Microsoft Opens Kinect To Developers, Get Ready For Cool PC Applications (MSFT)

Microsoft is officially bringing the Kinect motion-controlled sensor to the PC. The move could help make consumers excited about Windows again.

It's a smart move -- Kinect is the most innovative consumer product Microsoft has created in eons, and hackers were already creating weird and wonderful PC applications that could use it. Instead of fighting them, Microsoft is enabling them.

This spring, the company will release a software development kit (SDK) for hobbyists and non-commercial PC apps to use Kinect. Later, Microsoft will allow commercial developers to create apps for it as well, but it's still working out the details.

The move could rekindle consumer interest in Windows, which is feeling sales pressure from tablet computers running non-Microsoft operating systems like Apple's iPad and Google's Android. While Kinect is a decent little business for Microsoft -- it probably booked more than $1 billion in sales during the holidays -- Windows is still the company's biggest and most profitable product by far, earning about $13 billion on about $19 billion in revenue over the last year.

Now, don't miss: The Story Behind Kinect, Microsoft's Newest Billion-Dollar Business.

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See Also:

• From Booth Babes To Cirque: The Best Photos From E3
• A Complete Guide To Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect

Microsoft Opens Kinect To Developers, Get Ready For Cool PC Applications (MSFT)

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Path Raises $8.5 Million, Opens Up (A Little)

Path, the social photo-sharing service that limits sharing to your 50 closest friends and family members, has announced a new round of funding. It's also opening the service to allow sharing via e-mail, instead of requiring users to have the Path app on their iPhone.

The San Francisco startup raised $8.5 million from Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures, both of which will contribute a new board member. It was founded by former Facebook Connect developer Dave Morin and Napster creator Shawn Fanning.

Users have shared more than 2 million pictures -- sorry, that's "moments" -- through the service, which launched about a year ago. Previously, both users needed the Path iPhone app to share a picture, but now the company will let users add friends simply by entering an email address, and these friends will receive pictures in their inboxes.

Path still requires you to enter a phone number to sign up, however, which kills it for me.

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Path Raises $8.5 Million, Opens Up (A Little)

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Comment on FCC Opens the Door for Metered Broadband by dusanmal

@BrettGlass "Have users pay for the resources they use? Oh, horrors! " Internet access is NOT resource as electricity or water. It is not resource that must be produced as those and than used. If I use x amount of water or electricity producer needs to make/purify it and deliver it to me and than it is gone from the system as I use it, more needed to be made. Internet access as name implies is ACCESS to something. We pay for ability to access any Internet content at any time with only price difference being how fast we can get to it (and that is fair pricing distinction). Say that I and my neighbour pay for the same tier of Internet access to the same ISP. I use Internet occasionally for browsing and e-mail while he watches Netflix 24/7, shares a lot of data on torrent sites and who knows what else. We pay the same. As we should! Because both of us do have access to all of the Internet 24/7 at the same speed of access. That is what we are paying for. If at any moment I want to access Netflix same as him - I CAN! Does some factory need to churn more of that same Netflix content once I or him uses it? -NO. It is "just there" to be accessed. It would be there whether we watched it or not. That is the reason for the same pricing and insanity of "amount of usage" of something that is not spent. Hence "amount of usage" is false concept. We pay for access to whole Internet at any moment at certain speed. That's it.

Comment on FCC Opens the Door for Metered Broadband by dusanmal

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/2010/12/01/fcc-opens-the-door-for-metered-web-access/#comment-530027

Comment on Can Mobile Phones Think? by Nokia Opens Its Ovi Suite 3.0 Beta To The Public – UberGizmo | OpenBeta.com

[...] releases Ovi Suite 3.0 BetaRethink WirelessNokia Ovi Suite 3.0 opens in betaPocket-lint.comGigaOm -Tech Pinger -IntoMobileall 27 news [...]

Comment on Can Mobile Phones Think? by Nokia Opens Its Ovi Suite 3.0 Beta To The Public – UberGizmo | OpenBeta.com

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/2010/11/26/can-mobile-phones-think/#comment-524781

Comment on Appistry Opens the Cloud to (Almost) All Apps by Why Cloud Computing Sells and NoSQL Is Fading: Cloud «

[...] which experimented with terms like “hive computing” and “application fabric” before settling into its cloud groove, or Cloud.com, which wasn’t getting nearly the attention it deserves under its previous VMOps [...]

