loader

KooLoader is a download manager that emphasizes simplicity and ease of use. It supports multiple simultaneous downloads, accelerated downloads, segmenting, and browser integration. We tested KooLoader in Windows XP and Windows 7.

As with many free tools, you can opt to install a third-party toolbar, but there's no other adware. We chose not to install something called the Gossiper Toolbar. The program's interface and functionality are similar to those of other download management utilities, with basic control icons for adding and deleting URLs, pausing and resuming downloads, and accessing the program's options. There are separate windows for … Read more

With yesterday's release of iPhone OS SDK 3.2 beta 5 less than a week after the release of beta 4, Apple has kicked its launch cycle into warp speed. (Prior to yesterday, betas were being released every two weeks.)

Beta 5 is a significant milestone for the iPad, due to be released in a little more than two-and-a-half weeks. We suspect that early iPad adopters will find a firmware update available for new devices on launch day or shortly after.

In addition to the SDK update, Apple has released version 1.3 of its Developer Application Loader utility, … Read more

The Power Loader "dual-arm power amplification robot" uses 18 electromagnetic motors that let the wearer lift 220 pounds without blinking. It gets its name from the exoskeleton from "Aliens" ("Get away from her, you bitch!"), and even has force-feedback.

It's being developed by a Kyoto, Japan-based Panasonic subsidiary called Activelink, which say it doesn't expect to see it being used for things like disaster relief efforts until around 2015. At the moment it has an aluminum-alloy frame weighing around 500 pounds, so hopefully they can shrink it down a bit. Very cool, … Read more

It is fascinating to see how people are using open source. I'm part of the "old guard" of open source, I suppose, delivering an open-source alternative to a tired market ripe for commoditization and innovation. But other companies, like OpenAds (open-source advertising server), Path Intelligence (tracking shopper flow based on the open-source GNU radio), Chumby (open-source consumer electronics/hardware), etc. are taking open source into new markets.

Today, I was fortunate to meet one of the most interesting open-source companies I've seen in a long, long time: Marketcetera. Marketcetera provides an open-source trading platform that hedge funds and others use to process and deliver trades through a brokerage to an exchange (like NASDAQ). It's like proprietary, expensive FlexTrade, only not proprietary...or expensive.

The market for this kind of platform is not huge today, as the founders, Toli Kuznets and Graham Miller, told me today (roughly $500 million for custom development, but probably not including packaged software like FlexTrade). But with more and more trading moving from people to algorithmic processes (30-40% in the US today, jumping to 50-60% by the end of the decade), the market will grow accordingly.

Besides, I can think of a range of other uses for this sort of technology beyond hedge funds.… Read more