hAcx (Yaniv) Technology & Web 2.0 News

YouTube Will Allow Revenue Sharing

2007-01-27T11:53:00.001-08:00

BBC reports that YouTube will allow revenue sharing, but only for uncopyrighted videos.

YouTube
founder Chad Hurley confirmed to the BBC that his team was working on a
revenue-sharing mechanism that would "reward creativity".

The
system would be rolled out in a couple of months, he said, and use a
mixture of adverts, including short clips shown ahead of the actual
film.

The system should be launched after YouTube manages to develop the content identification software
that will "scan a digital file, such as an MP3 or video, and compare
the electronic fingerprints to databases of copyright material". This way they'll be able to see if a video uses copyrighted material or if it's just a duplicate of another video.

Google Image Search Has a Cleaner Look

2007-01-23T23:34:00.001-08:00

Another important change for Google today: Google Image Search
has a cleaner look. As you can see in the screenshot below, Google only
shows the thumbnail and a short snippet for each result. To read more
information about the image, hover over the image and get: the file
size, pixel dimension, format and the domain.

I like the change, because the most important factor when you
decide if an image result is OK is the thumbnail, not the source of the
image or its format. If you want a certain format or only big images,
you can always the advanced search.

This new design, heavily inspired by Windows Live Search, uses JavaScript, so if you disable JavaScript in your browser, you'll get the old version.

The New Google Groups Is Out Of Beta

2007-01-23T23:33:00.001-08:00

From Google Operating System Ionut Alex. Chitu

The slick new Google Groups launched in October last year and available at groups-beta.google.com is now out of beta and moves to groups.google.com.

You'll find a cleaner homepage, search results that look more like
web search results, topics that borrow a lot from Gmail's
conversations. Each group has 100 MB storage space you can use to
upload files or to collaboratively edit documents. Groups are much more
customizable: you can change the colors and add welcome messages.

Now Google should focus on creating some filters for spam posts and a way to discover potentially interesting groups.

Blu-ray cracked too?

2007-01-20T10:47:00.001-08:00

It's still early on to tell whether this is actually true, but HD DVD cracker muslix64 is back,
and with the help of another anti-DRM cracker, Janvitos, claims to have
also broken the Blu-ray's implementation of AACS. Although their
protection does not yet account for BD+ copy-protection, they claim to
have been able to implement the same key-grabbing known-plaintext
attack as muslix64 used to crack HD DVD in order to successfully to
crack Blu-ray without even using a disc or drive (apparently they just
used a raw encrypted data file and nothing more). Unfortunately they
haven't yet posted code for us to test this out, so we'll have to take
their word for it for the time being.

Yahoo World Explorer - TagMaps

2007-01-19T03:46:00.000-08:00

Yahoo World Explorer is a sample Flash application implemented with the help of the new Yahoo TagMaps API. It displays Flickr tags on a Yahoo map, and clicking on a specific tag will show the associated photos to the right side. Unfortunately, the link to open these photos in full size on Flickr didn’t work here.

PayPal To Offer Security Key Fobs

2007-01-15T11:09:00.001-08:00

Engadget - "PayPal is readying a VeriSign security key that will resemble the RSA SecureID we corporate workers are all too familiar with with, and will sport a monochrome LCD screen that rotates a six-digit password every 30 seconds. Clients who opt to use this device will be able to enter it along with their usual username / password credentials when logging in, which would prevent scammers from accessing their account without the key fob in hand. The firm has been testing the device with employees for "several months," and plans to start trialing it with customers "within a month or so." Personal account owners in America, Germany, and Australia will eventually have the option of picking one up for a one-time fee of $5, while business accounts will receive the unit gratis, but if you're not savvy enough to pass on by those tempting scams, five bucks could be a small price to pay to keep your cash out of strangers' hands".

Firefox 3 Alpha 1 - The First Taste

2007-01-15T01:11:00.001-08:00

Project code name "Gran Paradiso", is the version 3 of the popular mozilla browser Firefox 3. The new generation of the Firefox browser introduces several new features which can be tested in the first alpha 1. Notice that some of the changes in Gecko 1.9 Alpha 1 will affect the web and platform compatibility of Gran Paradiso Alpha 1:

* Cairo is now being used as the default graphics library, affecting all graphic and text rendering
* Cocoa Widgets are now used in OS X builds
* An updated threading model
* Changes to how DOM events are dispatched
* Changes to how elements are loaded
* Changes to how web pages are painted
* New SVG elements and filters, and improved SVG specification compliance
* Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows ME are no longer supported platforms
* OS X 10.2 is no longer supported, and OS X 10.3.9 or higher is recommended
* Moving DOM nodes between documents now requires a call to importNode or adoptNode as per the DOM specification.

iPhone - Close Look At CBS (Video)

2007-01-12T06:05:00.001-08:00

As you know Apple introduced their iPhone cellphone a few days ago and i gotta say its pretty impressive, even i got very impressed, and i'm really not a big fan of cellphones and it's kind (i got my first cellphone only 3 years ago).
but i tell you that, the minute it gets out on sell here in israel, even with a price tag of 499$ - I Will Get It !

