instant

Modern vacation: Fully wired, totally ruined

Weekend getaways and romantic dinners used to be sweet escapes from the daily grind. Nowadays, R&R is often interrupted by a buzzing Blackberry or the ding of an instant message on the wireless laptop.

Yes, staying connected is simple for employees. So is getting burned out.

Read the full story on LiveScience: "The modern vacation: Fully wired, totally ruined"

New uberannoyance: Automated salespeople

As if the regular kind weren't bothersome enough, companies are cropping up to create automated instant-messagers that pretend to be human customer service personnel. They have names like "Susan" and they're sometimes even assigned ages like "24." In particular, this new crop is designed to save sales lost in last-minute checkout abandonment.

Some automated chat features are genuinely helpful--for instance, IMing a help-desk chat bot with access to a Q&A database can save users a lot of time searching for information on an FAQ list.

The legality of the practice--a program misrepresenting … Read more

Simkl and IM History: Two services that spy on your IM conversations (for you)

The move to archive nearly everything we do online has been spearheaded mainly by Google in both Gmail as well as Google Web history. The same thing is happening in the chat space with Meebo and Google Talk, as well as desktop chat clients that have had integrated chat logging for years now. The one thing missing has been a way to take those locally saved conversations and make them available for search and reading while away from your home machine. IM History and Simkl are two companies have jumped on the task in an attempt to let people archive … Read more

JetBlue to start testing in-flight e-mail, IM next week

If there were snakes on this plane, you could IM your friends and tell them.

Low-cost airline JetBlue has equipped one of its Airbus A320 planes with an onboard wireless network and has forged partnerships with Yahoo and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion to give passengers access to the companies' e-mail and instant messaging functions while in the air. The airline considers the plane, nicknamed "BetaBlue," to be an early-stage test as the company explores expanding in-flight communication options.

Passengers won't be able to surf the full Web. But if they bring Wi-Fi-equipped laptops along, they can … Read more

Microsoft grounds 'dirty' Santa

Microsoft shut down the automated Santa Claus that it created for children to chat with on Windows Live Messenger, after an article from The Register reported that it had an objectionable chat with a reader's underage nieces. Microsoft said Santa's comment on oral sex was provoked by a person who could make the tool "do things it wasn't supposed to do." Santa ended the chat with a cheery, "dirty bastard."

Read the full story on MSNBC: "Microsoft shuts down Santa for talking dirty"

Gmail integrates AIM, adds colored labels

Update 2:50 p.m. This article has been updated with user experience information on AIM integration into Gmail.

Gmail and Google Talk users can now chat with their AOL Instant Messenger buddies through the Gmail interface, Google announced today. Rolling out to all English-based users by the end of the day, the new feature will let you seamlessly jump from chatting with a Google contact to an AIM buddy without having to use two separate chat clients.

… Read more

Yahoo to combine universal IM with social networks

Valleywag largely pans it, while Webware thinks it has promise.

Regardless, the central premise of Yahoo's upcoming universal-messaging application dubbed MyM is clear. According to Webware, MyM:

...appears to be joining several Web services together. Included are instant messaging clients like AIM and MSN, along with social services like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Friendster.

I like it. For one thing, I get tired of scattering my IM activities--and my company largely works over IM--among different chat programs. That's why I use Adium. But given the promise of also connecting social-networking services with IM, I become much more interested in what Yahoo is up to.

After all, isn't the point of social-networking sites like Facebook.com to connect people? If so, is the best way to connect people really to have them "superpoking" each other all day? I'd rather be able to actually chat with them.… Read more

Yahoo working on a universal IM app

Last Friday Valleywag got a nice little scoop on a new Yahoo project called MyM that looks to be joining the universal chat space. The service is currently invite only, but already from the sign-up page it appears to be joining several Web services together. Included are instant messaging clients like AIM and MSN, along with social services like MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and Friendster. Interestingly enough, there's also a checkbox for Meebo, which Valleywag is reporting will let Meebo users with their various client passwords authenticate logins using one master password, although there's no word with any tie-ins … Read more

Power Downloader quickly scrubs his system memory

Power Downloader uses several types of software throughout his day including word processors, mapping programs, database apps, and even a few games during break time to let off some steam. In his endless hunt for top-notch applications, Power also ends up using a few programs that aren't all they were cracked up to be. With all the software Power sifts through, it should come as no surprise that some apps even have memory leaks that end up slowing down his system to a crawl. As a software superhero, a slow system simply will not suffice.… Read more