Talk to Me. Avoid language barriers by using a real-time speech-to-speech translator.

Price: Free

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Translate language speech to text and text to speech phrases with many different language options
• Email and SMS text message the translations
• Great for traveling
• More language options in text to speech mode

Cons

• Voice translation only works from English to other languages and not in reverse, however you can toggle text to speech mode to write for example Spanish to Italian
• Not 100% accurate but what automated translation service is?!?

Features:

Talk to Me Android App is a speech language translation app for many languages, which also supports text to speech. Send your translations to friends via SMS text message or email the audio file. The speech detection experience has been much better than Google's voice to text experience.

Voice Languages Supported (there are many more language options in text to speech mode):

• Spanish
• French
• German
• Italian
• English (United Kingdom)
• English (United States)

Usefulness:

Talk to Me Android App is very useful to those trying to learn another language or travel.

Ease of Use:

Simply tap the big green button and speak a short phrase into the phone, a few seconds later it will translate in the language and dialect of the translation language chosen.

Frequently Used:

User dependent, maybe sparingly or casual use.

Interface:

Nothing fancy but very intuitive.

About twice a week I think, "Why don't I try this crazy idea and see if it works?" about some element of my career. With no label, no manager, and no inner voice of reason slow me down, I get to experiment all I want. 90% of my crazy ideas have to do with social networking -- which I spend half a lifetime doing, despite the crap I take from my family and Real Life friends. (Hey, some of us actually do bond over web comics, starship replicas, the fail whale, and photos of stuff on cats.) Mostly my nutty ideas work just a little bit. Some are epic failures. But my experimental flopping and floundering inches me closer to the day when I'll be totally financially independent as a full-time musician. Plus it's more fun than having a real job.

But every now and then a crazy idea works really really really good. Bam!

I planned to sell 20-40 of my little bootleg CD's. Silly me. I sold well over 200. My little stack of jewel cases looked so pathetic.

WholeWheatRadio.org broke every record for online listenership, CD sales, tips -- everything. The more listeners tuned in, the more tuned in, and the more money they gave, the more money they gave. The crowd online was thrilled to be breaking WWR records. I drove away from Talkeetna having earned about $4,000 in one night, with a new CD to produce in just a couple of days and an avalanche of e-mail and publicity requests to deal with. Seldom have I been so happy and so panicked.

Bloomberg is reporting that Verizon is planning on adding official support for Skype to its handsets. The two companies are expected to announce a partnership at the Mobile World Congress on February 16, which will allow Skype calls to be made from Verizon phones using the provider's 3G data plan.

This would be a shrewd move on the part of Verizon. Voice calls are becoming a less and less of a profit center for wireless carriers. Look at the big price cuts that both Verizon and AT&T introduced last month: The biggest area of price savings is in unlimited voice plans. Data is still a premium, and in the case of Verizon, there are still data caps for mobile data usage.

For consumers, having Skype pre-loaded on a phone which Bloomberg says is to be on a range of low and high-end handsets might mean that instead of paying for a voice plan (or a more expensive voice plan), the option to get a better data plan and just use Skype when making calls might make more sense.

Bloomberg quotes IDC analyst Rebecca Swensen:

What's important is that Verizon understands that, at some point, they are going to be losing voice minutes to the data world. This makes their platform more valuable for end-users. It could be a differentiator for Verizon Wireless.

Although Verizon is the largest wireless carrier in the US, it faces stiff competition from AT&T. Although AT&T's service is pretty universally reviled, AT&T has the iPhone and that continues to drive customers to the carrier. While AT&T is expected to lose exclusivity at some point, it is unclear when or if Verizon will get to carry the device. As it stands, AT&T will be the 3G data provider for Apple's iPad this April.

Skype works on AT&T's WiFi network and a 3G version is in the works as well. Depending on which carrier can offer 3G access to Skype first and on what phones could depend on how valuable this feature is.

If given the choice, would you drop your voice plan and just use Skype over 3G data for making and receiving calls? Let us know!

Tags: 3g data, mobile voip, Skype, verizon, voip

To be fair, these two developments are really far apart in their delivery dates. The Gmail status update could come as soon as tomorrow, whereas the the speech-to-text-to-speech translation system is still a ways out. You can definitely see just how much work Google needs to do by trying to read your Google Voice voicemail transcriptions. (Voice search works better on Android 2.1 because you're talking slower and enunciating.) But both these features point in the same direction many of the company's other products have been hinting at. Here's a list of Google's major products, in case you forgot, and which sector of communication they want to dominate.

Google Voice: This is a big one, and it'll be the most natural interface for Google to slot in the voice-translation into. If you're using it the way Google wants you to use it, you're already piping all your voice calls and SMS through Google's tubes. And refining speech to text gives them a good idea of your interests and what you're talking about, allowing them to better serve up the relevant ads to you during calls.

Gmail: Having access to at least one end of everyone's email conversations, outside of business emails, gives Google the ability to be a gateway for most of your written communications. But that's not enough for Google, which is why they developed...

Google Wave: It's email, message boards, chat rooms and collaboration software all in one, except every participant needs a Google account. This closes that "openness" loophole that email has, and forces everyone into Google's biosphere. So this, and Gmail, should make sure that every medium-length communique passes through Google's maw for analysis. But what about shorter and longer forms? Update: Thanks commenters, for reminding me that Google made Wave open, so people can create their own Wave servers to talk to each other with the Wave protocol. The point still remains, that if you were going to use a service, wouldn't you rather use the service from the company that created the protocol, for performance and feature reasons?

Google Docs: For longer documents.

Google Talk: For short blasts of instant messaging, video chats and some audio chatting.

Picasa and YouTube: Communication doesn't have to be all text-based, you putting your photos and videos online count too.

Android and Chrome OS: By getting you down at the operating system level, Google can theoretically know every kind of communication you perform. It knows who you talk to, how you do it and when you do it. It can even shape the how by delivering the experience themselves.

Everything else. There's Checkout, Finance, Maps, Reader, News and other apps, which fill in the other forms of communication or expression that aren't quite covered by the major products above. One major missing piece is social networking, where Google basically failed before with its Orkut service (except for Brazil), so this new Twitter/Gmail hybrid might be their next entrance into the space.

But why do they want these things? Why would Google want to be the middleman between you and the world? To sell you ads, of course. And don't think Google is going to stop at just helping you talk over the internet or over the phone, they're going to reach into meatspace as well. How? One step is making that speech-to-speech translation portable, so you can do a sort of near-field communication with someone else with the same device while at the same time being able to look them in the face. Then, blast you two with the appropriate ads on the billboard next to you.

