Web 2.0

Personal internet archiving service Evernote is taking a new approach to expanding its user base and bookmarking functionality with a tool for publishers and blog owners called Site Memory. In short, it lets users save Web content for reading later, while helping to promote some of the most heavily saved content with Evernote users at large.

Blogs that add the new Site Memory button to their posts (or any page for that matter) let users bookmark and save that content to their Evernote account. Akin to Web bookmarking services like Instapaper and Read it Later, this lets them absorb the … Read more

I've been kicking the tires with Google Instant search, and so far I think it's an improvement.

The feature, announced Wednesday at a Google search event, had been known as streaming search since it was first noticed in the wild two weeks ago. Sometimes after a short pause, it retrieves results based on what you've typed as you type it, changing those results live as you add to the query.

It's like Google's search suggest feature, which offers various ways to complete your search query--but on steroids. Google argues that Instant lets people complete their … Read more

Computer games have played an important role in advancing the state of the art for computing, and now Mozilla hopes to draw upon gaming to advance browser application development.

The Firefox backer launched the new Mozilla Labs Gaming project Tuesday with the goal of encouraging programmers to use a host of new browser and Web technologies.

"Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geolocation, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web. With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform," said Pascal Finette, the Mozilla Labs "catalyst" whose job is to "make things happen."

As part of the effort, Mozilla also announced the Game_On 2010 browser-game contest that will start in September.

The work dovetails with a broad industry transition: Browsers are growing from a vessel for containing Web pages into a foundation for applications. Even Microsoft, for years a laggard in the browser realm and still a powerhouse with PC applications, has gotten Web app religion with its coming Internet Explorer 9, due to launch next week in beta form. … Read more

BERLIN--Sony announced a new service Monday called Music Unlimited that will turn many of its electronics products into online libraries for streaming music.

"It is a cloud-based digital music streaming service that gives music lovers access to millions of tracks stored and synced with your devices," said Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe, at a press event here. The service "will be going live by the end of the year," he said.

Music Unlimited joins the already available video-on-demand service of Sony's Qriocity service, which now sports a two-part tagline: "Music that follows you. Instant blockbuster movies."

Sony announced Music Unlimited at the IFA electronics show here. The timing, though, illustrates just how hard it will be for Sony to fulfill its ambitions: on the same day, Apple refreshed its dominant iPod and iTunes product line that has thwarted Sony's music ambitions for years. This isn't the first time it's tried, either: Sony closed down its Connect music store, after years of effort. … Read more

Meet Gatsby, the service that plays matchmaker to nearby strangers using geosocial network Foursquare, now works with Facebook, too.

Making use of Facebook's recently-introduced Places feature, when a user checks in on either Facebook or Foursquare, it alerts Meet Gatsby, which will find others nearby with similar interests. Then (as before), it sends both parties a text message telling both users about each other, then provides a link for them to meet up.

In an e-mail to CNET, Meet Gatsby's co-founder Will Tsui said that "Gatsby's matches have been getting better and more proximate as our … Read more

The group that licenses patents for the widely used H.264 video encoding and streaming technology has committed to charge no royalties ever for use by Web sites that use it for freely available video.

In February, the MPEG LA previously had declared free streaming wouldn't require royalty payments through December 31, 2015. On Thursday, it lifted that limit forever, a move that could remove some hesitation to use H.264, also known as AVC, on Web sites.

The move, although made earlier than the licensing group had to, isn't a major surprise. For one thing, adding a … Read more

Google Wave and Google Buzz may have had troubles attracting usage, but the new ability to place calls from Gmail appears to have caught on quickly.

"Over 1,000,000 calls placed from Gmail in just 24 hours!" Google tweeted Thursday, evidently pleased with the number.

For comparison, there are somewhat more than 300 million people in the United States. If the average person makes 10 calls per day--research in 2008 put the number at 208 calls per month--that means about one out of every 3,000 calls in the U.S. went through the service … Read more

Looking for a food cart in Portland, Ore.? There's probably one right in front of you. But maybe there's one up the street that's better. Now you can find out such things with a new mapping layer from Microsoft for its Bing Maps service.

Having grown up in Portland, I can tell you that most locals know where the best carts are, along with the food item to get at those places. But one thing the locals won't always be able to tell you is the location of the traveling food carts--the ones that are not … Read more

Mozilla released its fourth beta of Firefox 4 on Tuesday, bringing a new feature that addresses one of the biggest challenges in the new era of the browser: reclaiming control over the burgeoning number of tasks that now happen on the Web.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 4 beta 4 introduces a feature now called Firefox Panorama. Today's browsers typically cram tabs in a strip along the top of the window, but Panorama provides a Mac OS X Expose-like interface that groups tabs into related bunches.

Panorama presents an array of thumbnail images, each representing a tab. … Read more