DerekReynoldsDotCom

David Breyer pointed me to a very cool and addicting web (search) site that is sure to take off quickly. After doing a bit of research it appears YubNub is billed as a “Social command line for the web” created as the result of a “program like hell for 24 hours” project. In fact, it came out of one guy’s attempt to win a contest around the new Ruby on Rails framework.

The idea of search as the command line for the web is well established, this takes the idea one step (or more) further, letting you set up commands in the search line itself. You can use the search line as a single point of reference for searching just about any web resource, and you can add your own:

I was tired of setting up the same Firefox keywords on each of the 5 computers that I use. By putting my keywords into YubNub, I can hit “am mark twain” for an Amazon search, or “gmap vancouver” for a Google Maps search, no matter which computer I’m on.

But on a bigger scale, YubNub is the realization of a very big idea: the URL command line of the web OS.

Web applications were once considered slow and unreliable, compared to their desktop counterparts. But these days, people are increasingly choosing web applications over desktop applications. Amazingly, GMail is found to be faster than desktop email programs. The snappy Google Maps interface feels as responsive as a desktop application. The web is morphing into the desktop, and today we are witness to the command line making its appearance in this new world, as YubNub, the (social) command-line for the web.

The beauty of YubNub is that anyone can help to extend it. If there is an existing web service with a submit form, they can add it pretty easily (like I did with the Amazon example above). But even more interesting is the adding of complex data-processing services (like validating an RSS feed, or converting webpages to audio using text-to-speech).

More..

Microsoft has a cool Web site that can help answer the question “Will this game run on my system?”. The latest version of the Windows Game Advisor will scan your system and let you know how it stacks up against others.

You can also search for specific Windows-based games from many companies, not just Microsoft aaadennyand find out if your machine meets that game’s minimum criteria.

The crappy part about this is it requires Internet Exploder And looking at it further it appears to load an ActiveX control virus that links back to Futuremark. Soooo I wonder if it’s using a 3dMark component…

I came across a very cool app today called Orb from a company called Orb Networks. After you register on their website and install the small download it enables you to send media over the Internet from your PC to any connected computer for free. It basically turns your Windows computer into a restricted Internet media server. You can use another PC or certain PDAs and smart phones to access your music, photos, videos, or television signal, if your host PC has a TV tuner. All the receiving device needs is broadband Internet access, a browser, and a media player. You apparently can also schedule TV recordings remotely via a browser too. I wonder if we could program this to download podcasts and have that stream it to our phones…

TWIT episode 9 was delayed because of scheduling issues between Leo and Call For Help up in Canada. So this week they give us 2 (last weeks and this weeks) episodes for your listening pleasure.

A peer at work, Shane noted that a great fast torrent-free download site for TWIT is www.ourmedia.com

Direct Downloads:
TWIT Ep 9
TWIT Ep 10

PC World digs in to the DVR scene in that comprehensive way of theirs, comparing and contrasting a number of options including DirecTV DVR with TiVo, a Comcast DVR, Windows Media Center, Moxi, Slingbox, and Orb.

Read more about it at PCworld.com

Sprint and Sirius announced a deal to allow Vision customers to listen to Sirius on their handsets using the Vision network.

Does this mean we’ll be able to listen to Howard Stern on our cellys?

Sprint Corporation announced a new partnership with Sirius Satellite radio
Inc. that will offer some of its customers the possibility of receiving satellite radio over their cell phones.

The deal, which is the first one to have been struck between a wireless corporation and a sattelite radio company, is set to expand Sprint’s wireless entertainment package.

More..

I tried calling my dad tonight using 10-10-220 from my cell phone. No workie

I wish there was a reduced long distance number I could use from the cell phone to give me cheap LD.
.
.
.

Avalanche, Microsoft’s new codename for their Bittorrent like file sharing engine is in the works of being released here shortly. Cloning many of the features that BitTorrent already possesses Microsoft officials are touting in a research paper that both praises and criticizes BitTorrent: “Despite their enormous potential and popularity, existing end-system co-operative schemes such as BitTorrent, may suffer from a number of inefficiencies.” The coding system used by Avalanche, which is based on network coding, is 20 percent more efficient with downloading, according to the research paper… *Cough* BS *Cough*.

Read more about it here

Just got word from David Breyer registration for CES 2006 is now open.

I received this email yesterday and promptly registered. This will be my fourth CES conference. I plan to blog everyday from the conference, and maybe, just maybe, do a podcast each day. Of course I will have my camera at the ready. You can see some of last years photos in the gallery. (Note: I recently switched to flickr and don’t have everything loaded yet.)

Last year I had to watch Bill Gate’s speech from a satellite room, hopefully this year I will get in line early enough to be in the real thing. Although I hear they gave most of the seats to press people. But hey, I should be considered press too right?

It appears Yahoo is working on a technology that will allow you to search subscription based websites. So does this mean we’ll now have access to reading content we normally would have to pay for? I wonder if it will index pictures …

The service, called Yahoo Search Subscriptions, allows users to search multiple online subscription content sources and the web from a single search box.

Users can see content from the sites they subscribe to, while nonsubscribers have the option of paying to see it. Content providers, for their part, get access to the vast audience of web search users.

More..