Pegshot - A nifty little mobile application

www.pegshot.com

I luv the idea of sharing photos with family and friends so this little application is quite a nice find- Pegshot is a mobile application that helps you share photos and videos of whats happening in your life.

Web 2.0 Suicide good start for 2010

Web 2.0 suicide

(STOP THE PRESS - as i post this facebook seem to have the hump with web suicide and have now blocked their ip address…..)

Are you tired of living in public, sick of all the privacy theater the social networks are putting on, and just want to end it all online? Now you can wipe the slate clean with the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. (Warning: This will really delete your online presence and is irrevocable). Just put in your credentials for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or LinkedIn and it will delete all your friends and messages, and change your username, password, and photo so that you cannot log back in.

The site is actually run by Moddr, a New Media Lab in Rotterdam, which execute the underlying scripts which erase your accounts. The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is a digital Dr. Kevorkian. On Facebook, for instance, it removes all your friends one by one, removes your groups and joins you to its own “Social Network Suiciders,” and lets you leave some last words. So far 321 people have used the site to commit Facebook suicide. On Twitter, it deletes all of your Tweets, and removes all the people you follow and your followers. It doesn’t actually delete these accounts, it just puts them to rest.

The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine runs a python script which launches a browser session and automates the process of disconnecting from these social networks (here is a video showing how this works with Twitter). You can even watch the virtual suicide in progress via a Flash app which shows it as a remote desktop session. You can watch your online life pass away one message at a time. Taking over somebody else’s account via an automated script, even with permission, may very well be against the terms of service of these social networks.

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR and to start this year the right way, below is a list of new technologies which will make a big impact this year. Some of them will be brand new, but many have been gestating and are now ready to hatch. If there is any theme here it is the mobile Web. As I think through the top ten technologies that will rock 2010, more than half of them are mobile. But those technologies are tied to advances in the overall Web as well.

1. The Tablet: It’s the most anticipated product of the year.  The mythical tablet computer (which everyone seems to be working on).  There are beautiful Android tablets, concept tablets, and, of course, the one tablet which could define the category, the Apple Tablet.  Or iSlate or whatever it’s called.  If Steve Jobs is not working on a tablet, he’d better come up with one because  anything else will be a huge disappointment. Why do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone?  We won’t really know until we have it.  But the answer lies in the fact that increasingly the Web is all you need.  As all of our apps and data and social lives move to the Web, the Tablet is the incarnation of the Web in device form, stripped down to its essentials.  It will also be a superior e-reader for digital books, newspapers, and magazines, and a portable Web TV.
2. Geo: The combination of GPS chips in mobile phones, social networks, and increasingly innovative mobile apps means that geolocation is increasingly becoming a necessary feature for any killer app.  I’m not just talking about social broadcasting apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.  The advent of Geo APIs from Twitter , SimpleGeo, and hopefully Facebook will change the game by adding rich layers of geo-related data to all sorts of apps.  Twitter just recently launched its own Geo API for Twitter apps and acquired Mixer Labs, which created the GeoAPI.
3. Realtime Search: After licensing realtime data streams from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and others, Google and Bing are quickly ramping up their realtime search.  But realtime search is still treated as a silo, and is not regularly surfaced in the main search results page.  In 2010, I expect that to change as the search engines learn for what types of searches it makes sense to show Tweets and other realtime updates.  In the meantime, a gaggle of realtime search startups such as Collecta, OneRiot, and Topsy will continue to push the ball forward on the realtime search experience.  Realtime search will also become a form of navigation, especially on Twitter and Facebook.  The key will be to combine realtime search with realtime filters so that people are delivered not only the most recent information but the most relevant and authoritative as well.
4. Chrome OS: In November, Google gave the world a sneak peek at its Chrome operating system, which is expected to be released later this year.  The Chrome OS is Google’s most direct attack on Windows with an OS built from the ground up to run Web apps fast and furious.  Already a Google is rumored to be working on a Chrome Netbook which will show the world what is possible with it a “Web OS.” It sounds like it would be perfect for Tablet computers also (see above).  Chrome is a risky bet for Google, but it is also potentially disruptive.
5. HTML5: The Web is built on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and the next version which has been taking form for a while is HTML5.  Already browsers such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome (the browser, not the OS) are HTML5-friendly.  Once HTML5 becomes more widespread across the Web, it will reduce the need for Flash or Silverlight plug-ins to view videos, animations, or other rich applications.  They will all just be Web-native.  HTML5 also supports offline data storage, drag-and-drop, and other features which can make Web apps act more like desktop apps.  A lot of Websites will be putting HTML5 under the hood in 2010.
6. Mobile Video: With video cameras integrated into the latest iPhone 3GS and other Web phones, live video streaming apps are becoming more commonplace—both streaming from phones and to them.  As mobile data networks beef up their 3G bandwidth and even start to tiptoe into true broadband with 4G (which Verizon is heading towards with its next-gen LTE network), mobile video usage will take off.
7. Augmented Reality: One of the coolest ways to use the camera lens on a mobile phone is with the increasing array of augmented reality apps.  They add a layer of data to reality by placing everything from photos to Tweets to business listings directly on top of the live live image captured by the camera.  Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera, Layar, GraffitiGeo and even Yelp are examples of augmented reality apps.
8. Mobile Transactions:Android: Last year saw the launch of nearly two dozen Android-powered phones, including the Verizon Droid.  In a few days, Google’s Nexus One will launch as the first Android phone which can be unlocked from any given carrier (it is launching with T-Mobile). Android is Google’s answer to the iPhone, and as it reaches critical mass across multiple carriers and handsets it is becoming increasingly attractive to developers.  There are already more than 10,000 apps on Android, next year there will be even more.  And other devices running on the mobile OS are launching as well.
9. Social CRM: We’ve seen the rise of Twitter and Facebook as social communication tools.  This year, those modes of realtime communication will find their way deeper into the enterprise.  Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, it’s realtime stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.As mobile phones become full-fledged computers, they can be used for mobile commerce also.  One area poised to take off in 2010 are mobile payments and transactions.  Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s latest startup Square turns the iPhone into a credit card reader.  Verifone has its competing product, as does Mophie.  The idea is that any mobile phone can become a point of sale, and those mobile transactions can tie into back-end accounting, CRM, and other enterprise systems.

