Mint Data opens in beta, lets users check how their local economy is doing
Mint.com today has rolled out the beta of a new service called Mint Data that takes the tons of anonymous shopping data it receives, and turns it into a searchable database of retailers. Similar to the way Amazon's Alexa categorizes the popularity of a website by its unique visitors, total views, and inbound links, Mint Data ranks a retailer's popularity by the average purchase price and number of purchases per month.
The information comes from the anonymous spending data of the more than 4 million Mint users, and Mint breaks it down into which categories people are spending their money on (such as food, dining, entertainment, etc,) the specific businesses that they're patronizing, and the city in which they're spending their money.
Google pumps up Android's enterprise viability with admin functionality
Google today announced new administration controls in Google Apps to help Google Apps Premier customers securely deploy and run Android 2.2 devices in the workplace.
With the new functionality, administrators can remotely wipe all data from lost or stolen devices, lock idle devices after inactivity, and require passwords (of varying strength) on each device. This functionality can be added to either company-issued devices, or personal ones.
Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 6
At the Professional Developer Conference PDC10 Today, Microsoft rolled out an updated Internet Explorer 9 platform preview and Internet Explorer Test Drive website to let Web developers test their sites with the most current technologies that may not yet be in the public beta of Internet Explorer.
Among the updates in Platform Preview 6, two new HTML5 features have been included: CSS3 2D Transforms, and recognition of HTML5 Semantic Elements as object-type HTMLElement.
Right Place, Right Time: Vudu streaming movie service hits Boxee
Streaming video on demand service Vudu will be available on all forms of Boxee in November, the company announced Thursday. This partnership will put a Vudu client on both the D-Link Boxee Box and the Boxee media center software for PC and Mac.
The service offers 480p, 720p, and 1080p HD movie rentals, and gets many movies in conjunction with their DVD launch. Though the service first launched as a standalone set top box back in 2007, it eventually became a video solution embedded in TVs and connected Blu-ray players.
Roku's Streaming Media Player can now be licensed, built on other hardware
For as popular as Roku's streaming set top boxes are, they have had practically zero presence in physical retail stores. That is, until a few weeks ago.
Early in October, reports emerged of Roku set top boxes with Netgear branding being seen in Fry's, Best Buy, and Radio Shack electronics stores. Though Netgear confirmed the product's existence, it wasn't until yesterday that the company officially announced the new product.
Limewire shut down after four-year patent infringement battle
After an arduous four years in and out of the courtroom, battling the RIAA over copyright infringement accusations, peer to peer file sharing service Limewire has finally been shut down.
The RIAA's suit against Limewire was part of a sweeping initiative to curb the trade of copyrighted materials on peer-to-peer networks. In 2005, the group sent cease and desist letters to the owners of major p2p services including Kazaa, WinMX, i2Hub, eDonkey, BearShare, and LimeWire. The orders demanded the services "immediately cease-and-desist from enabling and inducing the infringement of RIAA member sound recordings," but gave the services the option to discuss "pre-litigation resolutions." Most services complied, such as Kazaa, which offered a $115 million settlement.
Windows 7 SP1 nears release as final beta build is pushed
Microsoft has rolled out the release candidates of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, the last of the beta builds before the update's final release to manufacturing.
Windows 7 SP1 constitutes a bundle of minor updates for the client version of Windows 7 and has been in beta since June (Though a version leaked two months beforehand.) The main updates to Winddows Server 2008 R2 include new features in the virtual desktop infrastructure called RemoteFX, and Dynamic Memory.
Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone raises questions about Android, mobile gaming
Tech blog Engadget got its hands on some photographs of a device purported to be a prototype "PlayStation Phone" from Sony Ericsson. The phone is a landscape slider that bears a strong resemblance to the PSP Go when opened, and instead of Sony's XMB interface, it will supposedly run Android 3.0.
As expected, Sony Ericsson would not comment to us on the photographs this morning, but Engadget apparently has a decent source of information, and they have been getting exclusives on the device since August.
Barnes & Noble goes the way of the tablet with new Nook Color e-reader
Tueday evening, Barnes & Noble unveiled NOOKcolor, the book retailer's second generation Android-powered e-reader. While the first generation Nook utilized both an electrophoretic "e-paper" screen and a full-color touch panel, this generation goes for the pure tablet experience, and uses a 7" (1024 x 600) LCD touchscreen.
The NOOKcolor is just under half an inch thick and weighs 15.8 ounces, it features 802.11b/g/n, comes with 8GB of storage, supports microSD cards up to 32GB. The battery life is purported to be around 8 hours if the Wi-Fi is turned off.
Microsoft launches Office 2011 for Mac
Microsoft on Tuesday officially launched Office 2011 for Mac in retail. The Mac OS version of Microsoft's popular productivity suite includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Messenger, and new to this edition, Outlook.
In addition to adding Outlook for Mac, Office 2011 adds a new focus on cloud-based creation and collaboration. It meshes with Office Web apps, SkyDrive, and SharePoint, and brings new co-authoring tools that let users simultaneously edit documents or share presentations with remote users through their browser.
The real life Artoo boards Space Shuttle Discovery
Next Monday, Robonaut 2 (R2) --GM and NASA's 300-pound humanoid-from-the-waist-up robot-- will be blasted into space to begin his job aboard the International Space Station. Today, he was prepped and packed onto the space shuttle Discovery in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
R2 is the product of a collaboration between GM and NASA engineers, who have been working together since 2007. He is made up of a head, torso, two arms, and two hands, and will be a complement to Dextre, the robot built by the Canadian Space Agency that was first brought to the International Space Station in March 2008. While Dextre is meant to work in space, R2's job will be to work alongside humans in the space station's Destiny laboratory.
Sprint subsidies knock $200 from retail price of Samsung Galaxy Tab
Network operator Sprint announced its pricing and availability for the Samsung Galaxy Tab today, along with the related plans it will offer. Unlike Verizon Wireless, Sprint will offer Samsung's new Android tablet subsidized with a two-year service contract.
Last Week, Verizon Wireless announced it would begin selling the Galaxy Tab on November 11th for $599.99, with pay-as-you-go data plans starting at $20 per month for 1GB.
Amazon says 3rd gen Kindle is fastest seller yet, still doesn't say how many sold
Though Amazon doesn't disclose how many Kindle e-readers it sells, the online retailer today announced that the latest generation Kindle devices are the fastest selling Kindles so far. 24 days into the fourth quarter 2010, the 3rd generation Kindle has already passed total Kindle sales for the entire fourth quarter last year.
This sales explosion is no doubt the result of the Kindle's increased availability after it launched in retail stores early in September. Consumers who may have never seen a Kindle before finally gained the ability to feel how lightweight it is, and see its new higher contrast screen.
First 'Bluetooth Killer' Wi-Fi Direct hardware gets certified
Wi-Fi Direct certification has begun. The Wi-Fi Alliance announced today that products from Atheros, Broadcom, Intel, Ralink, Realtek, and Cisco will be the first Certified Wi-Fi Direct hardware in the test bed for the new wireless networking standard.
The key feature of the new Wi-Fi Direct standard is that it lets devices with 802.11 wireless radios communicate directly with one another without the need of a wireless router between them. Wi-Fi Direct devices near one another can transfer content at speeds 25 times faster than they could with Bluetooth 2.0. As a result, the standard has been referred to as a Bluetooth Killer in IEEE meetings.
HP Slate 500 shows how far the enterprise tablet has come
After providing nearly a whole year of sneak peeks, HP has finally made its first Windows 7 Slate available for purchase, the enterprise-aimed Slate 500.
What it is
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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