Linux and Formula One

Formula One motor racing is no longer about famous car marques, its about precise science and using technology to shave another fraction of a second off a lap time, and Linux is playing a pivotal role in helping the race teams achieve this.

As a technical sport motor racing demands of its participants a close understanding of the technologies that can help them. F1 motor racing is probably second only to the aerospace industry in the application of aerodynamic simulation and wind tunnel technology. It is a testament to the rapid advance of Linux in high performance computing that most teams in Formula 1 have been using Linux systems in their aerodynamic and engine workshops for a number of years.

“Formula One is a product excellence business that’s all about innovation and technology,” says Jonathan Neale, the managing director of McLaren Racing. “We’re competing for first place in an environment where the difference between first and tenth is about 0.6 seconds, so we’re constantly seeking fractions of a second in performance improvement. On average we’ll make a change to the car every 20 minutes during the course of a season, and to do that, simulation is vital in making efficient changes to the car.” Back in the factory, McLaren uses computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis running on Linux on SGI Altix high performance computers to simulate and predict the car’s behaviour.

Motor racing wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time those daring young men diced with death and each other in their flying machines, with little more than grease blown overalls, a loose flying-helmet, oil-splattered goggles and a V8 engine between them and the oncoming road. The skill of the driver was everything.

Times have changed. Modern motor racing in the 21st century is a team sport, and the difference in performance between the front of the grid and the also rans is measured in hundredths of a second. Every year the cars get faster, the lap records come down, and the drivers and cars reach new limits of endurance and performance, despite a regular tightening of the rules for the sake of safety and increased competitiveness. Every new rule that is imposed to slow the cars down or level the playing field becomes a challenge for the designers, to readjust the vital balance of weight, material, power, downforce, grip, and traction.

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Brian Brazil and the team behind the ultra-free gNewSense Linux distribution have released a beta of the forthcoming 2.0 (or Deltah) series. gNewSense is based on Ubuntu but strips the distribution of non-free components to provide users with a truly free operating system. gNewSense is backed by the Free Software Foundation. Among the changes in this release are that gNewSense is now based on Ubuntu Hardy released

last week; the distribution has new artwork; the browser has been changed from Firefox to Epi

phany, the Gnome browser; non-free GLX has been removed from X/mesa; and there is now support for Debian source packages.

gNewSense can be downloaded here or here (torrent).

gNewSense is derived from Ubuntu, and thus has most of the same functionality. There are a number of differences though.

A team of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley has developed a technique for transmitting medical images via cellphones. This potentially could bring medical imaging to the ‘three-quarters of the world’s population which has no access to ultrasounds, X-rays, magnetic resonance images, and other medical imaging technology.’ The lead researcher said that this new system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible in non-industrialized countries. As medical images are usually pretty large, I was a little bit skeptical when I first read the UC Berkeley news release. But as the researchers have found a way to reduce these images to a mere kilobytes, it can actually be feasible. But read more about this brilliant idea…

You can see above the system configuration used for “the breast cancer tumors patient self-test screening. Outlined arrows indicate optional reporting of results to the patient.” (Credit: UC Berkeley, link to a larger version)

And you can see above how this technique could be used for breast cancer detection. On the left, you can see “the DAD [data acquisition device] of the system with two types of gel representing a breast cancer tumor surrounded by normal breast tissue.” The right part shows “econstructed result as it was displayed on the screen of a commercial cellular phone. Warm colors represent higher conductivity regions that are typical of breast cancer lesions.” (Credit: UC Berkeley, link to a larger version)

This research has been led by Boris Rubinsky, professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, who also works at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. By the way, this university also has issued its own news release about this imaging technique. Rubinsky worked with PhD student Yair Granot and post-doctoral researcher Antoni Ivorra.

Before going further, let’s first look at how medical imaging is done today. “Most medical imaging devices, said Rubinsky, consist of three essential components: the data acquisition hardware that is connected to the patient, the image processing software and a monitor to display the image. When these components are combined into one unit, machine parts often become redundant, substantially increasing the cost of the device, he said.”

This leads him to break this model. “Rubinsky and his team came up with the novel idea of physically separating these components so that the most complicated element — the processing software used to reconstruct the raw data into a meaningful image — can reside at an offsite central location, presumably in a large center where resources are available for its operation and maintenance. This central location would be used to service multiple remote sites where far simpler machines collect the raw data from the patients.”

And this where the cellphone comes in. “The phone, hooked up to the data acquisition device, would transmit the raw data to the central server where the information would be used to create an image. The server would then relay the image back to the cell phone, where it can be viewed on the cell phone’s screen. ‘This design significantly lowers the cost of medical imaging because the apparatus at the patient site is greatly simplified, and there is no need for personnel highly trained in imaging processing,’ said Ivorra.”

This new medical imaging technique has been published on April 30, 2008 in the open access journal Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE) under the title “A New Concept for Medical Imaging Centered on Cellular Phone Technology.” Here is a link to this article, from which the above images have been picked.

Please read it to discover the potential limitations, such as cellphone compatibility. Here is the final summary. “This study demonstrates the feasibility of using a cellular phone as an integrated part of a medical imaging system in which a robust and independent DAD is connected to the imaging processing site through the cell phone. We believe that this concept has the potential for decreasing the complexity of operating the imaging system at the patient site and make state of the art diagnostic imaging as well as interventional imaging available to people and places that do not have adequate medical imaging now.”