The iPad And The World Of Tomorrow

For those who spent yesterday glued to the State of the Union address instead of tech news feeds, Gizmodo has a terrific summary of Apple's new device. To break it down: The iPad looks basically like an iPhone, but with a 9.7 inch screen. It runs the same software as the iPhone, can connect to the internet, and seems to work nicely for reading books, newspapers and magazines, watching video, checking Google maps, reading your email, surfing the web, and casual gaming. Like the iPhone, it has no keyboard - you can touch-type on the screen.

Why is this outsize version of the iPhone so important that the internet basically exploded over it yesterday? Mostly because Apple's last two new mobile devices - the iPod and the iPhone - changed the way people think about computers. They really did change the future, by making it glaringly obvious that computing devices are not all desktop PCs - they can be specialized music players, or telephone/internet toys that put the web in your pocket. They are the beautiful, cool poster gadgets for the mobile computer generation; they are what we imagine when we think of tomorrow's machines.

The Mythical Convergence Device

The iPad promises to be just as revolutionary as its predecessors, for one reason. It embodies, as much as possible, the mythical convergence device that technophiles have been craving for almost two decades. The convergence device, which people began to discuss seriously in the 1990s, would be a unified gadget where you could consume many kinds of media, especially TV and the web, with the same gadget.

This is exactly what the iPad does, helped along by the fact that so much television is available online already. And you can add books to this convergence, too (the iPad even has a Kindle app). The iPad is also the perfect shape for a convergence box. Its screen is about the size of a quality paperback or small television set. There's none of that scrunching your forehead as you peer into the teeny screen of the iPhone to read a book or watch YouTube.

What I'm saying is that the iPad appeals to a very deep and longlived fantasy in the consumer electronics world: A device that does it all. At least, if all you want to do is consume media.

And there's the problem.

Reinventing The Television

Apple is marketing the iPad as a computer, when really it's nothing more than a media-consumption device - a convergence television, if you will. Think of it this way: One of the fundamental attributes of computers is that they are interactive and reconfigurable. You can change the way a computer behaves at a very deep level. Interactivity on the iPad consists of touching icons on the screen to change which application you're using. Hardly more interactive than changing channels on a TV. Sure, you can compose a short email or text message; you can use the Brushes app to draw a sketch. But those activities are not the same thing as programming the device to do something new. Unlike a computer, the iPad is simply not reconfigurable.

The iPad emulates television in another way, too: You can channel surf through the Apps Store, but you can't change what's playing. Every single app that's available for the iPad has to be approved by Apple first, just like apps for iPhones. That means censorship of "offensive" apps, no apps that compete with Apple (i.e., no Google Voice), and no random app you wrote to do whatever obscure shit you want to do. So you've got thousands of channels and nothing on. And because you can't reconfigure the iPad, you can't change that. You can only keep flipping through the channels, hoping in vain to see something other than reruns of Cheaters and Alf.

As futurist Jamais Cascio told io9:

This is Apple's big push of its top-down control over applications into the general-purpose computing world. The only applications that will work with the iPad are those approved by Apple, under very opaque conditions. On a phone, that's borderline acceptable, but it's not for something that is positioned to overlap with regular computers.

The iPad has all the problems of television, with none of the benefits of computers.

Back To The Shopping Mall

So if it's not a computer, what exactly is the iPad? It could be just a really tarted-up ebook reader, which would make sense if you consider that the iPad is competing with Amazon's Kindle. So it's a reinvention of the book, a fairly old technology, but in a gleaming new package. Except that package isn't even very new, as futurist and science fiction author Karl Schroeder pointed out. He told io9 that the iPad isn't about brilliant hardware innovation, and that in fact the device doesn't even use state-of-the-art ebook tech like e-ink.

Speaking to us via email, Schroeder said:

What Apple has done (again) is seize the moment with a combination of a device and a business model . . . even if e-ink provides a better reading experience for books (reading on an iPad will continue to literally mean staring into a lamp, just like reading on a computer screen), it doesn't matter because it's the total package of iTunes, iBookstore, 3G, games, apps etc. that will pull ebook readers along with it. Consider that the iPad is a closed platform that doesn't even multitask; if the technology mattered, those would be major considerations for the buyer. But they won't be, because when you buy an iPad, you buy access to the whole Apple business ecology.

Looked at from this angle, the iPad isn't so much new technology as it is a shiny, pretty doorway to a mall where you can buy everything from books to movies.

The iPad hasn't brought us forward into the future. It's taken us backward to a world of strip malls and televisions.

Another Vision Of The Future

So the iPad takes us back to the 1980s, or maybe even the 1950s. It's likely to be a device that changes our future, but what that means is we're facing a tomorrow where true innovation is sidelined by a device that represents a convergence of old media and shopping.

But as John Connor would say, we can change the future. That might be as simple as pushing Apple to change its App Store policies to make iPads less like TVs and more like computers. As Lifehacker's Adam Pash put it, "The App Store isn't exactly the problem-it's the way Apple runs and limits the App Store." He suggests that Apple could create a special "Restricted section" for its App Store. He continues:

Rather than reject applications that it feels may confuse the user (like they claimed Google Voice or Google Latitude might), or applications that allow users to access naughty pictures, or even applications that it hasn't had time to vet for the App Store proper, [Apple] put those applications in the Restricted section. Before a user is able to install applications from the Restricted section, that user has to agree that the application may confuse their feeble minds, offend their delicate sensibilities, or even slow down their device. Is this such a problem? . . . Even better, [the iPad] could work like the package manager it actually is and allow users to add their own trusted repositories as sources for other applications . . . The point is, users should at least be allowed to flip some switch, somewhere on the machine, that says, "Hey computer, I'm an adult, and I take responsibility over how I use this machine."

A convergence device that can also be reprogrammed the way computers can? Now we're in the twenty-first century.

Another possibility would be for developers and investors to focus on hardware that truly is innovative and futuristic. Schroeder says:

There's really nothing in the iPad that's new; if you want truly new, disruptive tech that would be at a similar price point if commercialized, look at Pranav Mistry's SixthSense and related projects.

SixthSense is a gesture-controlled mobile device with a projector - you can see its telephone app at work above. You project the phone onto your hand and press the buttons. You can also use gestures to take pictures. This is truly the next step in mobile computing, and will likely revolutionize computer networks in ways we can't yet imagine.

What Is To Be Done?

