Python Power: Go Get It

NASA uses Python....
...so does Honeywell, Rackspace, Industrial Light and Magic, AstraZeneca, Youtube and many more...

Python is a dynamic object-oriented programming language that can be used for many kinds of software development. It offers strong support for integration with other languages and tools, comes with extensive standard libraries, and can be learned in a few days. Many Python programmers report substantial productivity gains and feel the language encourages the development of higher quality, more maintainable code.

Python runs on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, OS/2, Amiga, Palm Handhelds, and Nokia mobile phones. Python has also been ported to the Java and .NET virtual machines.

Python is distributed under an OSI-approved open source license that makes it free to use, even for commercial products.

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) holds and protects the intellectual property rights behind Python, underwrites the PyCon conference, and funds grants and other projects in the Python community.

Read more about Python HERE

NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

On 2 September 2007, ISO national bodies voted on Ecma 376, "OOXML". The ISO secretariat has decided to move forward with a Ballot Resolution Meeting in February 2008 to make the final decision. Microsoft got to pass with 19 "difficulties" round one (fasttrack OOXML) and lost round two (vote on OOXML), and now the fight moves to round three, the definitive one.

From February 25 to 29, 2008, national boards will meet in Geneva to discuss and vote finally on OOXML. If your country is not present, it won't have a say in the final result.

CLICK HERE for more information.

This website explains how to help your national ISO board do its job and reject OOXML.

SIGN A PETITION HERE saying NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard.

Highest Paying Search Terms

A List of Highest Paying search terms on the Google Ad System (Adwords).The prices set are in Canadian Dollars.

This is only a partial list of top search terms.For a full listing of these terms CLICK HERE.

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and many more...

BitTorrent Streaming Service Launched

BitTorrent Inc. has officially launched its P2P streaming service allowing content providers to save a lot of bandwidth. On the other hand, ISPs will be less happy because the bandwidth a user consumes while streaming a video will double.

BitTorrent Streaming is based on the BitTorrent protocol familiar to all, with - of course - some clever modifications to make streaming possible. BitTorrent Inc. offers their streaming solutions as an alternative to http streaming that websites like YouTube use at the moment. Because P2P streaming significantly lowers the costs for the content provider, it opens up the door to higher quality streams than we are used to now.

It works like this; the user who wants to watch a stream first has to install the BitTorrent DNA application, which is also bundled with the BitTorrent mainline client. When the user plays a BitTorrent accelerated stream it will not only download data, but also upload it to other people who are watching the same stream, similar to a regular BitTorrent download.

Some people have argued that BitTorrent Inc. would use the application (DNA) to let people seed content that they never agreed on downloading, for instance, to speed up the downloads from their entertainment network or sell the bandwidth to others.

However, BitTorrent Inc. CEO Ashwin Navin refutes this rumor and told TorrentFreak: “BitTorrent DNA only accelerates content that a user clicks on. It does not anticipate user wants, or pre-load a user’s PC with content they did not explicitly ask for (via an HTTP request from a webpage). Our terms for DNA require websites to disclose to users why and how DNA improves the experience for video, software, and games with P2P acceleration.”

BitTorrent Inc announced earlier this year that they will launch an ad-supported TV-network this fall. A TV-network powered by BitTorrent’s streaming servoce will have a great advantage compared to competing services, because it saves on resources, and keeps the bandwidth bills relatively low.

ISPs will probably not be happy with P2P streams, because it will increase the bandwidth their consumers are using - so it will cost them more money. The bandwidth war is not over yet.

Earlier Post: Joost is here to Juice up your Life...

Space Time: 3D Browser Revolution

New York based SpaceTime has released SpaceTime 3D, a web browser that literally takes tagged browsing 3D.

SpaceTime allows users to map out their browsing progress in a visual timeline, treating each site as an object that can be manipulated and rearranged within the 3D environment. Users can alternate between a 3D and 2D perspective as required.

