Media

Women in IT pose for movie calendar

Some women are launching a rather racy calendar to promote females in IT.

The IT Screen Goddesses Calendar 2006-2007, featuring female IT professionals posing as film icons, will be released in Queensland, Australia, at Movie World on Aug. 11. In the meantime, pre-orders can be made through the IT Goddess Web site.

Sonja Bernhardt, a co-founder of Australian Women in IT (AWISE), is a spokesman to the IT Screen Goddess Initiative, and also one of its models.

"We are doing this to smash through the perception of the geeky technologist," says the IT Screen Goddess Initiative Web site.… Read more

Panda eats. Webcam shoots. Nobody leaves.

A barrage of Panda cam visitors has forced the National Zoo Web site to boot people off every 15 minutes.

Tai Shan, the giant panda born in captivity at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 2005, has just turned 1. The son of Mei Xiang and Tian Tian is a subject of interest to more than 22 million people. That is how many have visited the Panda cams since Tai Shan's birth, according to a spokesman for the National Zoo.

The two Web cams focus on the outdoor habitat where Tai Shan … Read more

Paper clip guy to get his house

It looks like Kyle MacDonald, the 26-year-old Montreal man who set out to trade a single red paper clip for a house, has accomplished his ambitious goal.

MacDonald will be giving his most recent trade-- a movie role--to the city of Kipling, Saskatchewan in exchange for a two-story farmhouse, according to his blog, "one red paperclip." The deal will become official once MacDonald shakes hands with the mayor of his new home town on Wednesday, exactly one year after he announced his endeavor, he wrote.

"One red paperclip. One house. One year," he wrote, of his … Read more

We want to watch commercials, we just don't know it yet

ABC is talking about employing a technology that would prevent DVR owners from doing what they presumably bought the device for: skipping commercials.

If Mike Shaw, ABC president of advertising sales, gets his way, cable companies would force us to watch ads. "I would love it if the MSOs (multi-system operators), during the deployment of the new DVRs they're putting out there, would disable the fast-forward (button)," he said in an interview Wednesday, according to MediaPost (membership required).

In fact, there are companies out there cooking up ways to do that. Philips recently received a patent for … Read more

Friendster awarded social networking patent

Troubled Friendster has been awarded a broad patent covering social networking that could cover activities of rival sites, the Red Herring reported on Thursday.

"The U.S. patent, which was awarded June 27, is extremely general, and would seem to cover the activities of many other sites, especially those like LinkedIn that allow people to connect within a certain number of degrees of separation," the article says.

Asked whether Friendster would sue, President Kent Lindstrom said "It's way too early to say...We'll do what we can to protect our intellectual property."

After a … Read more

Google Earth launches Tour de France tie-in

There might be no Lance Armstrong in this year's Tour, but never fear--Google Earth has a new way to keep you interested in the famed cycling race.

Google has made a downloadable file, available on the Tour's official Web site, that maps the winding course onto Google Earth's satellite imagery. Cycling fans can browse day-to-day information, learn fun facts about the places that the riders traverse, and even use Google Earth's 3D feature to get an idea of just how steep those Alps climbs are.

Rocketboom loses its famous face

It's been all over the blogosphere Wednesday and our partners over at ZDNet covered it as well, but it's still worth noting here that Amanda Congdon, the increasingly famous face of the very popular videoblog Rocketboom, has left.

According to a video she posted under the rubric, "UnBoomed," Congdon alluded to a falling out between her and her partner, Andrew Baron--who she said owns 51 percent of the venture to her 49 percent.

And indeed, on Rocketboom itself today, readers found an announcement of the split.

Baron is saying the divorce had to do with Rocketboom'… Read more

Sneaker activist wants to go 'Back to the Future'

Self-proclaimed "sneaker activist" Al Cabino is on a mission.

The 20-something Montreal resident wants to make it possible for you, me and especially him, to own a piece of movie and sneaker history: the gray moonboot-like "McFlys" made famous by Michael J. Fox's character Marty McFly in the "Back to the Future" trilogy. The only problem is they aren't for sale. In fact, they don't even exist--yet.

Cabino hopes his online petition will persuade Nike to revive and reproduce the single pair the company manufactured for the film. And he's … Read more

MetaCafe lands $15 million in venture funding

MetaCafe, one of the scores of companies in the burgeoning video-sharing space, has received $15 million in venture funding, the company announced Wednesday.

The money came from venture capital firms Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital. Metacafe says that users watch or stream more than 400 million video files per month.

Unlike some of the top competitors in video sharing, such as YouTube, Google Video and Grouper, MetaCafe says it doesn't want to host everybody's videos--just the best.

The company employs a filtering system that is supposed to ensure the videos posted on the site are of the highest … Read more