I know a lot of otherwise-savvy consumers and hackers who are already drooling over the iPad and putting in their orders. They hate the idea of a restricted device, but they love the shiny-shiny. I'm not saying that they should deprive themselves of this pretty new toy. What I am saying is that this toy represents a crappy, pathetic future. It is no more revolutionary than those expensive, hot boots I bought at Fluevog, and only slightly more useful.

The only way iPads can truly become futuristic devices is if we hack them so that we can pour whatever operating system we want inside. We need to jailbreak these media boxes so we can install the apps we want, not the ones provided by the Apple shopping mall.

Do not be content with a television when you can have a computer.

Do not be content with yesterday's machines, because the future is before you. Ready to be hacked.

• Aldiko: outstanding e-book reader (better than Kindle on the iPhone in terms of feature set; obviously the book store is not quite as good, but the integration with free eBook download sites is a plus). Currently reading Makers by Cory Doctorow.
• Amazon: search the full Amazon catalog (can use barcodes or photos in addition to typing or speaking your query), track orders in my account.
• APNDroid: useful if you want to disable your phone's cellular data connection (useful if you're often on WiFi and want to turn off your EDGE or 3G data connection)
• AppReferer: builds a QR code (a 2D barcode) that makes recommending an app to another Android user in person a one-click affair.
• Battery Graph: shows a nice chart (exportable, even) of battery usage, which is helpful if you're trying to isolate when the battery started to drain.
• Coin Flip: silly app that lets me flip a coin. Use it mostly to settle disputes between the kids. :)
• Congress: built by Sunlight Labs, a phenomenal "pocket Congressional directory" that includes contact info, committee memberships, news, and YouTube vids of every Senator and Representative.
• DroidLive Lite: Streaming radio (via Shoutcast) from 1300 radio stations around the world.
• Facebook: news feed, photos and profile info for friends
• Fandango: Order movie tickets from movie theaters so I can bypass lines at the ticket counter.
• Finance: Google Finance app
• Flashlight: turns screen bright white to use in dark rooms
• Foursquare: app for playing Foursquare, also has a nice widget for my home screen
• Gmote: turns my Nexus One into a touchpad remote (when paired with a computer running the Gmote server software). Handy for giving presentations, or just doing something nerdy and cool.
• Google Goggles: search Google by taking pictures.
• Google Sky Map: the one app that consistently blows people away. Load it up, turn your camera toward the night sky and you'll get a real-time view of which stars, constellations and planets are above you. An awesome accompaniment to a telescope.
• Jewels: Bejeweled-like game.
• Layar: Augmented reality app that displays info on screen in realtime through your phone's camera.
• Locale: very sophisticated app for scripting events to happen based on certain triggers. (When I'm at home, disable the data connection and connect to my home wifi access point. At 11pm, turn off the sound and put the phone to sleep; at 6am turn the sound back up; when I'm at work, put the phone in vibrate mode; etc.)
• Metal detector: actually works.
• Movies (aka Flixster): Lots of info/trailers/reviews about new and upcoming movies, also integrates with Netflix for DVDs
• My Tracks: built by some Googlers, great app for keeping track of runs/bikes/ski runs you've done; captures altitude, distance, etc., then uploads to Google Maps My Maps.
• OpenTable: make restaurant reservations from the phone.
• Owner: adds my contact info to the unlock screen ("If found, please contact Rick Klau...")
• Pandora: streaming music channels.
• PapiJump: great little game using the phone's accelerometer.
• Pintail: monitors your phone's SMS messages for a message that says "locate" (plus a PIN); once received, activates the GPS and replies with the phone's location. Helpful if you've got a lost phone.
• Robo Defense: addicitve game.
• Scoreboard: Tracks scores of your favorite teams, with realtime updates and notifications as score changes.
• Seesmic: Great Twitter app.
• Shop Savvy: grab a barcode, find out who sells it and for how much.
• TiVo Remote: works with any TiVo HD unit over WiFi.
• TripIt: phenomenal itinerary manager for all travel info.
• Voice Recorder: does exactly what it says it does.
• Yelp: Local reviews.

If you are, then WordHustler is for you! If you don't know what a word hustler is, then listen up!

Similar to pixel pushers and glyph tossing typophiles a word hustler is trying to make it in this world with the written word. And that is where WordHustler comes in.

WordHustler was started by two word hustlers writers, John L. Singleton and Anne Walls, out of their frustration for the costs and time of submitting their works in an analog world. In short, the hustle took to much time away from being able to write.

Sure, there are always elements of every hustle, job or hobby that are tedious and simply part of the process. When someone chooses to be a writer they're not making that decision based on the amount of time they're going to spend at OfficeMax buying envelopes and the right paper. The choice is made because they love hardship have a voice that needs to be heard.

With this in mind the founders of WordHustler brought the hustle into the digital age by creating a hybrid CMS that doesn't display a writer's work online but submits it to traditional publishers.

WordHustler is one of those impressive web services that is focused on serving a niche market and was developed by people in that niche. By solving their own problems first they were able to take the code and create a service for anyone like them.

No more printing, stamping, less formatting and no more paper cuts as WordHustler automates this process for their users. There's also no more searching for contests or publishers that might want to review your work. It is all here inside WordHustler.

Beyond the obvious benefits to writers in easing their submission pains there is the additional benefit of a powerful, easy to use interface. WordHustler has one of the best search landing pages I have ever seen. It elegantly integrates a standard search box, results, rankings, standard filtering and my favorite, elements of advanced search visually.

What I mean by advanced search visually' is the ability to begin filtering content at an advanced level without presenting it that way. Typically this is done through an advanced' search form with 10+ text input boxes with labels like all these words,some of these words, or none of these words.'

WordHustler presents filtering tools like an AJAX slider to limit the amount of description to display and words, tags' to filter results on the page. At this time tools like this are often used in backend administration interfaces or like this one, only available on this site. Developers and designers would do well to look at this model and tinker with it to create solutions for users to filter at an advanced level with beginner skills.

The service has a very reasonable price tag for users when compared to the cost of going analog and creating the number of submissions that WordHustler will allow for writers. It is extremely reasonable when compared to the price of building ones own platform to do the same. That is, if you are the enterprising type.

Now that you know about WordHustler and have decided that you are a word hustler or maybe want to submit that long stowed screenplay you wrote right after college, you have no excuse not to give it a try.

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Are You A WordHustler? is a post from: TechStartups.com

Fring is an Israel based startup that has been offering its signature VoIP application for mobile devices is now available for Android phones in the Android Market. Fring is an app that allows users to connect via popular chast and VoIP tools like Skype and Google Talk.

