Google has announced a lot of new additions to its translation offering. Firstly they have announced a new website translator gadget which is available in 51 languages. Now, when people visit your page, if their language (as determined by their browser settings) is different than the language of your page, they’ll be prompted to automatically translate the page into their own language. If the visitor’s language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.
Additionally, Google has announced that they have improved their Toolbar, which now also includes in-page translation.
Our friends at The Next Web have put found a great chart of Google’s Acquisitions and Investments. Click here for a larger view.
Im sure there are so many people out there who want to start making games and applications for Facebook, but aren’t really too sure where to start. App Bank provides everyone with the very basic tools which can not only help them get started creating a Facebook app, but will also help them to monetize their application.
AppBank is the only provider that pays you for creating and uploading social content to major social networks like Facebook. Obviously if your application is of high quality and the more users you have, then the more you can make from your application.
AppBank provides the user with free technology that they can use to develop their application and then the user will receive a percentage of their advertising revenues, with the other small percentage going to AppBank. Currently AppBank dont disclose the amount they are receiving on the site itself, which is a downside. However, if you are looking to start creating your own Facebook applications, but not too sure how to go about it, then AppBank is the first place you should call.
Hermes a French design firm has partnered with Monaco based ship builder Wally to create the ‘WHY 58×38,’ a craft that will cost around £90million to build.
Naval architect Mauro Sculii said: ‘The advantage of travelling on the WHY boat is that you take your own space with you, your house, your island so you are not in a hurry to arrive, you just have the pleasure of travelling and being on board. That’s the novelty. Usually a boat is just a means of transport.’
Cisco Systems has announced today that its buying Norway’s Tandberg video communications business for $3 billion.
The deal should enhance Cisco’s own TelePresence business where it sells room-sized video conferencing systems that make you feel like you’re talking to people in the same room. These systems costs hundreds of thousands of dollars each but executives feel they can use them to save on travel costs. Tandberg is one of the chief rivals in the business and it makes specialized software for managing the conferencing systems and managing the connections between them.
This new deal is going to put a lot of pressure on Hewlett-Packard who have a very strong video conferencing business with their Halo product. In theory, video conferencing creates a lot of Internet traffic, which in turn helps Cisco’s core business of selling networking gear.
Cisco has bought 40 companies over the past five years, according to the New York Times. In the past week, merger mania has erupted, with Dell buying Perot Systems for $3.9 billion and Xerox buying ACS for $6.4 billion.
Here at Crenk we are looking to expand our writing staff. Currently we have openings for writers on the following topics:
- Advertising
- Blogging
- Mobile Apps
- Products
- Search Engines
- Software
If you are interested in any specific topic then it would be great to hear from you. If you can send over a brief intro with some previous work, then we can discuss the finer details.
Thanks, Crenk Team.
Amazon’s Kindle e-reader has been getting a lot of great reviews ever since its launch in the USA in 2007 and now it is set to make its way to the UK. It has been reported by the The Bookseller that claims Amazon is preparing to announce the device as early as next week. This announcement is of course timed nicely so that the Kindle will have a nice run up to Christmas.
The delay in launching internationally has been down to the internet connection used on the Kindle. The connection works over mobile phone networks and allows users to browse and buy book wherever they can get a phone signal. Qualcomm has reportedly been working on a version of the Kindle compatible with UK mobile frequencies.
Moving the Kindle into the UK market will really help move the e-reader market, in which is still yet to take off here in the UK.
Over at iLounge they have got a tip from a very reliable source about the specifics of the new Apple Tablet that a lot of people have been talking about. On Crenk we first talked about the Apple tablet back in May and then again in August. The iLounge source also correctly called the iPod nano 5G, iPhone 3GS and Chinese iPhone 3G months ago.
- Apple has created at least three separate prototypes of its tablet computer. Let’s call it “iPad.”
- Version 1 was designed with a 7” screen, which was judged to be too small. The latest version has a 10.7” screen.
- It runs iPhone OS.
- There have been reports that it looks like an iPhone. They’re sort of true. It looks like an iPhone 3G, complete with a curved back.
