engineering

The 404 957: Where the world's gone sour (podcast)

Leaked from 404 Podcast 957:

A researcher shows how to "friend" anyone on Facebook within 24 hours. Online casino gaming might come to Facebook users in the U.K. Siri on the Apple iPhone 4S tells you where to dump a dead body and where to score condoms, but has no clue about women's health clinics. Capcom seriously announces a Sour Patch Kids game with Method Man. GamePro magazine will quit publishing.… Read more

Microsoft buys Al Gore-backed VideoSurf, report says

Microsoft has acquired video search engine VideoSurf, several reports claim.

According to Israel-based news outlet Globes, Microsoft has acquired VideoSurf for "tens of millions of dollars." In a follow-up report, TechCrunch Europe cited an anonymous source who claimed Microsoft acquired the company for $70 million.

Neither Microsoft nor VideoSurf immediately responded to CNET's request for confirmation of the deal.

If Microsoft did, in fact, acquire VideoSurf, the company will likely be used to improve Bing. VideoSurf allows users to search for video content around the Web from a host of sources, including Hulu, Dailymotion, Comedy Central, and … Read more

At RockMelt, engineers pound out features at light speed

day on the job MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you don't regularly hang out with coders at work, you may think it takes a long time to write a new feature. That's a quaint notion to Devon Rifkin.

Rifkin is a front-end engineer at RockMelt, the maker of a hot new browser that integrates many of the functions of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media directly into the browsing experience. I've come to RockMelt on a recent Tuesday to shadow Rifkin as part of my Day on the Job series, and now he's schooling me on just … Read more

Google reworks Go for 1.0 debut in early 2012

If you want to have a say in the design of Go, Google's lower-level programming language, you'd better act fast.

That's because Google plans to finalize the language in coming months and bake it into its Google App Engine service. The company released Go along with programming tools and other open-source assets almost exactly two years ago.

"The plan is to launch Go 1 in early 2012. We hope to bring the Go App Engine runtime out of 'experimental' status at the same time," said Andrew Gerrand, Google's Go developer advocate, in a blog post … Read more

Work with the cool kids! Culture is a weapon in 2011's hiring battle

See that guy pictured above? The one with the beard grooming oil, the fancy tux and the spear gun? He's the best engineer in the world--and he has the toys to prove it.

Oh, the lengths startups are going to these days to get engineering talent.

Technology is evolving rapidly and engineers who know the latest and greatest coding languages and techniques are hard to come by, even in Silicon Valley. Undergrads are being wined (if they're, um, over 21) and dined by technology companies offering never-before-seen perks (cars! free apartments!) and impressive salaries.

Google currently pays recent … Read more

Another tech blogger joins the startup fray

Sometimes blogging about startups makes the blogger want to start one.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, a tech writer with ReadWriteWeb whose work is often cited by other outlets, is setting out to turn his ability to sort through the noise on the Web into a product and company called Plexus Engine.

Kirkpatrick describes Plexus Engine as an application and tool to help customers discover key information before their competitors do. His target customers are those in marketing and public relations firms.

He's been trying it out with a handful of trial customers and plans to launch officially in three months.

Kirkpatrick … Read more

Genelec's 'computer' speaker elevates the state of the art

Genelec isn't a big name outside the recording industry, but the company, founded in 1978, is a leader in professional monitor systems. More recently Genelec speakers are becoming known to discerning consumers. The company's active speakers have built-in amplifiers, like the tiny 6010A speaker I'm covering today, so it can be directly hooked up to an iPod, computer, or game.

I spent some time with the 6010A at the Audio Engineering Society convention held last week in New York. The listening conditions on the show floor weren't ideal, but on early Sunday morning it was fairly … Read more

A great week for Google challengers

For companies that would take on Google's near-monopoly in the search business, being big is a challenge. There is, in fact, only one truly big Google rival left: Microsoft's Bing. And while it's a worthy opponent in terms of features and raw ingenuity, it's still a hugely pricey, money-losing venture.

Being a smaller, more specialized Google competitor, however, can work. And good things happened for two of my favorites this week.

Favorite #1 is  DuckDuckGo. Despite the wacky name, it's a traditional search engine. In fact, part of its appeal is that it feels … Read more

Google threat? Search engine DuckDuckGo scores funding

Another little-known search engine--with the tall order of snagging users from Google--has landed financial backing.

Union Square Ventures today wrote in a blog post today that it invested an undisclosed amount in a search engine called DuckDuckGo, which promises super-fast search results with far less spam and clutter than you get on the biggies. (A number of angel investors also participated in the round).

The biggies, of course, is really just one biggie--Google. For all its forays into areas beside search, search is where it consistently crushes all competitors. Data released yesterday shows Google's market share stood at more than 66 percent in September… Read more