It was first introduced a little over three years ago in beta for handsets that were running Symbian OS. Since that time it has spread across the other popular platforms to gain a foothold in the instant messaging space on mobiles. Not to mention cornering VoIP though API development with some of the most popular internet based messaging software.

Fring allows users to aggregate their connections across networks and easily send text, photos, files and now video. And yes, like anything else being released today, Fring will allow you to tweet. Happy?

The two most robust platforms for using Fring are on Symbian 9 or higher and Windows Mobile phones. The newest, Android, has a few features for now like text chat, mobile calling and personalization settings.

Using the application is fairly straight forward as you need to download and install for your phone, register and then wait for Fring to connect the together your networks and contacts. Once this step is done you can begin getting in touch with your posse(s) via your mobile.

I've had good luck with Fring when I needed to get in touch with a contact that I didn't have handy in my phone contacts and for Skype text based chats. Now that it is ready for the new kid, Android, I would suspect that more features like those for the iPhone will make their way into the app.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Android Market VoIP by Fring is a post from: TechStartups.com

While many people stereotype geeks as only being interested in using the computer all day, the truth is that a geek is actually a person who often contemplates many of the deeper questions of the universe while busy installing the coolest new add-ons to Firefox or tweaking their mobile phone so that they can control it from their desktop. One of the universal debates many geeks have centers around an important question that involves neurobiology and the science of artificial intelligence, and that question is Does a human think faster than a computer?

What a question. Just think of the necessary evidence that one would need to produce in order to prove, or disprove, that statement. In fact, what is the question about really? Is it whether a human brain or a computer is faster, or is it which form of information processing is better? Is it even a fair comparison? Today, I'd like to engage MakeUseOf readers into a debate on this subject by first providing my own take and then asking for yours.

The Question: Does a Human Think Faster Than a Computer?

The question itself represents the fallacy of how people think about computers. When a person uses a computer, if it's slow then it's junk. But there are certainly other factors to consider when examining intelligence what about image recognition, language recognition, multi-tasking capabilities or self-learning and self-healing features?

First, to partially answer the speed question we need to examine data transmission. In the Hartford Examiner, writer Joy Casad answers the question, How fast is a thought by describing the chemical/biological propagation of thinking neurons before getting to the point in the final paragraph these neurons transmit signals at 0.5 milliseconds. That's pretty fast!

In 2006, the fastest reported fiber optic transmission rate was 2.56 terabits a second. Okay, but a bit is nothing more than a zero and a one. Well the current state of the art is the cutting edge subatomic technology created by Stanford researchers representing one bit with 35 electrons, or 35,000,000,000 electrons a millisecond. Due to the fact that axon/neuron electrical transmission depends on the chemical and biological environment it is in, data transmission of one neuron is actually millions of times slower than the fastest electrical transmission rates over copper electrical wire, and even slower compared to fiber optics. Score one for computers.

What About Processing Power?

The question of processing is a tricky one. According to the Top500 list of super computers, the fastest one as of 2009 is the RoadRunner BladeCenter at 12.8 GFlops (floating point operations per second).

A GFlop represents a billion operations per second. Now, you're thinking of that Monday morning in class when your professor asked you to perform a simple calculation and your mind went blank. You're ready to chalk up another point to computers, right? Wrong.

While the transmission of electrical impulses may be slower in the brain than over wire, the processing power of the brain is represented by not one, but thousands of processors backed into one major super computer. One example is the retina, which is sort of like your computer web cam, in that it transmits light (images) to the brain for processing. Except the retina itself has its own processing power, sort of like a subprocessor 100 million neurons packed into a one centimeter by one millimeter space.

This stunning little processor is capable of processing ten images, each of about a million light points, every single second. Not only that, the data isn't transmitted over a single fiber of nerve cells, but over a cable to the brain made up of a million of these fibers, all transmitting bits of data at the same time in parallel. If you multiply the processing power of this volume of neurons by the overall size of the average 1,500 cubic cm human brain, the overall processing power of the brain is about 100 million, million operations per second. For those of you who are trying to do the math with your super computer brain that's over 100,000 times more processing power than today's cutting-edge super computer.

Image and Language Recognition, Learning and Common Sense

If our brains are such super computers, then why do we feel so dense and so slow sometimes? I don't know about you, but I'm horrible at doing calculations in my head. The problem is that people think of computers only in terms of how many calculations it can do per second. The truth is, when it comes to intelligence there's so much more to process than calculations alone. How do you calculate what the tone of someone's voice implies they are really saying? How do you calculate the irony of a joke that, when taken literally, makes no sense at all? This is where the true power of the human brain makes itself known.

Have you ever had a friend who was such a genius that they could perform the most astounding calculations in their head, or they could fathom the most complex equations or problems imaginable yet when faced with the simplest common-sense joke, they just didn't get it? This is the major difference between a human brain and a computer.

Author Gary Marcus writes, in his book on the human mind that, The fundamental difference between computers and the human mind is in the basic organization of memory.

What he means is that a computer organizes information in a logical way. To retrieve data, the computer uses logical storage locations. A human brain, on the other hand, remembers where information is stored based on cues. Those cues are other pieces of information or memories connected to the information you need to retrieve. This means that the human mind can connect an almost unlimited number of concepts in a variety of ways, and then sometimes disconnect or recreate connections based on new information. This allows the human to step outside the boundaries of what has already been learned leading to new art and new inventions that are the trademark of the human race.

There are a lot of other ways the human mind blows computers away it can self repair itself, it can produce chemical reactions within its host body to induce instinctive reactions and protect itself from danger, it can handle every last function required to operate the machine of the human body while simultaneously processing information from outside that body, and most importantly it can continue learning and building new connections within that contextual storage array in ways that seem infinite.

In short, the answer to the question Does a human think faster than a computer? is yes. And it can also do a whole lot more than that.

Geeks out there weigh in with your opinion in the comments section below!

Image Credits: cbowns

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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I believe universal health care is, quite simply, right.

It is a moral imperative. I cannot enjoy health coverage and turn to my neighbor and tell him he doesn't deserve it.

[Link]

When you think of a hard-core gamer, do you picture a teenage boy battling his friends in World of Warcraft?