- It will come in two different variations: one with 3G networking capabilities, and one without 3G networking capabilities. Think of the 3G version as a bigscreen iPhone 3GS, and the non-3G version as a bigscreen iPod touch.
- Screen resolutions will obviously jump considerably from the iPhone and iPod touch 480×320-pixel displays, enabling easy reading of full-sized book and magazine pages, plus cropped newspaper pages. Expect something like 5-6 times the resolution of an iPod touch or iPhone screen (720p or thereabouts) and 7 times the touchable surface area.
- It is designed to expand the iPhone and iPod touch media concept to its next potential level: as a slate-like replacement for books and magazines, plus all of the media, gaming, app, and web functionality of the iPhone and iPod touch.
- It is not meant to compete with netbooks. It’s an iPhone OS media player and light communication device.
- Apple is currently planning to announce it on or before January 19, 2010, and to use an iPhone-like hype buildup period to start selling it in May or June.
- It is apparently awaiting a final green light from Steve Jobs; chances of it appearing in the market are believed to be 80% at this point.
There are so many sites out there that have a stab in the dark to let you know how much your website is worth. Most of these sites dont even get close on the basic metrics let alone of value figure. Today I came across a new website evaluation site that actually gets the basic metrics right, even though the value figure might be a little off.
BizInformation.org is a very simple website idea that valuates any given url. BizInformation presents the value of the site, daily pageviews, daily visitors, website rankings, indexing stats and social media stats. Thus, provide a decent overall look at the key metrics for the sites and then tries to determine the overall value. This seems to be a very simple way of doing it, but also very affective. I was very surprised to see how accurate the service can be in terms of daily pageviews and daily visitors.
Currently BizInformation thinks that Crenk has an overall value of $1.67 million and based on that amount I would even have to consider selling.
There has been a lot of reports about Google Chrome OS which Google officially announced they have been working on. Since that time I have been very keen to get my hands on the product and give it a good test.
I came across a very interesting article today about installing Google Chrome OS for Linux machines.
First things first you will need to download Google Chrome OS Beta and Virtual Box.
Once you have downloaded the .ISO file and unzipped it you can create your virtual disk.
Step 1 – Name the Virtual Machine and set OS and type to other
Step 2 – Set the base memory size(RAM) I used 1000MB NOTE: Go easy on this at first you can always bump it up later if need be
Step 3 – Create a new hard disk and boot hard drive
Step 4 -Pick the type of storage you would like I did dynamically expanding storage.
Step 5 – Now set your hard drive space. I could spare 2 GB so that’s what I used.
Step 6 -Go ahead and Run your new Virtual Machine
Step 7 -Begin installing your Chrome ISO
Step 8 -Select your ISO image and blast off!
Step 9 -Select to install Chrome OS then sit back and watch it install.
Step 10 -Enjoy, test and play with Google Chrome OS.
O2 has had the exclusivity for the iPhone since launching in the UK back in November 2007. Now that is set to change with Orange announcing its plans to sell the iPhone very soon.
A news release this morning states:
Orange UK and Apple have reached an agreement to bring iPhone 3G and 3GS to Orange UK customers later this year. Orange globally now offers iPhone in 28 countries and territories.
Orange, which has the largest 3G network covering more people in the UK than any other operator, will sell iPhone in all Orange direct channels including Orange shops, the Orange webshop and Orange telesales channels, as well as selected high street partners.
This is great news for consumers who are interested in getting the iPhone but didnt want to switch to O2. A pre-registration site for customers to register their interest has been launched at www.Orange.co.uk/iPhone. More information on pricing, tariffs and availability dates is set to be released “in due course”.
I find it funny how there are a lot of skins for Mac like skins on products, however there doesnt seem to be many people making Windows skins for Mac’s. Anyways, here is a new skin for Windows Live Messenger which makes it look like Apple Mac OS Snow Leopard. This is the first Apple theme plus! skin that works with Windows Live Messenger 9 or 14.
This Snow Leopard 1.0.2 skin for Windows Live Messenger 2009 has already had over 1 million downloads despite being in beta.
Download here.