Comment on Appistry Opens the Cloud to (Almost) All Apps by Why Cloud Computing Sells and NoSQL Is Fading: Cloud «

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/2009/03/09/appistry-opens-the-cloud-to-almost-all-apps/#comment-523929

Greater Orlando Medical Weight Loss Clinic opens second location in Dr. Phillips. - PRLog.Org (press release)

PRLog.Org (press release)
Greater Orlando Medical Weight Loss Clinic opens second location in Dr. Phillips.
PRLog.Org (press release)
PRLog (Press Release) - Nov 20, 2010 - Dr. Rene Cruz of Greater Orlando Medical Weight Loss Clinic is happy to ann

Tags: medical orlando weight weight loss tips release loss location clinic press second greater phillips

Greater Orlando Medical Weight Loss Clinic opens second location in Dr. Phillips. - PRLog.Org (press release)

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#YYJ Opens Up to Citizens via Victoria Votes iPhone App #Gov20 #OpenGov

The city of Victoria, BC Canada has released a new, official mobile app (iphone) to connect with constituents during the 2010 by-election. The application can be found under the free iTunes apps in the “Social Networking” category, or by searching the term “Victoria Votes”. The application enables the user to connect their app to Twitter [...]

Post originale: http://blog.gisuser.com/?p=8112

adidas Y-3 Opens Fifth Freestanding Beijing Location

Just last Friday, Y-3 opened its 30th location in China and 5th in Beijing, as the newest store opened at Shin Kong Place.

Post originale: http://www.blogcatalog.com/search/frame?term=location&id;=3357e27de4497c26d7e345f9a781890a

Tier5's $100 Million Data Centre Facility Opens in Adelaide

Start-up data centre company, Tier5, launched a multi-million dollar facility in Adelaide which is the first centre in the world to utilise Dells’ third generation data centre technology, MDC.

The site, situated in a building which formerly housed the Mitsubishi manufacturing plant, provides 4000 square metres of data centre space which will be custom built as client demand requires.

This approach of building to specification was possible due to Dells latest modular data centre configuration which means a more efficient and flexible set-up, Tier5 CEO Peter Wildy told ARN.

“We wanted to build a facility that could have a tier 2, 3 or 4 module next to each other.

“Scability was important to us and we didn’t want to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars up front, we wanted to grow it and scale out as we needed”.

The new Dell offering consisted of cooling and power modules that snap together in a modular configuration.

Dell Australia & New Zealand MD, Joe Kremer, said the new product was launched after Dell identified a lack of capacity in the data centre market.

“Australia is experiencing a crisis with regard to data centre capacity. Billions are being spent at fever pitch as government and corporate organisations race to develop new facilities as older data centres run out of power and space and present an increasing drag on the environment and our valuable resources”.

Tier5 envisages that MDC will save its customers about $8 million a year in power costs.

The company plans to roll-out multi-tenant data centre facilities in other capital cities after the Adelaide launch, where it has demonstrated a need for new data centre facilities.

Tier5 founder, Marty Gauvin, told The Australian that he estimated the state’s data centre expenditure was $50 million a year.

“We think the data centre market in South Australia is worth about $50m a year but the interesting thing is we would actually see our facility as probably taking half of its revenue out of that demand and half of its revenue out of demand out of state”.

Tier5 would operate the facility as both owner/manager and wholesaler of space - dealing directly with clients requiring one megawatt or more, while smaller clients would go through a third party supplier.

The capacity for the facility was 8 megawatt and if all customers take-up Tier 3 configurations, the facility will cost $100 million to build.

It is understood that organisations that have shown interest in the facility include the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Flinders University, Adelaide University, South Australia Health, IAG and Adelaide University.

Strategies and solutions for managing both in-house data centres and co-location environments will be shared at CeBIT Australia’s Future-Proofing your Data Centre 2011 in February.

The program will showcase case studies about cost-effective and innovative data centre management and reveal the latest technology and solutions currently available.

The event takes place 14 – 15 February in Sydney. More information at www.cebit.com.au/datacentres.
 

Ping Opens Up to Twitter to Make Music Buying Social

Apple has opened up its Ping social network to Twitter's 175 million users, allowing those users to connect their accounts to the iTunes-based network and share links and previews. The deal gives Apple more reach, and could help drive traffic to Twitter's newly relaunched website.

Post originale: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/NycoeZqhCVw/

The Radar: Vatican Library Opens, Gap Years More Popular, National Parks Fee Free

• This winter the recently restored Vatican Library will open its doors to the public for the first time, giving visitors the unique opportunity to view rare historical texts, ancient coins, and manuscripts that are typically accessible only by scholars. Open from November 11, 2010 to January 31, 2011 reservations for the exhibit, "The Vatican Library: A Story Open to the Future," must be made in advance. [Jospers' Posterous]

• More U.S. students are taking gap years according to an MSNBC report. Gap years-- a break taken by students between graduating high school and starting college-- are becoming more popular as organizations and educators work to spread awareness about gap year opportunities and the related advantages. [MSNBC.com via @lostgirlsworld]

• National Parks that charge admission will waive the fee tomorrow in honor of Veterans Day. In addition, several parks have special events, deals, and prizes being offered in conjunction with the holiday. This is the last of the popular fee free days in 2010, but the NPS plans to continue the service next year. [Gadling]

Got Radar? Tag your favorite travel stories from the web #ngtradar and follow us on Twitter @NatGeoTraveler and @IntelligentTrav.