Here is a video from CBS showing off the features in the iPhone:

Pixelotto Isn't Doing So Good

2007-01-09T09:41:00.001-08:00

About few weeks ago i posted a story about new site called Pixelotto.com by the (millionaire) owner of the legendary site MillionDollarHomepage.com, so i decided to check back again and see how his new project is doing, as expected the site ain't doing so good.

he managed to raise only 146,900$ by now (it haven't changed for the past week), about a month since it took off, and who knows how much of this amount he actually sold out and how much he had to fabricate or give away to warm up his pixel-board so advertisers can see their money is not wasted on an empty/unvisited site.

my guess is this site ain't gonna make any more million $$$ for the owner who made his first million in his previous project that got about a million sites copying the idea and turning it to something we (the surfers) want to avoid.. too boring.

nLite v1.3 RC - Released!

2007-01-06T00:29:00.001-08:00

nLite is a tool for permanent Windows components removal and pre-installation Windows configuration. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines.
With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install does not include, or even contain on cd, the unwanted components.

Changes in this version:

new: Tweak - Minimal Power Management
update: 'Save Dump' upgraded to 'Symbolic Debugger'
fix: Erase then burn stuck at erase
fix: Users creation (with spaces in names)
fix: Missing nhelper (at conservative usage)
fix: ExtraFileEdits addon entry support (multiple lines)
fix: x64 Help removal (could cause many components to fail)
fix: Integrate themes selection (theme removed from the list)
fix: USBPort patch (if duplicate file in cabinets)

as a computer technician i use this program quite often to make faster installation of windows, i managed to reduce installation time from 60 minutes (including third-party programs such as winrar, klite, anti-virus, etc,..) to as much as 20 minutes!

A Handy Little CSS Cheat Sheet

2007-01-02T03:21:00.001-08:00

On this page you can find a great little CSS cheat sheet if your just starting your way with CSS.
take a look at the box diagram, should make your life a lot more easier if you're a newbie !

More Pictures Of Me Using JumpCut.com

2006-12-30T12:14:00.000-08:00

Jumpcut.com has by far best video editing flash tool on the web today (in my opinion), and i used it a lot in the past to do some slideshows and small clips for me and my friends.
the flash editing interface is so sweet you can generate a fairly decent clip of your pictures (with a background music) in seconds.
here is a small slideshow i did a while back.. just a way to get to know me better:

Search Results As SlideShow

2006-12-30T10:54:00.001-08:00

This site shows image search results from Google, Yahoo and Windows Live as a slideshow. It scales the images to fit the window, lets you pause it and if you click on an image, you'll get to the original page that contained the image or a link to the image.
and if your in the "mood" you can un-check "Safe Search" - as the site says.

dunno if anyone have anything useful to do with this thing, but still.. it's original.

Never Knew I'm "The Hulk".. For Real!

2006-12-30T03:34:00.001-08:00

According to What Superhero Are You i'm 95% Hulk.. well, i don't even like this character, but i guess the site knows better.
This site gives you a bunch of questions and then tells you which comic character best fit your personality.

More from the site, Michel Arrington is 70% - Green Lantern, Dave Winer is 95% Superman and Steve Rubel is 85% Iron Man.. then why the hell am i "The Hulk"?! Green was never my color!

(I had nothing to do with that 58% Supergirl thing!)

Saddam Death Might Be In The Top Dugg Items

2006-12-30T01:51:00.001-08:00

Saddam just got executed by hanging in iraq and ofcourse the story got to digg.
Just take a look at the digg swarm screen shot when the story got published:

no question about this story getting into "Digg All-Time dugg items".

Blogger? You Should Really Check Out ScribeFire

2006-12-30T01:34:00.001-08:00

I came across ScribeFire on a post published on TechCrunch.
It is actually a FireFox plugin that make a blogger life a lot easier by giving him the basic stuff he needs to edit or publish stories on his blog.
yeah yeah.. i know there are a lot of plugins that do the same thing, and this is nothing new, but this one REALLY has all the features a blogger need including a site metrics (yes, another blog stats) in single click.

using this plugin you can manage multiple blogs (on all platforms: blogger/typepad/..) and view their history as well as drafts, all sorted in categories of your choice. you can also view your blogs metrics and search Technorati right from the plugin window.

The editor tough is missing the default style option that the web interface has when you add a new image, such as logo to the top of the story, making you edit the html and manually add the style to the image.

ScribeFire really did a good job putting all the features in one plugin. im just thinking of the time it took me to get into Blogger and post a new story and adding all the pictures and then previewing the story, all in the web interface makes me think why haven't i use this kind of plugin before. Sweet!

iLoggo - Create a Thumbnail Grid From Your Favorites Sites

2006-12-28T00:24:00.000-08:00

iLoggo.Com a Polish based company, allows you to save all your favorite sites into a convenient visual map. Each user will be able to easily and quickly access all of his frequently visited sites.

