Webware

If you've kept an eye on the gestures scene, you'll be familiar with the concept of controlling various apps and services with hand gestures. The idea is to help you escape the use of traditional peripheral devices like a mouse or joystick in place of your body and hands. Lately we've seen examples from Microsoft, as well as a slick peripheral from 3dconnexion that's specifically been designed for navigating 3D spaces. Xtreme Reality is a software that captures body gestures via Webcam and converts them into keyboard and mouse inputs. You can create your own keyboard combos based on gesture combinations, and assign them to any open application (for games, photo browsing, etc.)

At a live preview of the technology at today's TechCrunch40 conference, the company showed off live demos of Google Earth, navigating a PowerPoint demo, and a live boxing round, all with simple hand gestures. The company intends on licensing the gesture technology for use in video games and third-party gesture software. It's still unavailable in consumer applications, with no announcements on a release date or pricing.

I'm still pretty happy with the keyboard and mouse combo for nearly every software and Webware app I use; although, as we've discovered with the Wii, and even the iPhone and it's multitouch display, sometimes an actual gesture makes something feel more natural and intuitive. How that transitions over to something like a spreadsheet or a word processor is anyone's guess. For games and zooming around maps, I can't wait.

I've embedded a short video example of the boxing demo below.

For what has seemed like nearly an eternity, online game god Raph Koster has been mum about Areae, the company he formed after leaving his previous job as chief creative officer at EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies publisher, Sony Online Entertainment.

At conference after conference, Koster has spoken, representing Areae, but really never revealing even the slimmest of morsels, beyond an initial statement that the company was gong to "reinvent virtual worlds," about what the San Diego startup was up to.

On Tuesday, however, that finally changed when Areae unveiled some details about its product, Metaplace, at the TechCrunch 40 conference in San Francisco.

For those of us that weren't able to attend, we were left to sitting in front of a computer, hitting refresh on a browser, waiting for the Metaplace Web site to be updated to reflect the product's details.

In my case, that also meant IMing with my colleague, Rafe Needleman, who is at the conference, and who is sending me details as they emerge.

"We are re-inventing virtual worlds that stop working like AOL," Koster said, "and start working the way the Web does....You can build a massive multiplayer game in minutes there are style sheets to make building easier.

Koster said that Metaplace would allow users to employ Web 2.0 tools like tags, wikis and forums in the pursuit of quickly and easily making usable, fun virtual worlds.

"Virtual worlds have enormous potential," Koster said, "but they are obsolete, built on 20-year-old technology. We don't know what you'll do with [this], but that's the power of this new medium and that's why we're so excited."

And then he walked off the stage.

So, what we know is that Metaplace is likely some sort of virtual world construction set, that will allow people to build online games "from Tetris up to role-playing games," though without Koster telling us exactly what it is, we're still only guessing.

If that's what it is, it's not the first to come along. The Multiverse Network has already staked out a pretty impressive position in that field.

But with Koster behind the wheel, Areae is certainly going to have to be taken seriously.

On its Web site, which is now live, it says, "Build a virtual apartment and put it on your website. Work with friends to make a huge MMORPG. Share your puzzle game with friends. We have a vision: to let you build anything, and play everything, from anywhere. Eventually, anyway. We have to finish first."

It also says, "Metaplace is a next-generation virtual worlds platform designed to work the way the Web does. Instead of giant custom clients and huge downloads, Metaplace lets you play the same game on any platform that reads our open client standard. We supply a suite of tools so you can make worlds, and we host servers for you so that anyone can connect and play. And the client could be anywhere on the Web."

Now if only they would tell us what's really going on.

Zocdoc is a new service for finding local dentists and booking appointments for times that work with your schedule. It's aim is to replace the often aggravating process of trying to find a local dentist through the overwhelming, and often non-user-friendly directories provided by insurance companies.

Just plug in your city or ZIP code, and Zocdoc will pull up a list of local dentists, along with their daily appointment openings and insurance options. You can sort open appointment times by the type of service you're looking for--e.g., cleanings, Invisalign, or the hallowed root canal. If you find an appointment that sounds good, Zocdoc has an appointment request system that forwards your request to the selected dentist's office.

You can also check out a dentist's online profile, which includes important information like their specialties, education, languages spoken, and affiliations with professional organizations. Each dentist profile page includes a map and a list of user-submitted patient reviews. Think of it being like a background check before your date with the drill.

This is a great concept, although out of personal experience, I'm pretty happy sleuthing results on Yahoo Local and Yelp. The obvious missing piece here is an appointment scheduling system and a way to sort by insurance, which seems like something both services could add. Zocdoc launched this morning at the TechCrunch40 conference, and is currently limited to 2 percent of dentists in the Manhattan area with plans for expansion into other cities and the inclusion of medical listings for local doctors.