Trackle Launches Real-Time Social Directory Of Tracking Alerts

Trackle

Trackle, a personalized web and RSS feed tracker  is making itself a whole lot more social today with the launch of a real-time search engine on the site that lets you follow other people’s Trackles. Trackle.com’s free web service provides personalized RSS feeds for data such as the latest crime in a user’s neighborhood, fluctuating airline ticket prices, how much a user’s house value is down this week, updated job listings, sports scores and more.

The new search platform within Trackle lets you search for other user’s trackings by keyword. Here’s how it works: people within the Trackle community contribute by setting up alerts for very specific and changing information (they will show up in search when users set up their profiles as public). These alerts are then shared by the community, specific, time-sensitive information, such as information is then posted on Trackle as it happens, in real time. Duplicate requests are removed, so there are no repeated alerts.

Augmented Reality Fashion Show Demo

Augmented Fashion

The fashion industry seems to be a great niche for augmented reality as we’ve seen the success of the Esquire and InStyle magazine using AR together with their magazine to boost sales and differentiate themselves from their competition. Now, introducing the folks from Laboratory4.com who have created a unique concept called the “Augmented Reality Fashion Show”. This innovative concept developed using the FLARToolkit shows the possibility of having a few svelte models strutting their stuff on a “virtual runway

Augmented Reality Implementation by Fashionista

Fashion Augmented Style

Great use of Augmented Reality. Fashionista.com  is an on-line shopping website, has virtual dressing room with hundreds of dresses waiting to be tried on. Take a snapshot, share it on Facebook, and the process is elevated to a form of social fashionista networking

National Geographic’s Footage Gone Viral

Consumer’s don’t share your message when the intend of the video is all about selling. However, they’re happy to spread a video that delivers entertainment, unique footage and a fair amount of quality. National Geographic understands these values like no other. The proof? A video with amazing footage gone viral by generating over 1.5 million views in 2 weeks.  Amazing

Googgled by google goggles?

Google Goggles

A picture is worth a thousand words.No need to type your search anymore. Just take a picture.  Not on the Iphone ….yet?

Google Debuts News Story Experiment

Google Living Stories

Google has often been seen as a competitor to traditional newspapers, but the search giant is now teaming up with two major papers for a new experiment in presenting news online.

Google announced on Wednesday “Living Stories,” an experimental new feature designed to deliver news stories, updates, editorials, and multimedia focusing on specific topics, all on one single Web page.

Each Living Story, whether it’s on health care, global warming, or the war in Afghanistan, has a permanent URL that you can follow. That page displays everything from headlines to summaries to in-depth articles on that subject. By clicking on the various links on each Living Story page, you can read the articles, view photos, watch videos, and access a time line for an historical view of the topic. As new stories and updates are posted, you can read them on the same page.

Brilliant Interactive Ad Campaigns - with a difference!!

Ad Interactive

Here you can see a couple samples of brilliant interactive ads campaigns to inspire you.