Photo: Ron Giacone/My Shot

Post originale: http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/2010/11/the-radar-vatican-library-open.html

Tesla Opens Model S Facility, Talks Model X [VIDEO]

by Zach McDonald

In a ceremony yesterday attended by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Tesla CEO Elon Musk officially opened the factory that will be the birthplace of thousands of Model S sedans per year. Located in Fremont, Calif., the 5.2-million-square-foot former NUMMI facility is scheduled to begin production in mid-2012, with a starting capacity of about 7,000 vehicles annually-though Tesla says it hopes to raise that number to 20,000 after the first year. Only about 20 percent of the factory's space will be utilized initially, giving the company plenty of room to grow as it unveils new models and increases sales. Since Tesla only paid $42 million for the both the factory and millions of dollars in equipment that were left behind when Toyota shuttered it last year, starting out with too much space wasn't a problem. After a few words of reflection and thanks, Musk raised the curtain on the plant's new signage and huddled with a few members of the assembled media. Among the topics of discussion were the Model S's battery technology, Tesla's planned Model X electric SUV, and the Chevy Volt, which Musk took the opportunity to both chide and take credit for. For all his detractors, you certainly can't say that the man doesn't know how to deliver a good quote from time to time: On the Model X: "I'm hopeful we will unveil a prototype toward the end of next year. When it will go into production is harder to predict because we want to make sure the Model S production line is operating smoothly before we introduce another variant... But certainly [within] two years when we start Model S production, we will have the Model X." On the Model S's battery: "For the Roadster we use an almost unmodified laptop cell, but for the Model S it is actually a highly modified cell... it's an 18650 cell, so the external form factor is the same so that we can take advantage of the economies of scale of 18650 production, but internals are quite different." On the Volt: "That approach is what it is, it's a hybrid...it's actually similar to an amphibian. In the transition form the oceans to land, there were a lot of amphibians, but now there's not that many amphibians... There's a medium-term role for a plug-in hybrid, but in our view not a long-term role. On Tesla's legacy: "I think I'll be pretty happy if they say that Tesla helped to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation by five years, maybe as much as ten years. You know, the Volt is because of Tesla. I'm not sure if you're aware of that, but Bob Lutz does credit Tesla with being the reason for getting the Volt program going." Reprinted with permission from PluginCars

Post originale: http://featured.matternetwork.com/2010/10/tesla-opens-model-s-facility.cfm

Verizon's CEO Opens Up About Steve Jobs (VZ, AAPL, T)

Fortune is the latest to report the iPhone is coming to Verizon next year. It reports this nugget at the top of a big profile of Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.

While Seidenberg doesn't confirm (on the record) the iPhone is coming to Verizon, he does open up about Verizon's negotiations with Apple through the years. Here's how it went down:

• In 2005, Apple approached Verizon about carrying the iPhone. Verizon balked at giving Apple so much control.

• In 2007, just before the iPhone launched, Seidenberg went to Apple's HQ and asked Steve Jobs, "Why are we in your doghouse here?" (The two companies hadn't spoken since Verizon balked at Apple's terms in 2005.)

• Fortune suggests Apple didn't want a phone that was CDMA, because it couldn't sell it around the world. This is why Verizon was in the "doghouse."

• In December 2007, after the iPhone was on the market, but customers were complaining about shoddy service, Lowell McAdam, CEO Verizon Wireless called up Jobs and said, "We really ought to talk about how we do business together. We weren't able to [reach an agreement] a couple of years before, but it's probably worth having another discussion to make sure we're not missing something." Job's reportedly said, "Yeah, you're probably right. We have missed something."

• Three years later the companies are finally working together. The iPad is in Verizon stores, and the iPhone will hit next year.

• Seidenberg also says Jobs respects Verizon, telling him in December 2009, "Decisions you made [at Verizon] are decisions we would make at Apple."

We wonder how AT&T feels about that last quote.

See Also: If AT&T Is So Bad, Why Is It Beating Verizon Every Quarter?

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Verizon To Start Selling iPads Starting October 28
• My iPhone 4 Has Totally Killed My Digital Camera
• CHART OF THE DAY: If AT&T Is So Bad, Why Is It Beating Verizon Every Quarter?

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