connecting

BustedTees, the Web site responsible for that "Prose before Hos" t-shirt that you wore to your English 101 final exam, has announced a Facebook Platform application that offers to split cash revenue with users willing to install it.

The application has soft-launched and is set to launch formally in a few days.

The model here is similar to traditional "affiliate programs" for advertising on Web sites and blogs--and indeed, it's essentially a "Facebookified" version of BustedTees' existing affiliate program. Pimp them on your Facebook profile, and you'll get a cut of the … Read more

Thousands of representatives from international corporations, design firms, government entities, and institutions of higher education, spanning more than 35 countries around the world, attended the CONNECTING'07 World Design Congress last week in San Francisco, the largest and arguably most influential gathering of industrial designers to date.

Did it live up to its promise? The short answer is: yes and no. There were early warning signs for the "no": The opening ceremony was a long-winded and largely self-congratulatory celebration of the two organizing bodies, ICSID and IDSA. In his opening keynote, ICSID president Peter Zech set the tone … Read more

The lengthy legal fight between social-networking scion Facebook and onetime rival ConnectU isn't over yet. New developments in the dispute on Wednesday probed deeper into the question of exactly what happened in 2004, when both sites were early-stage start-ups run essentially out of Harvard University dorm rooms.

The best-known component of the court drama has been ConnectU's allegation that Zuckerberg pilfered the former's business plan while he was a student at Harvard with ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (they're twins) and Divya Narendra. In a San Jose, Calif., courtroom on Wednesday, however, the conversation turned … Read more

School projects can be a helluva lot of fun, especially if they involve world domination with Nintendo's Wiimotes. We've read about these things whacking innocent TV screens due to overly enthusiastic gamers, and here's one more reason to do so.

A team at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria, has developed a Bluetooth driver called "WiiConnect" to pair the S60 3rd Edition phones to the Wiimote. You can tell these guys are serious about what they are doing. They even have a motorcycle game to make use of the 3D accelerometer and rumble … Read more

NEW YORK--Spykee, a communications robot from the toymaker Erector for $299, allows you to listen, see and record the surroundings of the robot from anywhere in the world through a Web-based software application.

Similar in function to iRobot's ConnectR robot, the Spykee offers a VOIP telephone that works with Skype 3.0 and a Webcam, as well as controlled movement around a room.

Spykee operates over a wireless network and is controlled through downloadable software that Erector refers to as its "machine man interface."

You can upload music to the device from a computer and it will … Read more

It's not quite Rosie yet, Mr. Brooks, but we'll concede that the company you founded is a step closer to The Jetsons world of communications.

iRobot is expected to unveil this ConnectR communications robot, aka a physical avatar, at DigitalLife 2007 on Thursday.

The ConnectR for $499 is a robot you control on your behalf from anywhere in the world using a Web-based application. With a VoIP speakerphone and one-way video, it allows you to carry on a conversation as if you are right in the room. You can also control where it goes.

The video camera mounted … Read more

Sony's years-long effort to promote its Atrac audio encoding format appears to be coming to an end.

Sony's known for creating proprietary formats rather than adopting formats developed elsewhere. Many other companies--Microsoft in particular--do the same thing, but Sony sometimes seems to cling to its technologies long past the date where it makes business sense. Sony invented Atrac for its MiniDisc, but as MP3 players became popular, Sony tried to push the format into the new world of discless players. Those first Sony portable players didn't support MP3. This helped a down-on-its-luck company with no consumer electronics … Read more

Care to take a stab at guessing this one? I'll give you a hint: it's fabulous news. As you may have gathered from Sony's abandonment of SonicStage, the company is giving its Connect music store the ax as well. Considering the new Walkmans are now PlaysForSure devices capable of playing both purchased and subscription WMAs--and they support unprotected AACs purchased from iTunes--it only makes sense to get rid of the faltering (and horrifically designed) store. For my part, I'm pleased as punch by the death of SonicStage and Connect. Yes, I'm a little bit sadistic...… Read more

Apple can breathe a sigh of relief as word came on Thursday that Sony plans to close its music store, Connect, sometime after March 2008.

Apple's iTunes, was never actually threatened by Sony's misguided download service, of course. The company's attempt to compete in the digital music market was from the start marked by glitchy software and disinterested consumers.

Sony claims the reason it scrapped Connect is that the company has "widened its digital music environment" to support Windows Media. But the story of how Connect was doomed from the start is well chronicled.

The … Read more