the frame will immediately update to show your photo, and a portable DVD player that has a battery life of 13 hours. Everything was pretty amazing and I can’t even imagine what will be around when I’m older.