Really cool if you want to make a graphical thumbnail starting page for your yourself or even your customers (if your a computer tech. you can understand how many phone calls you can save when one customer calls you and ask how to get to one site or the other).

Gizmodo Published Top 10 Blogger Babes of 2006

2006-12-27T23:38:00.000-08:00

Gizmodo just published a list of the Top 10 blogger babes of 2006 and believe me the blogosphere couldn't look better, with this look who cares what they are blogging about ;)

(Just take a look, it even puts my picture to shame)

Microsoft Hands Out Acer Ferrari’s To Bloggers

2006-12-27T11:52:00.000-08:00

Microsoft together with AMD gave out some really nice Christmas presents to a bunch of bloggers this year. Brandon LeBlanc got one, Scott Beale got one, Barb Bowman got one, Mauricio Freitas got one, Mitch Denny got one, Zen.Heavengames got one, plus many other bloggers who did not even write about it (shame on them). They seem to have covered everyone from A-list to Z-list, a first in the industry with such a valuable gift, kudos for thinking about the little guys.

Some people got Ferrari 1000s, others got 5000s. The following specs are from the 5000.

The machine looks just as good as it specs. As part of Acer’s Ferrari designer computing range, the carbon-fiber case is styled with a slick threaded finish with genuine Ferrari badging and color strips. Just like the racing counterpart, this machine has grunt. It sports an AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core 2ghz CPU, 2GB of DDR2-667 RAM, AMD-ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 on a 15.4″ widescreen. It also has a 160GB SATA drive, HD-DVD reader and burner as well as a 1.3mp camera. Full specifications available at the Acer website.

Use Google Code Search To Hack To Sites

2006-12-27T01:31:00.000-08:00

Here is a nice article describing how Hackers can use Google Code search to find useful sql connection strings or different backdoors in the site code that they can use to hack into a site.
here are few examples from the article:

SQL Injection exploits:
lang:php query$.*\$_(GET|POST|COOKIE|REQUEST|FILES).*$

XSS exploits:
lang:php (ECHO|PRINT) .*\$_(GET|POST|COOKIE|REQUEST|FILES)

Find host,user,pass for mysql databases:
lang:php mysql_connect\((”|’)[a-zA-Z0-9_.]+(”|’),(”|’)[a-zA-Z0-9]+(”|’) -localhost -127.0.0.1 -192.168

ofcourse, if you have some imagination you can enhance those queries on other source codes other then php and mysql.

WiiHaveAProblem.com - Wii Injuries

2006-12-27T01:24:00.000-08:00

"Wii have a problem" is a blog focused on bringing you the latest trend in gaming violence. That of damage caused by "window lickers" who should not be participating in activity of any form... yet own a Wii. Why? Because we're fanboys that's why.

The Wii-motes have a problem with the hand-strip which is too thin and rip a part on big strain, making all kind of injuries to people and their surrounding when it simply fly out of their hands.
Nintendo announced today that they will be replacing 3.2 million strips with a much stronger one.

AllofMp3.com Sued for $1.65 Trillion!

2006-12-23T04:47:00.000-08:00

The RIAA is suing the website AllofMP3.com on behalf of EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music in the amount of $150,000 for each of the 11 million songs that were downloaded from June to October of 2006. That comes to a lawsuit totaling $1.65 trillion!

For those of you who have been hibernating for the last few months I’ll give you a quick run down on the excitement that AllofMP3.com has had. They are a Russian music website that operates legally in Russia but it is deemed illegal in other countries, such as the United States, because they don’t pay royalties to the artists. The RIAA continues to do everything in their power to shutdown the site but their attempts fail one after another. The United States even went as far as blocking Russia’s entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) until they shutdown the site.

55 Gmail Tips - The Complete Collection

2006-12-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

Here is a site that lists 55 Gmail tips you might don't know about:

Crazy 3D Avatars From Gizmoz

2006-12-21T04:53:00.000-08:00

Gizmoz has a Flash-based 3D avatar product that is made from a single picture of a person plus their recorded voice.

Users start by uploading a picture of themselves or their pet. Gizmoz turns the picture into a 3D model (see image to right), and the avatar can then be customized with a body, clothes, effects (scars, tattoos, etc.) and backgrounds. You then record a message and sound effects, and your avatar is created. The end result has a moving mouth and facial expressions while you talk, and the effect is quite stunning. Eyal calls it “bringing Pixar to the people.”

The personalized avatar product is still in private beta. The existing product on the site requires the use of a library face, but can be customized and a personal voice can be added. These avatars can be embedded in websites, and Gizmoz also has a downloadable application that adds these avatars to all major instant messaging services.

Google Site Status Tool

2006-12-20T23:51:00.000-08:00

Very cool little tool by google that tells you when you're site was last scanned and if the bots found any errors while indexing the pages.
very handy if you're a site owner.