Also on wired.com:

• Gaming Gets a Level Up On Age
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Names added to that list yesterday included one local writer: the ludicrously prolific Michael Nagrant of Hungry Mag, Serious Eats, New City and just about any paper or website that publishes a byline. Owning to all sorts of biases here as both a colleague and friend, if the Times really wanted to make a splash in naming Bruni's heir apparent few food critics have the resume of Nagrant; one that includes collaborating on a Beard Award-winning cookbook; a critic whose voice is constantly evolving; a entertaining and engaging writer equally comfortable in traditional and new media; one whose personal code of food journalism ethics is downright Orthodox Catholic in the age of the Yelp! Elite Squad.

I contacted Nagrant about his name popping up. He responded by saying that he's sent Times "Dining In/Dining Out" Editor Trish Hall samples of his work in the past two months for her consideration. Nagrant replied, "The New York Times food critic position is one of the most important jobs in American food writing. Whether it's (Ruth) Reichl or Bruni or (William) Grimes et al, as a writer I've looked to those who've held that chair and always tried to write to that standard. The NYT critic spot is very much a goal of mine." As to wanting to take the job in these uncertain times for print journalism, Nagrant said, "In these tough times for print journalism where some would rather be the next food TV star or own a restaurant, I want to write. I don't want to be rich or famous. I only want to sustain myself, practice the craft and get better everyday. I want nothing more as a writer and I'm willing to give everything I am if the honor came my way."

Nagrant acknowledged Eater's speculation yesterday with (natch) twitter updates, paraphrasing Groucho Marx and even providing a headshot so the Times doesn't have to.

Spinvox announced they've signed up 600 developers in five months. The API (our Spinvox API profile) brings the power of voice transcription to an application.

And developers are apparently willing to pay for that power. Spinvox charges 35 cents to create text from a half-minute message.

Using a computer to convert speech to text has been long promised, but poorly executed over the years. Spinvox uses a combination of methods, including sometimes falling back on humans to do the work.

There is a real cost to the company to provide the service, but there's also an undeniable value to its output. Yet there are worries that Spinvox has grown too fast after a deal to serve Telefonica's 125 million customers in Latin America. The company may be paying staff with stock, which leaves questions for developers building a business on top of Spinvox.

This is all fuel to an argument for Spinvox charging for its service. If enough developers payand they seem to be open to itthe service should remain reliable. The same cannot always be said for those APIs without a clear revenue stream, as we've seen recently with Google's Mashup Editor and Microsoft's PopFly mashup tool.

Sponsored by

Google Voice, the innovative invite-only telephone communication control service, is readying a iPhone version of its mobile phone app, which just became available on Tuesday for Android OS-based phones and Blackberries.

But will Apple and AT&T let Google sell such an app without hobbling it?

For instance, Google Voice offers free SMS services that appear to come from one's Google number rather than one's mobile phone number. That means users could text all they like, without paying AT&T $20 a month. That money is virtually all profit for the telecom giant, since the messages use almost no bandwidth and even travel on a special channel separate from voice or data.

So the motive is clear.

The answer to whether they will is unclear, but history suggests it's a strong possibility.

AT&T and Apple together have blocked video applications that compete with approved ones and forced the low cost phone calling company Skype to disable its most powerful feature free phone calls using a phone's data connection if it wanted to be included in the iPhone marketplace controlled by Apple.

AT&T has said that it expects Apple to block products that compete with its services. It puts the kibosh on some other apps that might be hard on a network Slingbox's video application for one, though it is fine with other streaming media apps, like Major League Baseball's, for one.

Such practices are part of the reason that Congress, public interest groups and the FCC have all been looking skeptically at U.S. mobile carriers, wondering if they need to be regulated more closely.

A Google spokesperson declined to answer specific questions about a potential app, but did say that it was working with Apple to bring similar functionality [as the Android/Blackberry apps] to iPhone users.

Still in an invite-only beta, Google Voice lets users combine work, home and mobile phones all under a single Google number. Voicemail can be sent to all of the phones, all calling histories are combined, voicemails are turned into voice files and also machine-transcribed, and users can set custom call handling rules for every person in their address book. Users can also make free conference calls, record calls and even switch phones during a call.

Apple, per usual, ignored a request for comment.

AT&T declined to comment on whether it considered the app as competition or if it was even talking to Apple about it.

In the meantime, Google says the Google Voice mobile website is optimized for the iPhone, and that it will continue to improve the user experience for the iPhone users.

There's also already an unofficial Google Voice app for the iPhone called GV Mobile.

Photo: Flickr/Cloneofsnake

See Also:

• Google Voice Now Available for Mobile Phones
• Google Voice: Revolutionary And a Bit Unnerving
• Google Voice Speaks of World Domination
• Google Turns Voicemail Into E-mail

Photo: Flickr/CloneofSnake

For the last few weeks it hasn't been unusual to see AT&T among Twitter's trending topics following its disappointing performance at WWDC and the activation issues with the iPhone last week, the carrier hasn't exactly been garnering positive reactions from its legions of Twitter-using members. Today, it's reached the top spot on Twitter once again, and, once again, AT&T is the target of waves of contempt.

The source of the recent flurry of AT&T tweets is Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, who tweets that for a few hours of web surfing in Canada he was charged a whopping $11,000. AT&T is apparently claiming that Savage managed to download 9 gigabytes in Canada using his USB data connection (which he calls frakking impossible). What's worse, the customer service rep Savage was dealing with was apparently a bit loose with their decimal points, telling Savage that data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb. Read that again there's a couple orders of magnitude difference there.

Now Twitter is in revolt. With over 50,000 followers Savage has a pretty loud voice, and his outraged tweets certainly resonate with a broad audience. In the end, he'll probably get a pass from AT&T nobody wants to mess with a man who blows things up for a living. But it's clear that AT&T needs to work on letting its customers know when they're spending exorbitant amounts of money on data charges. An AT&T spokesman says that any phone taken abroad that begins racking up excessive charges will automatically receive an SMS alert, but apparently there are no such mechanisms in place for members using the increasingly popular USB wireless connections.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Fonolo's basic functionality is still the same. Find the company you're calling from among the roughly 500 supported, then browse through a tabbed phone tree listing of all the options, with the voice prompts transcribed for easy navigation. Click on the prompt you want to jump to, enter your phone number (unless you're logged in with a number stored in an account), then wait for Fonolo to dial in and get to that point, at which point it calls you to connect. From the Fonolo web page, you can hit "Start Call Recording," or the microphone in the upper-right corner, and your discussion about that mysterious charge is noted for your dispute-settling convenience.

Having a record of everything that goes down in a customer service call is one of the surest ways of getting better customer service, and the playback and download functions are made easy enough in your account page at Fonolo.