Finally, here is a link to a short video (2 minutes and 30 seconds), in which Rubinsky tells how his team conceived and developed “a new device that uses cellphones to make medical imaging much cheaper and more accessible to the poor.” (Video produced by Roxanne Makasdjian, UC Berkeley Media Relations).

Sources: University of California at Berkeley news release, April 29, 2008; and various websites

Internetnews.com reports, “AOL plans to roll out open voice APIs today for developers and device makers to integrate the company’s AIM Call Out service into the hardware and software used to make phone calls over the Internet.” AOL “said that the Open Voice APIs will allow its VoIP service to run on softphones, the software that enables computerized calling, SIP-enabled devices, as well as cell phones with Wi-Fi connectivity.” The move “follows AOL’s opening of its hugely popular instant messaging program to developers, and echoes many of the announcements rival portal Yahoo has been making about opening its core services to developers.” The piece continues, “Just as with Yahoo, openness for AOL is a company mission. ‘Amongst all of AOL we’ve been challenged to open up,’ Brent Newsome, AOL’s director of voice services, told InternetNews.com. ‘Every product is working on bringing things out into the open.’”

Om Malik wrote at GigaOm, “If Yahoo is turning to Jajah for Voice on IM, then AOL wants to offer others an ability to integrate AIM Call Out service via its Open Voice APIs into softphones, as well as SIP-enabled hardware and cell phones with Wi-Fi connectivity. AIM Call Out is a pay-as-you-go outbound voice calling service built right into AIM.” He continued, “Jajah, AOL Open Voice, Ribbit and scores of others are taking a platform approach to VoIP, hoping that adding voice to applications will drive up minute volume and turn them into a viable business.”

TMCnet.com reports, “Many users are loathe to run multiple IM clients, so many switched from AIM to Skype because they could get IM, plus voice & video — all in a single client. Why bog down system resources with multiple IM clients? I will say AOL has done a good job of beefing up the feature-set of AIM, but one has to wonder if Skype’s momentum is unstoppable.” The piece continues, “In any event, Steve Murphy, Senior Vice President, AOL said, ‘By opening up our voice communications gateway to developers we’re furthering the mission of AIM which is to facilitate the world’s real-time conversations. We’re building on the popularity of the Open AIM program and opening up the AIM Call Out platform, enabling open standards voice communication services to proliferate in the marketplace.’”

AUDIO 2.0

• Bebop - Compare music calendar against your iTunes catalogue. www.bebopular.com/
• Clickcaster - Record, license, publish & promote your radio show. www.clickcaster.com/
• Difm - Radio community. www.di.fm/
• Dottunes - Share your iTunes. www.dottunes.net/
• Enablr - Transcribe podcasts, Text2Snailmail, … www.enablr.com/
• Fluctu8 - Create & share your sourcelists. fluctu8.com/
• Gcast - Podcasting tools & hosting. www.gcast.com/
• Genie lab - Explore, recommend & rate music. genielab.com/
• Itunes love - Share your music tastes. www.ituneslove.com/
• Jamendo - Review, tag, rate & share music. www.jamendo.com/en/
• Lastfm* - Profile your taste, share, personalize your radio. www.last.fm/
• Mercora - Search music & get recommendations. search.mercora.com/
• Muiso - Track your taste, get recommendations. muiso.com/
• Music mobs - Share your tastes & find music. www.musicmobs.com/
• Music strands - Tag, share & post music community. www.musicstrands.com/
• Odeo - Record & share audio. www.odeo.com
• Pandora* - Personalized radio. pandora.com/
• Plurn - List, listen to, create & share music. www.plurn.com/
• Pod bop - Listen to bands that visit your city (Eventful mash-up). podbop.org/
• Podomatic - Create, find & broadcast podcasts. www.podomatic.com/
• Poperti - Save your mp3 on a pop email account. www.poperti.com/
• Predixis - Discover, manage & enjoy music. www.predixis.com/
• Purevolume - Music community. www.poperti.com/
• Radio time - Personalize radio. myradiotime.com/
• Streaming Radio Stations - Choose a type/style/gendre of tunes. www.friendlycanadian.com/mp3s/
• Streampad - List, listen & share your music (= several mash-ups). www.streampad.com/
• Upto11 - Discover & share music. upto11.net/
• Webjay - Playlist community. www.webjay.org/

Mashup ecosystem (Click to see full image)

