Networking & Internet

Palringo Mobile Messaging Service

Gizmo of the Day, Networking & Internet, Phones / By /

parlingoPalringo is the ‘ultimate Instant Messaging client for mobile phones and computers’. Imagine an IM service that’s a mixture of all other IMs out there, with a touch of GPS, Facebook and audio added; that’s Palringo. What makes it successful is that it’s essentially lots of very basic services bundled together to make a very useful application.

Available for pretty much any phone under 2 years old (and on any Windows or Mac computers if you so wish), the application allows you to hold multiple conversations with people on the most popular IM services out there, included MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Talk, Jabber and many more. Palringo also allows for multimedia messaging such as being able to send voice messages to other users and, of course, the standard sending of photos and videos. People can be grouped and then one message sent out simultaneously to all of them – perfect for a party announcement!

The best parts? It’s free and available worldwide – all that’s needed is a data package and away you go.

Legacy Locker ensures your digital assets are passed onto your beneficiaries when you die

Gizmo of the Day, Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

One of GfG’s friends, Jeremy Toeman (of LIVEdigitally fame) has co-founded what we feel is an indispensable service for anyone that ‘lives’ online in any sense of the word. It’s called Legacy Locker (LL) and is essentially a secure store for your online assets, things such as passwords, account info, & documents. More importantly, it provides a mechanism for securely and safely conveying this information to your beneficiary if you pass away.

It works relatively simply: you sign up for an account, and start adding what are known as assets (an example would be the username and password to your e-mail account). You assign a beneficiary to each asset you have, and you can change those whenever you’d like. If you pass away, one of 2 persons that you assigned must contact LL to inform them. LL performs verification using humans, so you need not worry about ‘computer error’ or inadequate checks. LL then securely passes on your digital assets to your name beneficiaries.
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GrandCentral becomes Google Voice – unified messaging, the Google Way

Networking & Internet, Phones / By /

Sweet. I’ve been enjoying GrandCentral for some time now, but was wondering like everyone else what Google was doing with it for the past 2 years or so. Turns out they’ve been hard at work improving what was there and adding new features.

First a recap –

  • GrandCentral gave you 1 number that rang all of your ‘real’ #s: cell, home, work, etc.
  • screening of incoming calls
  • a single voicemail box with Web access to your voicemails;
  • caller-specific voicemail greetings
  • specify which phones rang when certain people called you
  • telemarketer blocking
  • off-times for certain phones

What’s new in Google Voice: …

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Wolfram Alpha promises computing that answers questions

Networking & Internet / By /

Computer scientist, Stephen Wolfram, feels that he has put together at least the initial version of a computer that actually answers factual questions, a la Star Trek’s ship computers. His version will be found on their Web-based application, Wolfram Alpha.

What does this mean? Well instead of returning links to pages that may (or may not) contain the answer to your questions, Wolfram will respond with the actual answer. Now the caveat ‘factual’ is important. You can ask it questions like ‘why is the sky blue?’ or ‘how many bones are in the human body?’, but probably not ‘do you think abortion is wrong?’. This computational knowledge engine uses natural language to parse the questions and can also accept coded queries.

For the subject areas that Wolfram covers, they not only had to either enter or import data on those subjects, but had to build models or create algorithms for breaking down and describing that data in simpler building blocks. Long story short, my question is how easy is it going to be expand into additional subject areas?

Don’t bother trying to visit the site just yet – it’s not launching until May 2009. If this works well, this is going to revolutionize computing and in particular, the search engine market. Google of course comes to mind. Would they see this as a threat? I imagine they should. so I think what will be important here is how quickly Wolfram can expand into additional subject areas. If they give Google enough time to get into this market, then they could be sunk.

via Techcrunch

GigaTribe File Sharing Application

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

GigaTribe is a new file sharing service that allows you to share files between friends. The major difference between GigaTribe and other file sharing applications is that it’s secure; you only share files within your ‘personal circle’ which means that you can control who can receive them, whereas usually in file sharing everyone around the world would have access.

There are many applications of this, from being just an easy way to share holiday snaps between friends, to handing out invitations, and everything in between! It would essentially make your life so much easier as you don’t have to travel to distribute files, or post them to each other.

GigaTribe is free for the base version which just includes just the basic features to get you going. However, if you want your software to support simultaneous and multisource downloads, web browser access. support by email and more, then you might want to consider the ‘ultimate’ version. For just £2.99 (approx. $4.30) per month or £19.99 (approx. $28.60) per year, it really is worth the upgrade.

Ditch your RSS reader & replace it with Twitter?

Networking & Internet / By /

Tech writer Don Reisinger feels that you can use Twitter to effectively replace your RSS reader. He makes a case for following everyone that follows you and following every site that you have in your RSS reader.

I can’t say I completely agree. Here’s why: for starters, I follow easily over 200 RSS feeds, and I use Netvibes to categorize those info sources into subject areas that I may not check for weeks. If I used Twitter solely, I may miss many of those new entries or simply not have been ready to digest that type of content.
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Google’s PowerMeter lets consumers tap into their power usage

Home Automation, Miscellaneous, Networking & Internet / By /

Google is currently testing a software tool dubbed the PowerMeter than can tap into the stats that ‘smart’ power meters monitor. It isn’t meant for the power companies so much as it is meant to enable consumers to monitor and shepherd their own usage. Currently, there are over 40 million US homes scheduled to get smart meters in the next 3 years. FAQ.

Here’s a screenshot of what the tool may look like:

What’s in it for Google? Well, it is being run out of their philanthropic arm, so they can argue that it is in the best interest of both consumers and the environment, but there can certainly be more. Robert Cringley believe it’s a precursor to Google becoming your ISP via the power line. Yes, networking over power lines. I think he may very well be right.

The Read it Later Firefox extension

Networking & Internet, Software / By /

Sometimes I just want to turn Gizmos for Geeks into a cool productivity tools blog. Fear not readers, we won’t be doing that, but there really are so many cool software & Web tools being introduced or improved all the time.

Take for example, the Read it Later Firefox extension which helps out you news and info junkies. Ok, I’m definitely one of you! Right. So the RiT extension lets you quickly mark articles/URLs for later reading, even letting you simultaneously mark a bunch of open tabs. It also lets you mark articles in your favorite news reader and even sites like Digg. Perhaps the best feature may be the ability to sync your reading list across multiple browsers/computer.

The video sums up the features nicely in 2 mins:
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Qualcomm’s Gobi platform – multi-carrier wireless card

Computers, Networking & Internet, Portable / By /

Qualcomm’s Gobi platform will let you access multiple carriers’ wireless data services. With Gobi, you won’t need to have separate cards and/or built-in chips in your notebook to get online.

Qualcomm is already partnering with Sony to put Gobi chips into Vaio P notebooks. Currently, Gobi will work at speeds up to 5.7Mbps which is not shabby at all.

The big question is whether or not carriers like Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, etc will start offering pay as you go or smaller window plans as opposed to the monthly plans that you find today that typically also come with yearly lock-in agreements.

If Gobi gets into enough netbooks, then it should pressure the carriers to do just that.

Free Gmail Stickers

Networking & Internet / By /

Get your FREE Gmail stickers until February 14th! That’s right, you’ll get no love after Valentine’s Day if your request for stickers is not sent to Google on or before Valentine’s Day.

If you want to learn how to get your stickers, check out Google’s Official Gmail Blog or send a self-addressed stamped envelope (along with a note or stickers for trade) to:

Send me some Gmail stickers already
PO Bo 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420

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