Fonolo is a free service, requires a sign-up to save recordings and automate phone number connections. It's also available as a free application for Anrdoid phones.

Kara Swisher has a great interview of Harvey Levin of TMZ talking about breaking the Michael Jackson story.

But at the end Harvey said something that just rings with me we're a platform.

So what do I think about platforms?:

- my company Broadband Mechanics' is in the white labeled platform business. The combination of our PeopleAggregator platform and Paolo Valdemarin's publishing system - Pages+ means we can build platforms for anybody cheaper, faster and license it at reasonable rate - around the world.

That means platforms need to have their own CMS/aggregation engine/direct manipulation page layout system as well as a full-featured social networking system (blogging, profile pages, groups, messages, widgets, media gallery, commenting, activity streams, OpenAPIs, Open Stack support, etc.)

- the BBC, NYTimes, Plain Dealer and NPR need to think of themselves as a platform. And American Greetings.

This means that whatever the core assets, features and brand awareness that already exists in your on-line offering, you need to SUPPLEMENT it and in the case of the 4th estate brands - move beyond just news and journalism and figure out new ways to MAKE money. Along the way you build up your own platform of members, giving them all the classic things they get from Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress and Flickr. And THEN you wrap your own unique joie de vivre around it, insert some editorial, provide Open APIs to your most valuable data, figure out ways for OTHERS to make money off of that data and step back and build your OWN unique on-line cred!

- and since we're in an open web world - you don't have to worry about competing with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Seesmic or Flickr - you're gonna work WITH them, suck in and spit out their data and join hands and sing kum-bah-yah' with all of us - right?

Which means you're going to not only support the Open Stack and issue OpenIDs, you're going to respect and support all your brethren's OpenIDs (formerly known as competitors) and do the same for them - as well. And you'll bring in your biggest advertisers and sponsors and get them to throw contests and promos where your users and developers can all make a few shekels. And fame. Remember that tune you're humming

- finally - having a platform means having your own underlying ID strata - so all you're disparate web sites, web services and on-line anything is glued together and you can offer cross-site promotions, accounts, friends, sharing, commenting, rating and even a points system (formerly known as frequent flyer credits) so even YOU can get into the SWAG and schmattie market.

Remember those former competitors who you now support and who ALSO enable small add-on, widget, gadget developers who support your Open APIs? Well you're ALL gonna keep helping out those small guys - cause in the end - we all win!

I've noticed a strange trend lately.

For some reason, people seem to be equating social media with social networking.

At the same time, they seem to be treating blogging as something other than social media.

I find this very strange indeed.

For example, here the author proclaims that he's quitting social media and gives his reasons why. But he also states he'll continue to blog, by god.

Then there's this other post, which did a nice job of rounding up the discussion about the latest blogs are dead red herring. Problem is, the title Blogs vs Social Media seems to expressly state that the two are different and distinct things.

Did I not get the memo on this?

Blogs are Social (and Alternative) Media

First, let's look at a definition. In the case of social media, I think even Wikipedia can be trusted:

At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few.

In fact, it's a fairly easy case that blogs were the first modern form of social media. I say modern because many would argue that social media started pre-web with Internet Relay Chat and BBS systems. Heck, the most popular part of lame ol' America Online was the cyber-sex social aspect.

So in the modern social media sense, blogs came way before social networking exploded with MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Blogs pioneered social media well before Friendster came and went (remember Friendster?).

One thing you'll notice in the definition above is the emphasis on content. Not just user-generated conversational content, but the production of content that is an alternative to traditional media AND that benefits from interlinked conversation and comments.

Maybe the fact that old media has co-opted those aspects of blogs is the reason that some people no longer see blogging as social media. I think that's a bit silly.

Media Producer Versus Social Networker

Maybe I've got it wrong, but the fascinating part of social media to me is not just the social networking. It's the fact that anyone willing to put in the work can become a media producer/personality without speaking a word to anyone in the existing media power centers of Los Angeles, New York, et al.

Blogs are simply the best way to publish new media content. And social media news and networking sites are the ways that content gets exposure. It's not money and geography that determines if your content spreads it just has to be deemed good enough to be shared by regular people.

If you want to become a music journalist, no one in LA or NYC can tell you no. If you want a shot at becoming an actress or celebrity without enduring casting couch sexual harassment, you can absolutely go for it and succeed.

From a more practical standpoint, using social media in terms of media production is what content marketing is all about. Producing content and having something related to sell is one way where free content pays for itself big time.

• It's how producing your own video show about wine boosts the bottom line of your bricks-and-mortar wine store to the tune of millions, all while making you a celebrity along the way.
• It's how you write a book and create buzz for it without waiting for Oprah to call.
• It's how you create a lucrative business with high margins and hefty happiness.

When you think like a media producer in this brave new social media world, it's your content that social networkers are sharing and promoting, and that translates into your cash. If you're only social networking, you're only someone's user-generated content, and even your digital overlord struggles to make money.

What's the Point?

Honestly, I'm not sure. I just see so much unnecessary confusion out there.

What do you think?

• Is it because people with vested interests in confusion portray social media as something radically new when it's mostly an evolution of the old?
• Should I simply quit worrying about it and stick with those of you who get it?
• What do you think about tofu? Tasty or nasty?

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

In Part 2 we discuss: how previously reticent search engines like Google and Yahoo have begun to participate in the Semantic Web in 2009, user interfaces for browsing and using data, what Tim Berners-Lee thinks of new computational engine Wolfram Alpha, how e-commerce vendors are moving into the Linked Data world, and finally how the Internet of Things intersects with the Semantic Web.

Sponsor

Semantic Web and Search Engines Like Google, Yahoo

RWW: You've been talking about the Semantic Web for many years now. Generally the view is that Semantic Web is great in theory, but we're still not seeing a large number of commercial web apps that use RDF (we've seen a number of scientific or academic ones). However we have begun to see some traction with RDFa (embedding RDF metadata into XHTML Web content), for example Google's Rich Snippets and Yahoo's SearchMonkey. Has the takeup of RDFa taken you by surprise?

TBL: Not really, but the takeup by the search engines is interesting. In a way I was happy to see that, it was a milestone for those things to come out of the search engines. The search engines had typically not been keen on the Semantic Web - maybe you could argue that their business is making order out of chaos, and they're actually happy with the chaos. And if you provide them with the order, they don't immediately see the use of it.