BLOG2POD 2.0

• Talkr - Converts blog text to podcasts. www.talkr.com/

BLOGGING 2.0

• Bitty - Embed content from Web services. bitty.com/
• Blogburst - Syndicate blogs to mainstream media sites. www.blogburst.com/
• Blog code - Start blog & find similar ones. www.blogcode.com/
• Blogger snap - Add your webcam snapshot to any blog. www.bloggersnap.com/
• Blog goggle - Categorize & rate pro bloggers. www.bloggoggle.com/
• Bloglet - Notification2email. www.bloglet.com/
• Blogs - Notification2email. blo.gs/
• Blurb - Turn your blog into a book. www.blurb.com/
• Cocomment - Track back your commentosphere. www.cocomment.com/
• Feedblitz - Notification2email. www.feedblitz.com/
• Freevlog - Set up free video blog. www.freevlog.org/
• Lifetype - Blogging software. www.lifetype.net/
• Measure map - Blog stats. measuremap.com/
• Qumana - Edit your blog. www.qumana.com/
• Structured blogging - Create, edit & maintain all posts. structuredblogging.org/
• Textamerica - Mobile blog. www.textamerica.com/
• Xanco~ - Mobile phlog & vlog. www.xanco.com/
• Blip - Get video & podcasting on your blog. www.blip.tv/
• Blog ladder - Create & maintain your blog. www.blogladder.com/
• Blogniscient - Rank & read blog articles. www.blogniscient.com/
• Bloxor - Maintain & use your blogroll online. www.bloxor.com/

BOOKMARKING 2.0

• 9rules - Validate & share links to content. 9rules.com/
• All your words - Associate & share words with links. www.allyourwords.com/
• Blinkist - Social bookmarking. www.blinklist.com/
• Blogmarks - Social bookmarking. www.blogmarks.net/
• Blummy - Manage your bookmarks. www.blummy.com/
• Bmaccess - Social bookmarking with thumbs. www.bmaccess.net/
• Buddy marks - Social bookmarking. www.buddymarks.com/
• Butterfly~ - Bookmark & annotate. www.butterflyproject.nl/
• Chuquet* - Find buzzes. www.chuquet.com/
• Clipmarks - Social clipping. www.clipmarks.com/
• Common Times - Social bookmarking & clippings. www.commontimes.org/
• Connotea - Social bookmarking (for reseacrhers). www.connotea.org/
• Delicious* - Social bookmarking. del.icio.us/
• Digg* - Social bookmarking. www.digg.com
• Diigo - Social bookmarking on steroids. www.diigo.com/
• Dogear - Social bookmarking. www.eigology.com/dogear/
• Feed marker - Social bookmarking for news. www.feedmarker.com/
• Furl - Clip, store & share web pages. www.furl.net/
• Hyperlinkomatic - Social bookmarking. www.hyperlinkomatic.com/
• Icio - Social bookmarking & rating. www.icio.de/
• Jeteye - Clip & share (parts of) web pages. www.jeteye.com/
• Listible - Folksonomied software & code search. www.listible.com/
• List Mixer - Social bookmarking (temporary links). listmixer.com/
• Live Marks - Live update of Delicious. sandbox.sourcelabs.com/livemarks/
• Look later - Private bookmarking. www.looklater.com/
• Lookmarks - Social bookmarking. www.lookmarks.com/
• Magnolia - Social bookmarking & voting. ma.gnolia.com/
• Mylinkvault - Social bookmarking. www.mylinkvault.com/
• Onlywire - Social bookmarking aggregator. www.onlywire.com/
• Philoi - Social bookmarking. www.philoi.com/
• Qoosa - Social bookmarking. www.qoosa.com/
• Searchfox - Social bookmarking. www.searchfox.com/
• Shadows - Social bookmarking. shadows.com/
• Simpy - Social bookmarking, tagging & search. www.simpy.com/
• Socialmarks - Social bookmarking. www.socialmarks.com/
• Spinspy - Social bookmarking & ranking. www.spinspy.com/
• Spurl - Social - Bookmarking & search. www.spurl.net/
• Startaid - Manage & share your (thumb) bookmarks. www.startaid.com/
• Stumble Upon - Social bookmarking (random sharing). www.stumbleupon.com/
• Surftail - Share your click paths. www.surftail.com/
• Taggle - Social bookmarking, tagged (German). www.taggle.de/
• Tagtooga - Social bookmarking. www.tagtooga.com/
• Tendango - Top 10 social bookmarking. www.tendango.com/
• Thumblicio.us - Displays thumbs of most pupular del.icio.us sites. thumblicio.us/
• Yahoo Myweb2 - Social bookmarking. myweb2.search.yahoo.com/
• Yoono - Save your bookmarks and manage your feeds - www.yoono.com/

BROWSER 2.0

• Camino - Mozilla power & Mac style browser. www.caminobrowser.org/
• Flock - Lightweight browser. www.flock.com/

CALENDAR 2.0

• 30boxes - Manage & share calendar. 30boxes.com/
• Calendar hub - Create & share calendars. www.calendarhub.com/
• Eventful - Create & share events. eventful.com/
• Eventicus - Create & share events. www.eventicus.de/
• Event sniper - Mix your event calendar with feeds. www.eventsniper.com/
• Hipcal - Manage & share calendar & to do lists. www.hipcal.com/
• Meet with approval - Arrange meetings & events online. www.meetwithapproval.com/
• Mosuki - Arrange meetings & events online. mosuki.com/
• Planzo - Arrange meetings & events online & thru sms. planzo.com/
• Skobee - Arrange meetings & events online. www.skobee.com/
• Sponge cell - Arrange meetings & events online; with a.i. spongecell.com/
• Tilika - Share calendars. www.tilika.com/
• Trumba - Create& share events. www.trumba.com/
• Upcoming - Create, manage & share events. upcoming.org/

