By A Nose: Netflix Prize Leaders One-Upped With One Day Remaining
Last month news broke that a team of computer scientists had finally managed to improve Netflix’s recommendation algorithm by 10%, making them eligible to win the $1 million Netflix Prize, a competition that began back in 2006. The team, BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos, is composed of two former leaders in the competition who banded [...]
AdWords Gets More Local
Google has made AdWords a little bit more local for businesses by allowing them to run location extensions on ads. According to Google, location extensions allow you to “extend” your AdWords campaigns by attaching your business address to your ads.
Once you link you AdWords campaign to your Google business center account, Google will dynamically [...]
Skype 2.8 for Mac adds screen sharing, better audio and video
Who doesn’t love a little bit of Skype action? If you’re a Mac user, though, Skype 2.8 Gold adds (or improves on if you were using a beta version) some awesome features like screen sharing (you can even share just a part of your screen for privacy reasons), Skype Access, and improved audio and video [...]
Olive blesses Opus No. 4 music server with 2TB of space, charges $1,799 for it
We haven’t heard from Olive in a white hot minute, but hey, given the price of its wares, maybe it just decided to take the whole recession off. At any rate, the boutique outfit is sashaying back onto the scene with the Opus No. 4, the newest member of its long-standing Opus Hi-Fi Digital Stereo [...]
Live shots of the LG BL40 leak out; BL42 slider in tow
Well hello there, LG BL40. Don’t you look all pretty and nice in the flesh, just like we thought you would. Some people think you look more like some sort of fancy universal remote control than a high-end cellphone, but they just don’t get you like we do. We understand your thin frame and 21:9 [...]
Blockbuster OnDemand en route to Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems
Questionable longevity or no, Blockbuster’s taking some strides to get itself firmly into the video on demand business, and this latest announcement will go a long way with that. The company announced that it’s integrating its OnDemand service into Samsung HDTVs, home theater systems, and Blu-ray players starting Fall 2009. Better still, those with LED [...]
New Software Corrects Shaky Camerawork by Warping the Crap Out of It [Filmmaking]
Adobe and University of Wisconsin scientists have created software that can correct shaky camerawork, but it’s way cooler than anything on the market now. Using 3D modeling, it guesses the intended look, then warps the original video to adjust.
Basically, the software examines each frame and warps it [...]
Interview: Pandora CTO Tom Conrad On Streaming Royalty Rates And New Funding
MG Siegler and I ran into Pandora CTO Tom Conrad on Saturday evening at dinner gathering in San Francisco. He was still glowing from all the good news at his once troubled startup: a reasonable settlement around online streaming royalty rates quickly followed by a healthy round of funding that should take the company to [...]
Capcom: SFIV Seth And Sagat A Tad Overpowered [Cpacom]
The assistant producer of the arcade version of Capcom’s Street Fighter IV has given fans of the game the ultimate excuse for failing, admitting that characters Seth and Sagat might be a bit too powerful.
I’ve never cursed so much in my life as I did trying to unlock characters in Street Fighter IV, stumbling [...]
No surprise: Intel has known about Chrome OS, worked with Google on ‘elements’ of project
So as it turns out, Intel isn’t just casually accepting of Google’s new OS initiative, it’s actually been privy to the project for some time now, according to a spokesperson for the chipmaker. The two have apparently also worked together (and are potentially still working together) on portions of Chrome OS, he says, which really [...]