Also I think there was misunderstanding in the search engine industry that the Semantic Web meant metadata, and metadata meant keywords, and keywords don't work because people lie. Because traditionally in information retrieval systems, keywords haven't proven up to the task of finding stuff on the Web. One of the reasons is that people lie, the other is that they can't be bothered to enter keywords. So keywords have gotten a bad reputation, then metadata in general was tarred with this 'keywords don't work' brush. Because a lot of Semantic Web data included metadata, then people thought that with Semantic Web data -- again, that people will lie and won't have the time to produce it.

Google rich snippets example; image credit: Matt Cutts

Now I think there's a realization that when you're putting data online, that people are motivated NOT to lie. For example when your band is going to produce its next album, or when your band is going to play next downtown, you're motivated to put that information up there on the Semantic Web. There's an awful lot of cases when actually data is really important to people; and it's on the web anyway. So I think it's great that some of the search engine companies are starting to read RDFa.

Does this mean that they [search engines] will start to absorb the whole RDF data model? If they do, then they will be able to start pulling all of the linked data cloud in.

Will they know what to do with it? Because when it's data in a very organized form, I think some people have been misunderstanding the Semantic Web as being something that tries to make a better search engine - i.e. when you type something into a little box. But of course the great thing about the Semantic Web is that you can query it, you can ask a complicated query of the Semantic Web, like a SQL query (we call it a SPARQL query), and that's such a different thing to be able to do. It really doesn't compare to a search engine.

You've got search for text phrases on one side (which is a useful tool) and querying of the data on the other. I think that those things will connect together a lot.

So I think people will search using a search text engine, and find a webpage. On the front of the webpage they'll find a link to some data, then they'll browse with a data browser, then they'll find a pattern which is really interesting, then they'll make their data system go and find all the things which are like that pattern (which is actually doing a query, but they'll not realize it), then they'll be in data mode with tables and doing statistical analysis, and in that statistical analysis they'll find an interesting object which has a home page, and they'll click on that, and go to a homepage and be back on the Web again.

So the web of linked data and the web of documents actually connect in both directions, with links.

User Interfaces for Semantic Content

RWW: At the recent SemTech conference, Tom Tague of Thomson Reuters' Calais project suggested that user interfaces for semantic content are key in getting more take-up. With that in mind, I wonder if you've seen some great interfaces or designs for semantic applications in recent months - if so which ones and why did they impress you?

TBL: I think that whole area is very exciting at the moment. The only piece of hacking I've done over the past few years has been on a thing called the Tabulator [a data browser and editor], which is addressing exactly that. Partly because I wanted to be able to look at this data. And now there are lots of different ways that people need to be able to look at data. You need to be able to browse through it piece by piece, exploring the world of data. You need to be able to look for patterns of particular things that have happened. Because this is data, we need to be able to use all of the power that traditionally we've used for data. When I've pulled in my chosen data set, using a query, I want to be able to do [things like] maps, graphs, analysis, and statistical stuff.

W3C Tabulator, a data browser/editor; Image credit: wiwiss.fu-berlin.de

So when you talk about user interfaces for this, it's really very very broad. Yes I think it's important. There's also the distinction we can make between the generic interfaces and the specific interfaces.

There will always be specific interfaces; for example if you're looking at calendar data, there's nothing else like a calendar that understands weeks, months and years. If you're looking at a genome, it's good to have a genetics-specific user interface.

However you also need to be able to connect that data, through generic interfaces. So if my genome data was taken during an experiment which happened over a particular period, I need to be able to look at that in the calendar - so I can connect the genetics to the calendar.

So one of the things I hope to see is domain-specific things for various different domains, and the generic user interfaces. And hopefully the generic interfaces will be able to tie together all of the domains.

Next Page: Wolfram Alpha; e-Commerce and Linked Data

Wolfram Alpha and Natural Language Interfaces

RWW: An interesting new product that was launched this year was Wolfram|Alpha, a 'computational knowledge engine.' It's kind of a mix between Google (search) and Wikipedia (knowledge), and it's key attribute is that enables you to compute something. The founders think that 'computing' things on the fly is something we're going to see a lot of in future. What's your take on Wolfram|Alpha?

TBL: There are two parts to that sort of technology. One of them is a sort of stilted natural language interface. We've seen those sort of natural language queries for years. Boris Katz [from W3C] created a system called START [a software system designed to answer questions that are posed to it in natural language]. I think with the Semantic Web out there, those sorts of interfaces are going to become important, very valuable, because people will be able to ask more complicated things. The search engine has traditionally been limited to just a phrase, but some of the search engines are now starting to realize that if they put data behind them and have computation engines, then you can ask for things like 'what's this many pounds in dollars' and so on. So yes, those interfaces will become important.

Conversational interfaces have always been a really interesting avenue. We've had voice browser work in W3C, that has been an interesting alternative avenue. It's possible that as compute power goes up, we'll see a prolifieration of machines capable of doing voice. It'll move from the mainframe to being able to run on a laptop or your phone. As that happens, we'll get actual voice recognition and pattern natural language at the front end. That will perhaps be an important part of the Semantic Web.

We talked before about what a great challenge the Semantic Web is going to be from a user interface point of view. Conversational interfaces are going to be part of [solving] that. Of course it's also going to be really valuable to have compositional interfaces - for the visually impaired and so on.

Wolfram|Alpha is also a large curated database of data sets. Obviously I'm interested in the big data set which is out there, which is Linked Data. This everybody can connect to. I don't really know a lot about the internals of Wolfram|Alpha's data set. I don't know whether they're likely to put any of it out on the web as Linked Data - that might be an interesting addition. I imagine that quite a lot of it may have come from the web of Linked Data.

e-Commerce and Linked Data

RWW: There have been reports recently that both Google and Yahoo will be supporting the Good Relations ontology and linked data for e-commerce. Companies such as Best Buy are already putting out product information in RDFa. What would be your advice to e-commerce vendors right now, to help them transition to this world of structured data on the Web. The same question could be asked across many verticals, but e-commerce seems like one area which has some momentum right now. Would you advise them just to put out their data as Linked Data?

TBL: Yup! Certainly this year is the year to do it. I've been advising governments to do it and when you look at an enterprise, you find that a lot of the issues are the same. But when you put your data from government or enterprise out there, make sure you don't disturb existing ecosystems. Don't threaten those systems, because you've spent years building them up.

Maybe there's an analogy with when the Web first started and the first bookshops went online. They were more or less a flyer, saying 'hey we have a great bookshop at 23 Main St, come on down!'. Let's say that a person named Joe owned one of these early online bookshops. If somebody had suggested to Joe that he should put his catalog online, Joe would've felt that that was very proprietary data. And he'd be worried that other bookshops would see where he was weak, so they'd be able to advertise themselves as filling that niche he's weak in.