CHAT 2.0

• 3bubbles - Add a chatroom to your blog. www.3bubbles.com/
• Ajchat - Create chat rooms. www.ajchat.com/
• Campfire - Permalinked chat. www.campfirenow.com/
• Chatsum* - Chat with & leave messages same-site-visitors. www.chatsum.com/
• Conversate - Create your own chat. www.conversate.org/
• PeekoChat - Make every site a ‘place’ (Firefox plug-in). peekko.com/chat/
• Zohochat - Create your own chat room. zohochat.com/
• Ekklesia - CMS for churches. www.ekklesia-systems.com/
• Loudblog - CMS inc. RSS. www.loudblog.de/
• HIVchat - www.hiv-aids-chat.com/
• Pmachine - CMS. www.pmachine.com/ee/
• Tinymce - Wysiwyg editor. tinymce.moxiecode.com/

COLLABORATION 2.0

• Askeet - Ask & answer it. www.askeet.com/
• Asoboo - Find people & places in your city. asoboo.com/
• Favorville - People helping people. www.favorville.com/
• Foldera - Organize & share all work based documents. www.foldera.com/
• Hubpages - Share your genius. www.hubpages.com/
• Ifolder - Filesharing for groups. www.ifolder.com/
• Jotspot - Take one set of notes, live. www.jotlive.com/
• Lime - Help & inspire eachother. lime.com/
• Mayomi - Mind map & share. www.mayomi.com/
• People2pray - Manage & share prayer requests. www.people2pray.com/
• Qype - Find & recommend best spots in town. qype.com/
• Rally point - Share knowledge. www.rallypointhq.com/
• Redlettr - Tag & comment the bible. www.desertfather.com/micah/
• Rel8r - Tag, read, search blogs. www.rel8r.com/
• Rrove* - Save & share places. www.rrove.com/
• Say-So - Share problems & get advise. www.say-so.org/
• Socialight - Share pictures & notes with your cell phone. socialight.com/
• Standpoint - Share & evangelize convictions. www.standpoint.com/
• Study buddy - Share notecards. www.studybuddy.info/
• Tracbac - Share, comment, revise & collaborate. www.tracbac.com/
• Vizu - Create, share & vote for polls. www.vizu.com/
• Webbrush - Collaborative drawing, charting, etc. www.stanfy.com/dev/webbrush/
• What should i read next - Share your bookshelve. whatshouldireadnext.com/
• Wobblog - Rank & share blog postings. www.wobblog.com/
• Zimbra - Work & communicate together. www.zimbra.com/

COLLECT 2.0

• Librarious - Catalogue your collection. lib.rario.us/
• Librarything - Catalogue & share your library. www.librarything.com/
• Unalog - Share what you read, in groups. unalog.com/

COMIX 2.0

• Comics - Create & share comics. www.mainada.net/comics/
• Comic Strip Generator - Personalize cartoon strips. www.comicstripgenerator.com/
• Quicktoons - Create & share comics. www.quicktoons.com/

COMMUNICATION 2.0

• E-messenger - Ajax messengers. www.e-messenger.net/
• E-messenger - Integrates several messengers. www.e-messenger.net/
• Gtalkr - Google Talk, Flickr, YouTube, feeds. https://gtalkr.com/
• Iglance - Push-to-talk videoconf and screen-sharing. www.iglance.com/
• Imeem - Share words, files & people (on messenger). www.imeem.com/
• Imvu - 3D messenger. www.imvu.com/
• Iotum - Sorts & processes calls on relevance. www.iotum.com/
• Jabphone - Messenger2phone. www.jabphone.com/
• Jumpclaimer - Inform your relatives about your whereabouts thru sms. www.jumpclaimer.com/
• Kopete - Universal messenger. kopete.kde.org/
• Mabber - Mobile messenger. www.mabber.com/
• Meebo - Integrates several messengers. www.meebo.com/
• Skylook - Record & store all Skype communications. www.skylook.biz/
• Skype - Call, conference, messenger, file sharing. www.skype.com/
• Slawesome - Add voice to your email. www.slawesome.com/
• Soonr - Mobile 2 web & v.v. www.soonr.com/
• Stickam* - Multimedia communication tool. www.stickam.com/
• Tello - Locate & collaborate with your key contacts. www.tello.com/
• Userplane - Chat, messenger, record. www.userplane.com/
• V4s - Add voice to your email. www.orb.com/skype/
• Vyew - Web based video conferencing. vyew.com/
• Waxmail - Add voice to your email. www.waxmail.biz/
• Web2messenger - Send messages from web 2 messenger. www.web2messenger.com/