Live in New York? Need a dentist's appointment? Check out Zocdoc.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Docstoc is a document browsing and searching tool for "professional documents." Unlike Scribd, which has been casually called a "YouTube for documents," Docstoc is going for a more business-oriented crowd. At least that's their pitch. The features are very similar, with a communal sense of document sharing and live-viewer for MS Office documents, PDF files, and other popular file types.

One thing that does set it apart is its user profiles and document request system. Each user gets their own profile, complete with as much personal information as their willing to share, along with a link to their LinkedIn profile (if they have one). Underneath that is a full listing of their documents, which can be searched along with everyone else's shared content.

The document request system is a little more interesting. It lets you request a document you're looking for by setting tags or keywords. This basically sets up an alert that will keep an eye on other Docstoc user submissions. When someone uploads a document that matches your criteria, you'll receive an alert. Whether or not it really matches what you were looking for is anyone's guess, but the idea is that there's hope instead of dead ends when it comes to tracking down files.

The service demoed at today's TechCrunch40 conference, although is still in private beta. To get access, you can sign up on their front page. There's also a 6-month old pre-beta walkthrough on YouTube, which I've embedded after the break.

Share and track documenents with Docstoc, a new document sharing service.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

AOL is showing off today a new media sharing and storage service, BlueString. I snuck into the unfinished product after I got a preview, and it looks like it's going to be very straightforward and easy to use. There are several services that do what it does, but few that do it as easily.

BlueString's neat trick is that it manages to work well as both a sharing site--a good place for you to create slide shows of events that you then e-mail to your family or embed on your personal site--and a media storage service.

BlueString is a good media storage service, and it also makes it very easy to create slideshows for friends and family.

The storage back-end for BlueString is XDrive, an online storage and backup service that AOL acquired, and where AOL has clearly been testing BlueString ideas. BlueString's show creator function, for example, looks like a rebuild of a nearly identical feature in XDrive.

Getting media into BlueString is quite easy. The import dialog box allows you to select multiple files to import at once. If you're a user of AOL Pictures, files from there also automatically load into your workspace. These features are being showcased today at the TechCrunch 40 event in San Francisco. BlueString will also import from Flickr, which is great for people who miss the straightforward Yahoo Photos application recently killed in favor of the higher-concept Flickr service.

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Flock is launching version 1.0 of its social browser next month. The biggest change is a new RSS reader and start page that essentially builds in its own NetVibes and Google Reader. Also new is a sidebar that hangs out on the right side of the browser and has tabs for Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube. If you've read up on our coverage of Mozilla's Coop project, Flock has basically beaten them to the punch, with a sidebar of your friends that lets you both keep track of what they're up to, as well as being able to drag bits of content onto their icons to share.

The service isn't just about sharing on those three sites though. If you find something you like on a site that hasn't been integrated, you can drag over any link to one of your contacts to share it with them, or post it on your blog or social networking profile. Flock has also built in some advanced contextual menus to let you pick exactly where you want to share the content. The idea is to help you share things in services you're already using. Flock is just the mechanism.

Flock has also added a new "media minibar" which pulls together pictures and video clips from your friends and contacts on Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Piczo, Photobucket, and Truveo. It's basically an extension of the RSS reader, and can also let you pull in media from whatever page you're on to share with others. Like everything else in version 1.0, any media on the minibar can be dragged onto your buddy list.

I think the biggest draw to version 1.0 of Flock will be its new sharing features, and tight integration with YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr. The integrated RSS reader also makes it part of an attractive package. Will most people be willing to ditch their current RSS readers and browser for Flock's solution? My guess is no, but it doesn't mean Flock can't vie for a spot beside your No. 1 browser, and go for people my age (18-24), who use these services extensively. The service made its 1.0 announcement at this morning's TechCrunch 40 conference. If you'd like to sign up for the private beta, Flock has a sign-up form here.

Here's a useful concept: say you're really sick of dealing with your phone's tiny keypad to type in text messages. What if you could simply say what you wanted to write down, and have the tool fill it in for you? Yap is a new service that's trying to fill that need with their new mobile phone client. It's aimed at teens, who the company claims 66% of text while driving. Yap will read off your friend's responses, meaning you don't have to pay attention to what they're writing. The service works both ways, so your friend who has it installed could theoretically have an asynchronous text-only conversation with you too.

In addition to the text app, Yap throws in some integration with popular Web services like Amazon, Digg, Wikipedia, eBay, Facebook, Google News, AOL search, Flickr, Google Photos, Twitter, and Orbitz among others. You can simply say a search term, and it will convert it into a written search query on the correct service right on your phone's browser. The one for Twitter is especially cool since you can just say your status update, and it will convert it into a live Tweet.

The company is planning to support its service through "real time advertisements" which will pull context from your conversation, and serve up relevant ads. Their example showed a conversation about coffee, wherein the app pulled up a link for listings of Starbucks nearby. The service is still in private beta, and launching at this morning's TechCrunch40 conference.

Related: Highly useful: CallWave transcribes your voicemail

Each of these messages came from text-to-speech conversion from Yap. No more typing on your tiny key pad.

(Credit: CNET Networks)