Do you need to be connected all the time... even when flying?

Now there is a travel Web site that shows which flights are wireless-internet capable, HasWifi. 

For me it is worth checking it before buying a ticket. I makes flying a little bit more enjoyable.
 

There won't be no such thing as software. It will be all apps. Wait and see...

Apple is planning the new Mac App Store.

The store is a copy of the App Store used for the iPad / iPhone family. Downloading apps is easy and can happen in seconds with just a few clicks.

Apple is bringing the same system to its computers. No more cluttered traditional software installations and DVDs with licensing keys.

"The Mac App Store revolutionizes the way applications are installed on a computer — it happens in one step. Enter the same iTunes password you use to buy apps on iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. And within seconds, your new app flies to your Dock, ready to go.", explains Apple.
 

              
How to better equip U.S. troops? With smartphones. Seriously.

The U.S. Army plans to stream surveillance video images from unmanned planes to soldiers' cellphones in two years.

A number of companies, including Textron Inc, Raytheon Co, L-3 Communications Holding and Sierra Nevada Corp, are already working on a secure and encrypted 4G network system that would enable video streaming to smart phones. 
 

You should check this. There is an interesting free online meeting and collaboration tool that allows to conduct meeting with up to 250 people.

Just go to the join.me Web site, click to share your computer and get a code. You can send that code to anyone you like. People receive a phone number for holding conference calls, can send instant messages during presentations and can share control of a screen.

LogMein changes $29 per month for a "pro" version of join.me that has meeting schedulers, personalized access codes and other features.

This is a huge competition to Microsoft, I.B.M., Cisco/WebEx and Citrix. All of them charge around $49 per month. 

                     
It is time to consider rural outsourcing as a convenient and cost-effective alternative to offsore outsourcing.

A handful of about 20 fast-growing American IT firms in remote areas are getting a lot of business here, according to a revealing story by the Bloomberg Business Week magazine.

Cayuse Technologies is one of them. Situated in an Indian Reservation in Oregon, employs 200 people and sees $7.7 million in sales.  Other companies are Saturn Systems, Rural Sourcing and Onshore Technology Services.

Hourly cost is 10 to 150 percent more than rivals overseas. But after considering costs of oversight and quality control, rates are comparable.

Usually clients pay from the low $20s to $50 an hour.

Despite the fact that a quarter of the U.S. population –more than 61 million people– is rural, critics contend rural outsourcing will remain a niche because it won't be able to scale to a significant size for lack of workers.
 

YouTube has set up a new gallery page for its ambitious Life In A Day project.

This gallery captures many different views of what life was like on July 24, the day that YouTube asked users to submit clips.

Users uploaded more than 80,000 submissions from 197 countries. From all these user-generated clip, the producer and director Ridley Scott and the Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald will select representative clips and edit them into a documentary that will be unveiled at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, in January. 

Selling ticket online is a good business these days. Ticketmaster is the main vendor, but if it is about signing up for photography, art events or an indie comedy show, Eventbrite is a good choice. 

Since 2006, the company has sold 17 million tickets to events on its site. Last week, Eventbrite announced it had raised $20 million in venture financing.

Eventbrite makes money by charging event organizers; it takes a 2.5 percent cut of the ticket's cost, plus 99 cents per ticket sold through its site. 

Eventbrite gives organizers tools to create Web pages for their events, issue tickets and promote them across the Web. Eventbrite's recent integration with Facebook allows users to share their coming events with their online social circle.

Just imagine how many lives can save a self-driving car, as well as lower the enery cost.

Well, Google is developing one, according The NYT. It is a Toyota Prius which has a device on roof and it uses artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.

Seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control.

Engineers say that robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated.

As The New York Times writes, "the Google research program using artificial intelligence to revolutionize the automobile is proof that the company's ambitions reach beyond the search engine business."

However, Google says they don't have yet a clear plan to create a business from the experiments.

In addition, experts say that deployment of the technology is more than eight years away.
 

   
These are the Google's predictions for display advertising by 2015. (They were made last month during the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Mixx conference in New York).

In short, ads on the Web will be more social, mobile, real-time... and more profitable. 

• Half of display ads would include cost-per-view videos that viewers choose to watch. 
  On YouTube, people will be able to skip video ads after five seconds (and the advertiser won't pay for those views) or choose which of three ads to watch. 
   
• Half of the audience will be viewing ads in real time. It means changing elements of ads on the fly based on location, the viewer's interests and the weather. 
   
• Cellphone screens would be the No. 1 screen for viewing the Web by 2015. 
   
• Three quarters of all ads will be socially enabled. It means that all users will be able to share an ad. Advertising will be talking to consumers directly, that is, a two-way communication channel between a brand and its consumers.
   
• Rich media ads will comprise 50 percent of all campaigns, and static banner ads will become a thing of the past.

Transcripts help improve SEO of the page and video by adding relevant metadata into the video player.

There is a start up called SpeakerText that provides a service to transcribe videos and link those transcripts through a drop-down menu.

SpeakerText hosts the transcript in the cloud.

Users can click on a section of the transcript and be taken to that portion of the video. Also those portions of the video can be share on Twitter and Facebook.

It works only on supported video players, like YouTube, Blip.TV, Ooyala, WordPress, among other platform. Self-hosted videos must use JW Player.

See here an example.

Amazon.com has introduced Kindle for the Web, an interesting Web app that allows the embedding and sharing of sample chapters on any Web site. There is no need to download software and install any application (no Flash involved).

Web users will see a button on book pages that says "Read first chapter FREE."

Also what is interesting is that website owners will earn referral fees from Amazon when customers complete book purchases using the links on their websites. 

For now this technology is available by invitation only to people in an Amazon affiliate program. 

Here is a sample. Amazon provides more information here. 
 

This is interesting: AOL is betting on ad-supported content as its future. This strategy sets it appart from Google, which does not create any content.

To accomplish it, AOL is on shopping spree. Last week, it announced the buying of the tech news blog TechCrunch for more than $25 million and the Web video syndication company 5min.com for a deal at around $50-$65 million.

While 5min.com distributes a library of video clips from 1,000 media companies to more than 800 partner sites, TechCruch generates $10 million in annual revenue and $3.5 million in profits. It gets about 3.8 million unique visitors a month. 

AOL editorial business includes the gadget blog Engadget and Thing Labs, which makes software for consumers to post online.

In addition, AOL has hired hundreds of reporters to cover local news for the company's Patch property.

When trying to reach engaged and targeted audiences, an effective syndication strategy is key.

This what I believe now that we all are reinventing the online video business. 

This week it took my attention the deal of 5min.com with Dailymotion to bring there 200,000 how–to videos organized across 21 verticals. This follows 5min's recent deal to power newly launched Video Answer.com.

The Tel Avid-based 5min.com is one of the largest how-to video networks –along with Howcast and eHow. They get more than 110 million video views and 30 million unique visitor a month. They have 800 partner sites!

And they syndicate videos from about 1,000 online video producers, including CBS, Hearst, Scripps, and WatchMojo.

As said, a good example of a compelling syndication strategy. Or should I say super-syndication?