COMMUNITY 2.0

• 43people - Tag based matching & dating. www.43people.com/
• Ask Me That - Public help forums. www.askmethat.com/
• 43places - Publish & share stories about places. www.43places.com/
• Blogtronix - Blogging & corporate community software. www.blogtronix.com/
• Communitywalk - Share places & routes (map mash-up). www.communitywalk.com/
• Consumating - Tag based dating. www.consumating.com/
• Create & Participate in communities. www.towncrossing.com/
• Dodgeball - Hook in with your mobile & meet friends. www.dodgeball.com/
• Doostang - Community for professionals. www.doostang.com/
• Facebook - Student communities. www.facebook.com/
• Frappr - Put your group on the map, share photos. www.frappr.com/
• Friendster - Connect with friends. www.friendster.com/
• Groups - Create groups & share content. grou.ps/
• HIV/AIDSforum - www.hivforum.com/
• HumanPages – Philanthropic “LinkedIn-Like” People Search. www.humanpages.com/
• Ikarma - Document & promote your reputation. ikarma.com/
• Linkedin - Manage and share your cv. www.linkedin.com/
• Livejournal - Join or create your own community. www.sixapart.com/livejournal/
• Lovento - Find friends & events. www.lovento.com/
• Mapmix. Find your friends (map mash-up). www.mapmix.com/
• Meetro - Find friends nearby (thru messenger). www.meetro.com/
• Meetup - Find common interests & organize meetings. www.meetup.com/
• Mologogo - Share where you are. www.mologogo.com/
• Mozes - Share information & people thru your mobile. mozes.com/
• MySpace - Communicate with & share content with your friends. www.myspace.com/
• OpenBC - Community for entrepreneurs & professionals. www.openbc.com
• Opinity - Manage your reputation. www.opinity.com/
• Orkut - Connect to your friends. https://www.orkut.com/
• Partysync - Meet & sms people. group.partysync.com/
• Peerprofile - Publish & share your profiles. www.peerprofile.com/
• Peertrainer - Buddy up, slim down. www.peertrainer.com/
• Phusebox - Community for sophisticated people. phusebox.net/
• Piczo - Create & share website. piczo.com/
• Placesite - Wi-fi portal & location communities. www.placesite.com/
• Plum - Collect, share, connect. www.plum.com/
• Poddater - Create vodcast & connect. www.poddater.com/
• Pooln - Schedule your car pooling. www.pooln.com/
• Rabble - Create it & share it mobile. www.rabble.com/
• Tagalag - Tag & map your contacts. www.tagalag.com/
• Theblackstripe - Upload & share photos. www.theblackstripe.com/
• Tinfinger - Search persons. www.tinfinger.com/
• Towncrossing - Find & Link to Friends. towncrossing.com/
• Twocrowds - Share & vote for predictions. www.twocrowds.com/
• Vcarious - Travel community. www.vcarious.com/
• Wallop - Phlog & interact. mywallop.com/
• Xanga - Blog rings. www.xanga.com/
• Zaadz~ - Network of inspired people. www.zaadz.com/
• Ziggs - Index of professionals. www.ziggs.com/
• Zoominfo* - Search persons; create your own page. www.zoominfo.com/

CRM 2.0

• 24sevenoffice - Web-based crm & erp. www.24sevenoffice.com/
• Helpspot - Wen nased help desk software. www.userscape.com/
• Pushcrm - Web-based crm. pushcrm.com/
• Simpleticket - Helpdesk solution. www.simpleticket.net/
• Userscape - Web based help desk portal. www.userscape.com/
• Zohocrm - Web-based crm. www.zohocrm.com/

DATABASE 2.0

• Turbodbadmin - Online dbase in Ajax. www.turboajax.com/turbodbadmin.html/

DESIGN 2.0

• Betterdesktop - Share usability tests. www.betterdesktop.org/
• Sign Generators. www.customsigngenerator.com/
• Flickrlogomakr - Make Flickr-like logo in a second. flickr.nosv.org/ (cf. this group’s logo).
• Online Logo Designer. www.text2logo.com/
• Desktop Wallpaper Creator. www.wallpapergenerator.com/
• PreviewHTML - Preview your HTML source codes. www.previewhtml.com/
• Netcocktail - Share color schemes. www.netcocktail.com/
• Custom Banner Advertising Ads. www.bannergenerator.org/
• Neurosky - Bionic interface technology. www.neurosky.com/
• OK-cancel. Collaboration on interface design. www.ok-cancel.com/
• Warning Label Maker. www.dangersigngenerator.com/
• Typetester - Compare screen type. www.typetester.maratz.com/
• Hide Text From Spambots. www.txt2png.com/
• Wufoo - Build & host forms. www.wufoo.com/
• Watermark Images www.signgeneratormaker.com/

