Tonight is the long-awaited Winnie awards at Cinespace and I am currently piecing together the trophy that I will be presenting. It’s gonna be a blast. As will Twiistup 3, January 16, where there will be awesome giveaways like Rock Band and most-likely a solid stable of presenters (showoffs) as we’ll find out this afternoon [the list is here. Below is a goofy video of myself and Heathervescent at the most recent Twiistup in August.
Obama Connects at Google
The full video of his “fireside chat” with CEO Eric Schmidt at the Googleplex this week is now up (posted below). In addition to unveiling his vision and presidential policy for the future of technology and the Internet, it seems he really won over the room… see the account of Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s Public Policy and Gov’t Affairs lead.
Google Announces Android OS
From Andy Rubin:
We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset
Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders
including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile.
Will the concept of Open Handsets coincide with the opening of mobile networks, etc? All essential in the building of trust in a neutral net. Can the GOOG be trusted remains to be seen.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: gphone, android, google os, google phone, open, network neutrality
Amazon Launches New Widgets
Amazon has been chilling on the UI and widget innovation while other Internet companies go berserk with it. In that same time, Bezos and Co. focused on their new Web service products, the inexpensive storage offerings of S3 and the collab ingenuity of Mechanical Turk. And wouldn’t you know that AMZN’s stock price has doubled in less than 6 months.
But, alas, they’re here: Amazon Widgets. The Associate widgets don’t seem to be any different than they have been, only more easily managed, but the addition of widgets for Favorites, wishlists, and unbox video is overdue.
What’s cool: These widgets can be directly integrated with your Amazon Associates account, providing even more opportunities to earn a few pennies (or 5 % back when you’re the one buying) on Amazon purchases stemming from your site. Also, the design templates are nice and very easily tweaked (at least color-wise)
What’s not so cool: The JavaScript default for widget implementation is janky and slow. For some reason they list WordPress.com blogs as “WordPress.org” — hello?!? Also, for some reason the Wishlist widget still shows items that you already purchased.