Games and entertainment

Blinkx does TV shows with Blinkx Remote

Tired of searching YouTube for clips of TV shows, only to find it barren of your favorite show? Well, if it's a Viacom program you're out of luck anyway, but for most everything else, search tool maker Blinkx rolled out a new service yesterday called Blinkx Remote, a search engine for full-length TV shows. Blinkx sorts through clips and full-length programs, providing direct links to off-site sources where you can watch the entire episode.

In the case of CBS' Jericho, Blinkx sent me off to CBS' Innertube service, where I had to install a Real Player plug-in to … Read more

Adobe unwraps Creative Suite 3

Now's the time for early adopters who can afford Adobe Creative Suite 3 to break out their credit cards. The professional interactive design software is officially for sale online. If you can't plunk down upwards of $1,000 for a suite (more in Europe--or buy a plane ticket from there to the States if you want to spend less), then check out some freebie Web-based and downloadable alternatives.

Thanks to Adobe's work to incorporate its staple software with its Macromedia acquisitions from 2005, integration throughout the applications is the biggest news to report with this upgrade. There … Read more

Virtual desktop trifecta at Web 2.0 Expo

Several exhibitors at next week's Web 2.0 Expo are recreating the desktop workspace experience by using new Web technologies such as Ajax and Adobe Flex. This isn't a new idea, but what is interesting is how many of them have forgone creating their own tools and stuck to integrating existing Web services in a stylized portal platform.

Zcubes attempts to emulate a desktop workspace with nearly 30 different tools that mimic desktop applications. With most of the tools relegated to things like casual drawing, comic strips, and Web browsing, the emphasis of the suite is fun.

G.ho.st (… Read more

Wii Internet Channel finally out of beta. Google wonders how Opera does it.

Have you ever wanted to browse the Web on your Wii? Well now you... have been able to do it for a few months. Okay, so the Internet Channel has been available for a while now. That's not really the point. The real news is that Opera has released the final version of the Internet Channel. The browser released in late December was a beta version so Opera could tweak it before releasing the final product.

This final version of the Internet Channel adds several new features to the program. The most notable changes are the addition of a … Read more

YouTube one-ups MySpace, launches political 'Spotlight' service

YouTube has announced a new series on content for political candidates, called Spotlight. Candidates will be able to ask the YouTube community a question and monitor comments and video responses sent in from users. They'll then get a chance to respond to the group discussion later in the week. The goal is to provide an open forum for users to know candidates a little better, and for people to ask questions directly--an option that's historically been out of reach (outside members of the press or those involved in campaign events). The project is also taking advantage of a … Read more

AniBOOM's ShapeShifter: easy user-generated animation creation

Old-school Mac users might remember a little application called HyperCard. Originally a database application, it doubled as a casual animation tool--letting users create fairly basic cartoons, frame by frame. This morning I've been playing around with AniBOOM's ShapeShifter, a Web-based animation creation tool that brings back those old feelings of black-and-white computing, with a new social bookmarking twist.

ShapeShifter is pretty simple to use. There are four shapes to choose from, and you can place them wherever you want on the canvas. Each shape can be rotated, resized and grouped together to make new forms. When you're … Read more

Update Roundup: invites, searches, and wiki VoIP

MyPunchBowl adds themes, public events. The invitation service we've been keeping an eye on since its January launch has updated with several user-requested features (75, according to its blog). One of the new additions is themed invitations, a feature we asked for in our original hands-on MyPunchBowl review. Also new is the option to create public events, so people can share a party's URL instead of requiring the host to manually go in and send out invites. Our favorite theme? Pretzel Day.

Clipmarks gets searchy with ClipSearch. Clipmarks, the Web bookmarking service, has added a search engine to … Read more

News roundup: Martha 2.0, Xbox does IM, Salesforce buys Koral

Martha Stewart goes 2.0. Martha Stewart's Web site has undergone a massive overhaul, combining photos, videos, and user forums to give it more of a community draw. Site creators apparently went through 15 years of archived content to re-index it for searching. Also updated are recipe pages, which now give you both the recipe for a dish and a video demonstrating how to prepare it.

Xbox Live and Windows Messenger buddies to merge. In next month's Xbox 360 system software update, Microsoft plans to add chat integration with Windows Live Messenger. It's the first real step … Read more

MySpace launches Quicktime trailers competitor, sort of

MySpace quietly launched Trailer Park this morning, a new area showcasing trailers for upcoming movies. All videos are played on the in-house MySpace player and can be embedded on member pages. Trailer Park is launching with five trailers from Lionsgate, Warner Bros., Independent, and Buena Vista Pictures.

The page is designed to feel like a member's profile, with forums, a friends list, and a comment board. The dearth of actual content about a movie (actors, ratings, and so on) can be found at the movie's marketing site, which gets its own link alongside the trailer.

Unfortunately, from the … Read more