DICTIONARY 2.0

• Visualthesaurus - Find & visualize synonyms. www.visualthesaurus.com/

ECOMMERCE 2.0

• 12 Wists - Share shopping lists. www.wists.com/
• 43deals - Find best deals. www.43deals.com/
• Adgenta - Add ads to your site, blog or rss feed. www.adgenta.com/
• Amazon* - Shop, sell, review & rank. www.amazon.com/
• Auctionmapper - Map Ebay auctions. www.auctionmapper.com/
• Bigcartel - Start, review & recommend online shops. bigcartel.com/
• Blish - Buy & sell digital things. www.blish.com/
• Broadbandgenie - Find best provider. www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/
• CafePress - Free to design, sell, buy custom products. www.cafepress.com/ (join affiliate program)
• CafePress Live JavaScript Feed. www.web20appz.com/cafepress/javascript.asp
• Carbonmade - Publish & manage your portfolio online. www.carbonmade.com/
• Clipfire - Shop search engine & community. www.clipfire.com/
• Closo - Start & advertise your online shop. www.closo.com/
• Cooqy - Find things faster on Ebay (client). www.cooqy.com/
• Coverpop - Mash-ups of everything. www.coverpop.com/
• Darmik - Sell & share profits with charities. www.darmik.com/
• Ebay* - Sell, rate & buy; auction. www.ebay.com/
• Etsy - Buy & sell handmade things. www.etsy.com/
• Flyspy - Graph all of your choices in air travel. www.flyspy.com/index.php/
• Fotogopo - Animated local route map; Google Maps & Geocoder mash-up. www.fotogopo.com/
• Froogle* - Local shopping search engine; Google Maps mash-up. www.google.com/sellonfroogle/
• Garbagescout - Find treasures on NY streets; Google Maps mash-up. www.garbagescout.com/
• Gumshoo - Auction analyzer; Ebay mash-up. www.gumshoo.com/
• Hawkee - Tagged price comparison. www.hawkee.com/
• Homethinking - Search, find, contact & review realtors. www.homethinking.com/
• Hotpads - Houses for rent. hotpads.com/
• Inods - Shopping review aggregator. inods.com/
• Insideflyer - Convert loyalty points. insideflyer.com/
• Judysbook - Review & rate your neighbourhood. www.judysbook.com/
• Kayak Buzz - Find cheap destinations; Google Maps mash-up. www.kayak.com/h/buzz/flights
• Licketyship - Home-delivery supermarket; retail & couriers co-operation. www.licketyship.com/
• Licketytrip - Last minute vacation rentals (map mash-up). www.licketytrip.com/
• Lopico - Social business directory. www.lopico.com/
• Mapeire - User generated lowest price finder; Google Maps mash-up. www.mapeire.com/
• Motionmall - Design & insert webads. www.motionmall.com/
• Paguna - Travel booking with 1 page Ajax interface. https://www.paguna.com/
• Peerflix - List & trade DVDs. www.peerflix.com/
• Pricenoia - Amazon price comparison. www.pricenoia.com/
• Qoop - Publish & sell photos & photo products. www.qoop.com/
• Redtoucan - Share photos & review products. www.redtoucan.com/
• Reevoo - Review & buy electronics. www.reevoo.com/
• Revver - Upload, share or sell your videos. www.revver.com/
• Savedsearchpro - Find Ebay deals easier. www.savedsearchpro.com/
• Shoposphere* - Create & share pick lists. shopping.yahoo.com/shoposphere/
• Site flavored Google* - Tailor adwords to your site. www.google.com/services/siteflavored.html
• Sofortpreis - Mobile shopping assistent. www.sofortpreis.de/
• Souki~ - Local shop search. www.souki.com/
• Spymedia - Publish & sell news photos. www.spymedia.com/
• Stylehive - Get recommendations fitting your product interests. www.shopify.com/
• Tenbills - Design & buy your T. www.tenbills.com/
• Thandora - Tag based search in yellow pages. www.thandora.com/tagit.do/
• Tictap - Price comparison for mobile. www.tictap.com/
• Tnook - Build, manage & trade your collections. www.tnook.com/
• Wazima - Coupon aggregator. www.wazima.com/
• Web20milliondollarhomepage - Pixel ads. www.web20milliondollarhomepage.com/
• Wists - Social shopping. www.wists.com/
• Wuraweb - Find local prices & credentials. www.wuraweb.com/
• Yelp - Find, review & discuss local restaurants etc. www.yelp.com/
• Yub - Meet, hang & get discounts in shopping mall. www.yub.com/mall/
• Zazzle - Design, sell & buy custom goods. www.zazzle.com/
• Zillow - Get your home valuated (map mash-up). www.zillow.com/
• Zipingo - Find local business based on community input. www.zipingo.com/

ECONOMY 2.0

• Aidpage - People help people. www.aidpage.com/
• Associatedcontent - Produce & publish content, get paid. www.associatedcontent.com/
• Billmonk - Manage debts. https://www.billmonk.com/
• Castingwords - Get your podcasts transcribed. castingwords.com/
• Couchsurfing* - Home swapping & holiday dating. www.couchsurfing.com/
• Daylo - Contribute to local yellow pages. daylo.com/
• Democracy2.0* - Consumers/Citizens unite! d2.stevemagruder.com/hub.php
• Donorschoose - Donate to schools. www.donorschoose.org/
• Elevatorpitch - Upload, read & rate pitches. www.yourelevatorpitch.com/
• Fundable - Pledge for funding. www.fundable.org/
• Gather - Share passions & get paid. gather.com/
• Givebobadollar - Begging. www.givebobadollar.com/
• Givemeaning - Give or take fundraising community. www.givemeaning.com/
• Givezilla - Create fundraising storefront. www.givezilla.com/
• Google answers - Get your questions answered for money. answers.google.com/answers/
• Ikarma - Document & promote your reputation. ikarma.com/
• Lendmonkey - Trade everything. www.lendmonkey.com/
• Listsomething - Share any list to buy & sell things, services. www.listsomething.com/
• Million dollar homepage* - Buy pixels to finance study. www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
• Mturk - Complete simple tasks & get paid. www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome/
• Myfreelanceauction - Buy or sell web services. myfreelanceauction.com/
• Oolsi - Share links to free things. www.oolsi.com/
• Prosper - P2P lending. www.prosper.com/
• Rawsugar - Social bookmarking directory & revenue sharing. www.rawsugar.com/
• Secondlifeboutique - Buy real things with virtuaa money. slboutique.com/
• Smarkets - Stock markets for products. www.smarkets.net/
• Smashmyviper - Buy pixels to destroy car. www.smashmyviper.com/
• Stuffopolis - Keep track of things you lend or borrow. www.stuffopolis.com/
• Swabba - Online garage sale (German). www.swabba.de/
• Zopa - P2P banking services. www.zopa.com/