SpaceTime’s search functionality loads multiple search results as a stack of separate pages, simultaneously loading 10 results at a time, each in its own window. Users can the flip through results, re-arrange the pages or manipulate them. SpaceTime search currently supports Google, Google Images, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Images, Flickr, eBay and others.

It’s difficult to describe the user experience. It’s pure eye candy, sort of like Second Life meets Firefox. As a standalone browser SpaceTime 3D lacks most of the extras you’d expect from a browser. There’s no bookmark support, there’s really nothing aside from the 3D rendering and search. I can’t see people abandoning their traditional browsers to embrace this; however the barrier to success comes not from millions of users, but from enough users to see a return through direct deals with Google and others through search affiliation fees, the same model used for Flock and Firefox.

Check this video below and see it for yourself...

How Innovators Connect

Some say it’s all about the idea. Some categorize it as an invention. Others question the validity of an innovation that is based on imitation. Irrespective of the view one may take, we can all agree that Innovation is paramount to our existence. Without it, we would be living rather stagnant lives.

How Innovators Connect is an attempt to showcase Innovation through the experiences of about 40 successful innovators in Silicon Valley and India. Among the various conversations with Innovators who’ve made a difference, there was a resounding confirmation that the process of innovation demands connectivity, and cannot be performed in a vacuum. We discovered that each of the innovators we spoke with shared connectivity traits. And, although they all had different approaches to connecting and valued different types of connections, there was a common set of principles shared by everyone. We’ve used these core principles as the framework with which to explore the process of innovation and to share some very thought-provoking stories of innovation.

Rohit Agarwal, techTribe's CEO and Founder, is co-authoring an upcoming book, How Innovators Connect, with Patty Brown, former executive editor of Optimize and Information Week Magazines. The book is scheduled to be released in March (and will be exclusively available in India). This Tribe will contain the latest and greatest updates on the book (as we make available select passages and notes that you might enjoy reading). We encourage you to ask questions or otherwise interact with Rohit on topics featured in the book. Rohit is currently doing a lecture series around the book.

The book contains examples from the nearly 40 interviews that he and Patty did with Sillicon Valley and Indian entrepreneurs to draw upon their experiences as they went about innovating and set up some very successful and some not-so-successful companies. There are lessons to be learnt, esp. at this juncture when we are seeing the first generation of entrepreneurs in India.

For More Information CLICK HERE

Founders at Work - Stories of Startups' Early Days

2000 was basically the year of fraud, where we were just losing more and more money every month. At one point we were losing over $10 million per month in fraud. It was crazy.

—Max Levchin, founder of PayPal, page 6

All the best things that I did at Apple came from (a) not having money and (b) not having done it before, ever. Every single thing that we came out with that was really
great, I'd never once done that thing in my life.

—Steve Wozniak, founder of Apple, page 36

Microsoft made a buyout offer for Excite in late '95, and even then I had Microsoft's CTO, Nathan Myhrvold, yelling at me, "Search is not a business. People are just going to search a few times and then bookmark what they want to go to."

—Joe Kraus, founder of Excite, page 68

I originally had my parents moderating, since they were retired, and after a few days I asked my dad how it was going. He said, "Oh, it's very interesting. Mom saw a picture of a guy and a girl and another girl, and they were doing..." So I told Jim, "Dude, my parents can't do this anymore. They're looking at porn all day."

—James Hong, founder of HotOrNot, page 380

Founders at Work is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.

Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover?

Nearly all technical people have thought of one day starting or working for a startup. For them, this book is the closest you can come to being a fly on the wall at a successful one, to learn how it's done.

But ultimately these interviews are required reading for anyone who wants to understand business, because startups are business reduced to its essence. The reason their founders become rich is that startups do what businesses do—create value—more intensively than almost any other part of the economy. What are the secrets that make successful startups so insanely productive? Read this book, and let the founders themselves tell you.

For More Information CLICK HERE