Tech Today w/ Ken May

Are you unemployed? More to the point, are you underemployed and have extra time, but no job to fill it? A website called TaskRabbit is one of several that are hiring people to do immediate, temporary jobs for anyone. Need someone to do a chore for which you don’t have time? There might be someone who has time right now to do it:

Erika Dumaine, 24, logged onto TaskRabbit this April and saw the following plea for help: “Buy me shoes ASAP. I stepped in dog poop.” So Ms. Dumaine, now a full-time nanny, bought and delivered a requested new pair of navy blue Toms shoes from Nordstrom’s to the poster, Guillermo Rauch. (Her payment: $17.) Aura Montano, a 21-year-old nursing student, stood on the Brooklyn Bridge holding an “I heart Anie Lewis” sign one Friday evening in August so she could attract the attention of Eric Lewis’s wife and hand her flowers as she walked home from work. (She earned $19.)

Those handful of dollars per job can add up to a substantial sum:

After submitting an online application, completing a video interview and going through a Social Security number trace and a federal criminal background check, Ms. Greenham joined the San Francisco-based company’s crew of about 2,000 “TaskRabbits.” She does odd jobs via the service every day, aiming to clear at least $25 an hour. So far, she’s completed about 250 jobs and has racked up around $1,500 a month.

Like the guy who started renting out his personal possessions, we’re seeing more and more people using the Internet to create their own jobs and run microbusinesses. Isn’t that awesome?

Link -via Marginal Revolution | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user mahalie

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Websites That Let People Farm out Their Chores

Lucas123 writes “President Obama this week issued a directive to all federal agencies to upgrade records management processes from paper-based systems that have been around since President Truman’s administration to electronic records systems with Web 2.0 capabilities. Agencies have four months to come up with plans to improve their records keeping. Part of the directive is to have the National Archives and Records Administration store all long-term records and oversee electronic records management efforts in other agencies. Unfortunately, NARA doesn’t have a stellar record itself (PDF) in rolling out electronic records projects. Earlier this year, due to cost overruns and project mismanagement, NARA announced it was ending a 10-year effort to create an electronic records archive.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Obama Orders Federal Agencies To Digitize All Records

The Philips company introduces lights that run without electricity or solar power. Instead, they harness the bioluminescence of bacteria. You have to feed them fuel, namely methane and compost. The lights developed so far aren’t bright enough to read by, but they may have other uses, like illuminating dark roads and exit signs. Link -via Buzzfeed

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Bacteria-powered Lights

After a series of one-sided hearings, luxury goods maker Chanel has won recent court orders against hundreds of websites trafficking in counterfeit luxury goods. A federal judge in Nevada has agreed that Chanel can seize the domain names in question and transfer them all to US-based registrar GoDaddy. The judge also ordered “all Internet search engines” and “all social media websites”—explicitly naming Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Bing, Yahoo, and Google—to “de-index” the domain names and to remove them from any search results.

The case has been a remarkable one. Concerned about counterfeiting, Chanel has filed a joint suit in Nevada against nearly 700 domain names that appear to have nothing in common. When Chanel finds more names, it simply uses the same case and files new requests for more seizures. (A recent November 14 order went after an additional 228 sites; none had a chance to contest the request until after it was approved and the names had been seized.)

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US judge orders hundreds of sites “de-indexed” from Google, Facebook

The iPad hasn’t been much of a revenue stream for Microsoft, which has been focusing on developing its own competing tablet ecosystem. But as a software company, it can’t ignore the scores of millions of Apple devices out there for long. Sure, it has a few things in the App Store, but one of its biggest earners, Office, is entirely absent. The Daily reports that this is likely to change shortly, as Microsoft is planning to debut an iPad version of their productivity suite next year.

It would be a stripped-down version more in line with their mobile apps than the desktop ones. Users can, after all, easily view and make simple edits on a tablet machine, but heavy duty spreadsheet or slide work will still necessitate a desktop OS.

The price would likely be similar to that of Apple’s productivity apps: around $10, or at any rate in that vicinity. Price parity would be the ideal, but Microsoft may feel (perhaps rightly so) that its offering is worth more to enterprise users who have adopted the iPad informally as an email and calendar platform.

On the other hand, Microsoft doesn’t need the money so much as the platform presence, so a higher price seems unlikely. Preventing the leakage of users to Apple platforms is crucial in maintaining Microsoft’s dominance in the office apps arena.

The timing just turned out to be a bit awkward; Microsoft will certainly be putting out its own native and complete solution alongside Windows 8, but the iPad’s prominence is too great to be ignored at this point, and supporting it ASAP became more important than a unified tablet infrastructure. Hence a release to satisfy impatient customers and then later the “real” Office Tablet Edition.

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Report: Microsoft To Bring Office To iPad In 2012

Google has begun mapping indoor establishments like malls, airports, and retail stores, and today added the first indoor maps to its application for Android. Now, air travelers don’t have to bother with information booths and freestanding maps: Google Maps can show the way to their gate or the nearest coffee shop or bathroom. Turn-by-turn directions aren’t provided, but the maps will show users where they are in relation to nearby landmarks.

Instead of creating X-ray imaging satellites for the task, Google is partnering with the organizations that manage the facilities to get their floor plans into its Maps service. Airports in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and Tokyo are among the first to receive the indoor mapping treatment, joined by the Mall of America in Minnesota, certain locations of IKEA, Home Depot, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and others. While Google worked with these businesses to ensure a certain level of precision, the search company also set up a do-it-yourself site for other business owners to upload floor plans, blueprints, and directories and line them up with satellite images.

“Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available,” Google said in an announcement today. “The familiar ‘blue dot’ icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on.” But business owners that want to join in on the fun may have to wait a while. Google notes that “Google Maps Floor Plans is still in Beta. We’re still working out the kinks in how we process your floor plans, so right now we can’t give estimates on when your floor plans will appear in Google Maps for Android.”

Indoor Maps was added to version 6.0 of the Google Maps application for Android, and will presumably be added to additional mobile platforms in the future. We asked Google if Indoor Maps will work on desktop Web browsers, but were told that “the new indoor maps feature of Google Maps is only available on Android mobile devices at this time.” Microsoft, by the way, already has indoor mapping of major malls for Windows Phone and indoor mapping of airports and malls for the desktop.

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Google maps the indoors. Finding nearest bathroom has never been easier

Still tempted by the fruit of another? If you’re looking Microsoft’s way, but aren’t quite ready to toss your adoration for iOS or Android aside, the coders in Redmond are giving you an alternative to quitting cold turkey. By visiting http://aka.ms/wpdemo on one’s iOS or Android browser, you’ll be immediately tunneled into a emulation of Windows Phone 7. We gave it a test run here at Engadget HQ, and it seems that every tile and swipe save for Apps runs properly. Can’t say the fonts and such looked as smooth on our Galaxy S II as they do on the Radar, but it’s a solid effort that’ll definitely serve you well if you’re considering the switch. Just don’t try to flip the demo horizontally — that’s clearly a no-no.

Microsoft enables Android and iOS users to experience Windows Phone 7… via the web originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft enables Android and iOS users to experience Windows Phone 7… via the web

A new hybrid drive from Seagate can approach near-solid state drive speeds in opening programs and booting up a PC, according to benchmarks from Laptop Magazine and ExtremeTech. The second-gen 750GB Momentus XT uses adaptive memory to store your most used files on a small bit of flash storage, giving it a huge speed jump on your most frequently performed tasks.

The 750GB hard drive combined with 8GB of flash memory is designed to learn which files you most commonly use and cache them on the flash storage, allowing it to open programs very quickly. Laptop Magazine tests showed that after a few iterations, the Momentus XT was able to open Excel in 5.8 seconds, compared to 4.2 seconds for a Samsung SSD and 14 seconds for another 7200RPM HDD.

The flash memory also has a reserved section for Windows boot files, to crank up boot speeds. ExtremeTech found that the Momentus XT could boot in 14 seconds, nearly matching the 11 seconds of an Intel 320 SSD and soundly beating the 54 seconds of a 7200RPM HDD.

But the drive does have a significant weak point: performance under stress. Laptop Magazine clocked the drive at 22.6 seconds to open Excel while running a stress test, the same time it took a standard 7200RPM HDD. The Samsung SSD took only 6.7 seconds to open the same program under stress.

While the Momentus XT hybrid won’t provide a massive speed-up in all situations, it will likely fill a niche for those looking for affordable speed without compromising on storage space. It’s priced at $249, about $100 more than a standard 7,200RPM drive and $40 more than a 128GB SSD.

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Seagate hybrid drive approaches solid-state speeds at hard-disk prices

Last month, Verizon and Microsoft announced a partnership that will bring live HD TV channels to Xbox 360 customers who have active Xbox Live Gold subscriptions. Through the agreement, customers who sign up for the service will be able to watch live TV via their Xbox, without having to purchase any additional hardware. Of course, the coolest part of the news was not that you could watch live TV on your…well, you know…your TV, but that you could control it via the Xbox 360 Kinect. Yep, prepare to channel surf with your hands and your voice!

The offer is now ready to order, says Verizon, which has just launched the sign-up form here for new FiOS customers. Existing customers can just call Verizon to add an Xbox to their current service. (Note that in addition to Xbox Live Gold, you’ll also need to subscribe to both FiOS TV and FiOS Internet in order for this service to work).

To encourage new sign-ups, Verizon is offering an $89.99 “triple-play” package with TV, 35/35 Mbps Internet and Verizon voice service. They’ll even throw in a 12-month subscription to Xbox Live Gold and the “Xbox Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary” game. The offer is good through January 21st.

OK, now for the bad news: the sign-up form is live, but the service itself is not. Verizon says the FiOS TV app will not be available for download until next month. This is how you’ll be able to magically control the live TV channels using voice and gestures.

The live TV offering will launch with 26 channels on board, including MTV, Spike, Food Network, Comedy Central, HBO, CNN and Nickelodeon.

As a part of the deal, Verizon is also running a promotion with gaming network Machinima to sponsor the Gamers’ Choice Award for the Inside Gaming Awards. Voters can vote via Facebook or Twitter (using #FiOSGamers) for a chance to win two years of the trip-play service, a multi-room DVR, Microsoft Kinect and 40,000 Microsoft points.

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Verizon FiOS Customers Can Now Sign Up For New Xbox 360 Service, Will Let You Control Live TV With Your Hands

Apple has released the first beta of iOS 5.1, the newest version of its mobile operating system to developers, with slight tweaks to the settings and references to new iPad and iPhone lines. More »

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iOS 5.1 Beta Is Now Available, Fixes Location Services and References New iPads and iPhones [Updates]