E-LEARNING 2.0

• Elgg - Open source e-learning software. elgg.org/
• Nuvvo - On demand elearning. www.nuvvo.com/
• Medical Portal. www.medchecker.com/

EMAIL 2.0

• Dropsend - Email large files. www.dropsend.com/
• Mail2RSS - Inmail2RSS. www.mail2rss.org/
• Myemail - Check email anywhere. myemail.com/
• Newsletterarchive* - Store & share your newsletters. www.newsletterarchive.org/
• Onesens - Send teasing webmail messages. www.onesens.com/
• Quickmail - Email2RSS. quickmail.johanfitie.com/
• Sendspace - Email large files. www.sendspace.com/
• Tempinbox - Receive inmail anonymously. www.tempinbox.com/
• Trustmymail - Spam filter based on your circle of contacts. www.trustmymail.com/
• Yousendit - Email large files. www.yousendit.com/
• Irows - Web based spreadsheet. www.irows.com/
• Numbler - Excel spreadsheet online. numbler.com/
• Numsum - Collaborate online on spreadsheets. numsum.com/
• Sundera - Collaborate online on spreadsheets. www.sundera.com/

FILESHARING 2.0

• Bittorrent - Share files & bandwidth. www.bittorrent.com/
• Civilnetizen - File swapping. www.civilnetizen.com/
• Lphanr - Multi compatible P2P file sharing. www.lphant.com/

FINANCIALS 2.0

• Blinksale - Web-based invoicing. www.blinksale.com/
• Dimewise - Manage your finances. www.dimewise.com/
• Frugalbetty - Manage your spendings. frugalbetty.com/
• Ioweyou - Manage loans & shared expenses. www.ioweyou.co.uk/
• Networthiq - Track, share & compare your net worth. www.networthiq.com/
• Secondsite - Web-based invoicing. www.secondsite.biz/
• Secondssite. Finance tools. www.secondsite.biz/

Read the Part 2 of this list here: Web 2.0’s Top 1,000 List - Everything 2.0 - Part 2

Read the Part 3 of this list here: Web 2.0’s Top 1,000 List - Everything 2.0 - Part 3

Autonomy has launched Autonomy Information Governance (AIG), a software that can understand in real-time the meaning of email, blogs, and other documents. It can flag illegal communications and also find documents related to a lawsuit against the company, and also destroy documents that don’t require to be saved yet could raise the risk of a successful future legal action against the company.

Autonomy has been in the content management, knowledge management space long before it even was discussed in enterprises. I have watched this co closely since the pre-dot-com days and they have come out many a times, ahead of competitors, with some very intelligent products. I think this becomes a lot more relevant with the compliance scare of SOX. Would be interesting to watch how the industry takes it.

“Human nature is not going to change because of the Internet,” said Michael Lynch, CEO and founder of Autonomy. “Technology has made it easier for some people within a company do a lot of damage.” He cited the recent case of a French trader who lost billions of dollars in unauthorized trades, and the loss of data on every child in Britain by a UK government agency.

The AIG software has several uses. Customers set the policies they are required by law to enforce and the software monitors compliance in real-time.

This includes inappropriate communications via email or instant messaging. For example, it can warn the user not to send an email because it contains illegal communications, or it is in violation of one of many corporate governance rules in its sector.

Another use for AIG is in e-discovery. When a corporation is sued, it often has just 90 days to produce huge quantities of documents, emails, etc, related to the lawsuit. It faces huge fines if it doesn’t meet the deadline. The software understands the meaning of documents and can reveal which documents should be reviewed by lawyers.

Read zdnet story

Search giant Google wants to push forward with a new, improved form of image search that’s based on visual characteristics, not just text. Last week, two of the company’s scientists presented a paper outlining a system they’re calling VisualRank. They’ve told the New York Times it could be as important for image search as the now-legendary PageRank paper was for normal text search.

Currently, image search engines (notably Google Image Search) locate and rank pictures based on the text describing them on a web page. This can lead to some very hit-or-miss search results — typing in “mcdonalds”, for example, gives you a wide range of images, many of them with little visual relevance to the McDonald’s fast food chain. (Irrelevant, that is, unless it turns out you actually are looking for photos of fat giraffes.)

The new system proposed in the Google paper ranks images based not on text, but on the common “visual themes” found in each search result. In the McDonald’s example, the VisualRank system would see that the company’s famous golden arches are a common visual theme, and prioritize pictures that feature the arches prominently. Tests of this new system returned 83 percent fewer irrelevant search results than Google Image Search, according to the VisualRank paper. (In the “search graph” below, the two large images in the center are ranked the highest because they feature the common visual themes in a search for “mona lisa” most prominently.)

If Google can deliver on its promises, VisualRank could bring a sea change to applications like product search, where customers are often want to find and compare specific products, but may not know the exact words to describe them. There are already product comparison startups, such as Like.com, that use visual search. But Google’s plan to the image ranking process is much more ambitious, which is probably why Munjal Shah, chief executive of Riya (which owns Like.com), told the Times that Google’s goals are “largely impossible.”

Whether or not that’s true is a debate better left to computer scientists. But wagering against Google’s search technology has been a sucker’s bet in the past.

InformIT has a rare interview with Donald Knuth, the legendary father of programming.

Andrew Binstock and Donald Knuth converse on the success of open source, the problem with multicore architecture, the disappointing lack of interest in literate programming, the menace of reusable code, and that urban legend about winning a programming contest with a single compilation.

Knuth enthuses about Ubuntu and FVWM, sees little future in multi-core programming, and regrets that literate programming isn’t more widely liked. He also forswears unit testing, but the right to skip the testing phase is kind of something that you have to earn.

“Have you been surprised by the success of open source since that time?

Donald Knuth: The success of open source code is perhaps the only thing in the computer field that hasn’t surprised me during the past several decades. But it still hasn’t reached its full potential; I believe that open-source programs will begin to be completely dominant as the economy moves more and more from products towards services, and as more and more volunteers arise to improve the code.

For example, open-source code can produce thousands of binaries, tuned perfectly to the configurations of individual users, whereas commercial software usually will exist in only a few versions. A generic binary executable file must include things like inefficient “sync” instructions that are totally inappropriate for many installations; such wastage goes away when the source code is highly configurable. This should be a huge win for open source.

Yet I think that a few programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, will always be superior to competitors like the Gimp—for some reason, I really don’t know why! I’m quite willing to pay good money for really good software, if I believe that it has been produced by the best programmers.

Remember, though, that my opinion on economic questions is highly suspect, since I’m just an educator and scientist. I understand almost nothing about the marketplace.”

Read full interview script. Very very interesting read.

Souce: InformIT through Wired

Security researcher David Litchfield has released technical details of a new type of attack that could give a hacker access to an Oracle database.

Called a lateral SQL injection, the attack could be used to gain database administrator privileges on an Oracle server in order to change or delete data or even install software, Litchfield said in an interview on Thursday.

Litchfield first disclosed this type of attack at the Black Hat Washington conference last February, but on Thursday he published a paper with technical details.

In a SQL injection, attackers create specially crafted search terms that trick the database into running SQL commands. Previously, security experts thought that SQL injections would work only if the attacker was inputting character strings into the database, but Litchfield has shown that the attack can work using new types of data, known as date and number data types.

Litchfield’s attack targets the Procedural Language/SQL programming language used by Oracle developers.

A noted database hacker, Litchfield is best known as the researcher who published details on the bug used in the 2003 SQL Slammer worm, which targeted Microsoft’s SQL Server database.

Litchfield wasn’t sure how widespread lateral SQL injection vulnerabilities are, but he thinks the attack could cause real damage in some scenarios.

“If you happen to be using Oracle and you write your own applications on it, then yes, you could be writing vulnerable code,” he said. “The sky is not falling … but it’s certainly something that people should be made aware of.”

Database programmers should review their code to be sure it is checking to make sure that all of the data it is processing is legitimate, and not injected SQL commands, he said.

Source: Computerworld

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo here Thursday, Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh revealed how the company is transforming itself into an open and social platform from the ground up. It is opening its Web platform to developers and moving closer to a Facebook-style social networking concept. Ari Balogh also said that while Yahoo already has open APIs for some services, it will expand the open API concept to other areas and make it more consistent for developers, while boosting the ’social’ aspect of its services for its members.

“We are taking open to a whole other place,” Balogh said. “We are rewiring Yahoo from the inside out with a developer platform that will open up the assets of Yahoo in a way never done before, making the consumer experience social throughout and provide hooks to developers.” He noted that Yahoo has 10 billion latent connections across its properties, such as mail, messenger and fantasy sports.

Balogh discussed the technical architecture–known as YOS, or Yahoo Open Strategy–including an application platform that will allow developers to create apps for consumers to keep their data protected and to chose what data to share and with whom. In addition, Yahoo will unify all profiles for users and developers, which will allow the company to leverage the 10 billion relations and 500 million users to create the social graph of relationships and to manage the event stream.

“We are not creating another social network. We will rewire the entire experience to make it social. We don’t think of social as a destination but as a dimension,” Balogh said. Along with Google and MySpace, Yahoo is a member of the OpenSocial Foundation, which is developing a specification for building social applications.

The underpinnings of Yahoo’s effort include development tools, an application platform, a social platform that unifies all profiles throughout Yahoo (again, like Facebook or MySpace, this is a social graph that lets users make connections and view events) and the total rewiring of properties to make all this possible.

Yahoo’s new architecture, called YOS (Yahoo Open Strategy) proves that the Internet is made of tubes (Source: Yahoo)

The heady plans are smart but, quite likely, come too late.