But when his competitors Fred and Albert put their catalogs online, then Joe can check which books people are browsing at Fred and Albert's websites. So Joe would [finally] be pursuaded to put his book catalog up online. But he doesn't put the prices... until Albert and/or Fred does. And even if catalog and pricing is up there, nobody puts their stock levels online. And there was a period of time when nobody [i.e. online booksellers] had their stock levels up. But people got fed up with ordering stuff that wasn't in stock. So the first book shop to actually tell you about stock levels suddenly was then unbelievably attractive to its customers.

So there's this syndrome of progressive competitive disclosure. This happens when people realize that if you're going to do business with somebody, if you're going to have your partners up and down the supply chain, really it's useful to check the data web - and life goes much more quickly and open.

Best Buy may be what starts the ball rolling [among e-commerce vendors]. Now if I want to look out for what [products are] available, I can write a program to see what there is. If somebody wants to compete with Best Buy, to my program they'll be invisible unless they can get their data up in RDF. Doesn't matter whether they use RDFa or RDF XML, as long as it maps in a standard fashion to the RDF model, then they will be visible.

Next Page: Internet of Things; Conclusion

The Internet of Things

RWW: I'm fascinated by how the Internet is becoming more and more integrated into the real world. For example the Internet of Things, where everyday objects become Internet connected via sensors. Have you been following this trend closely too, and if so what impact do you think this will have on the Web in say 5 years time?

TBL: It connects very much with Semantic Web [and] with linked data. With Linked Data you've got the ability to give a thing a URI. So I can give a URI to my phone, and I can say that's my phone in Linked Data. And also the company that made it can give a URI to the model of the phone. They can also put online all the specs of the phone, and then I can make a link to say my phone is an example of that product. So now any system which is dealing with me and has access to that data will be able to figure out the sorts of things I can do with my phone, which actually is really valuable. Especially if the phone breaks.

The Semantic Web has already given URIs to things, and to types of things. When the things themselves have an RFID chip in them, then I think it's a very exciting world. One can take that RFID chip, go to the Internet and find out the data about the thing. Whether we'll be able to do that, whether the manufacturers will be open enough to allow me to turn data about the identifier of the thing into data about the thing, is yet to be seen. But it's a very exciting idea.

Similarly, I'd like to be able to scan a barcode and get back nutritional information about what's in - for example - a can of food. But we don't have that yet. To get that sort of thing, which is very powerful, we need to build look-up systems, which allows you to translate an RFID code or a barcode into an HTTP address.

The Semantic Web is a web of things, conceptually. Tying an actual thing down to a part of the web is the last link - the last mile. Give the thing a notion of its own identity in the web.

Conclusion

The over-riding message in both Part 1 and 2 of our interview with Tim Berners-Lee, is for companies and organizations to make your data available online. Preferably as Linked Data, which uses a subset of Semantic Web technologies. But Berners-Lee noted in Part 1 of our interview that he'd even be happy with the data in CSV (comma separated values) format.

It's clear that we've seen a lot of progress in linked data already in 2009. In upcoming posts on ReadWriteWeb, we'll continue to track this trend and explain how you can contribute your organization's data.

Getting through to the 5-18 year old demographic is increasingly becoming more and more complicated. Parents are more vigilant, multiple channels exist, and most of us in social don't know where they hang out in the first place. (Here's a hint: it's mostly mobile and will continue to go in that direction.)

How can you break through and communicate/engage with the kids without being mistakenly harangued by Chris Hansen? Good question and I don't necessarily know if direct social engagement is the right place to grab their interest.

It comes back to a simple tenet: Add Value. How can you effectively add value for a teen? Talk about sensitive issues like P&G (Beinggirl.com)? Provide information about cool products and their customizable options (Lego City)? Or just be a fun place to hang out (I looked, but anything I put here will be outdated by the time this post goes live)?

The key will being able to get in front of the child/teen and engage them in a dialogue that is beneficial to them, supported by/parent friendly, and is not intrusive. Mobile opt-in is a good place to start here. However, you have to really break down what kind of information you are sending to kids.

Partnering with a popular television show, movie or toy would be the best place to start. This way you already have a built in audience. Most marketing campaigns to kids start and end at this point. Do you have to stop the conversation though? Or can you continue to add value to the audience that you gained over the course of your program. The answer? Yes.

This can't be a half-hearted attempt to change the dialogue. You really need someone that can nurture the community, provide leadership within, and push the community to action when needed.

Best way to do this with kids? Free anything.

Children and teens both have a desire to conform, be cool, and acquire massive amounts of free anything. To inspire a community: simply make them feel welcome, give them a voice, and provide them with cool stuff/schwag. (Yes, that's it.)

Have any other suggestions on how to effectively transform the marketing experience of kids/teens online? How can we effectively build communities that add value? Do you have any other examples?

That being said, the long-term viability of big budget television is the cause of much angst. If audiences continue to atomize, can any given show make enough money to justify producing it? If consumers continue to transcode things they want to watch, edit out the commercials and make them available for free over the public Internet, will sponsors be willing to pay? If the most popular productions are the most pirated productions, is there any real future in production? Can free, advertiser-supported, Internet television continue with a fraction of the advertising avails and audiences of its broadcast counterpart?

One of the underlying issues is scarcity vs. ubiquity. On a closed network, any moment of time is a scarce resource. On an open network, no moment of time is a scarce resource. The immutable law of supply and demand tells us that we will never be able to charge for anything that is ubiquitously available. At least, that's what the rulebook says.

However, I think the solution to almost all the problems related to consumer control of personal media consumption has been staring back at us from our television sets - we just didn't see it.

Most people schooled-in-the-art will tell you that live programming such as news, weather, sports and events are, for all practical purposes, TiVo-proof. This isn't strictly true, but if something is emergent, and the results are important, people tend to consume the media in real time. This almost always includes the associated commercial messaging. You can, of course, leave the room, talk to someone, play with your computer or do anything else you might think of during the commercial breaks but this has been true since the '50s. So, like I said, for all practical purposes, the commercials will play out.

Until consumers started to record television, TV was a real time device. No matter when the programming was created, it is always broadcast at specific times in a linear fashion. DVRs have changed that. When Jeff Zucker says, The number one show at 10pm is TiVo, he's not kidding. This is the current state of the art but it doesn't have to be.

We have entered the super-digital age and now all television is digital. So why are we still broadcasting combined, fully finished, masters in real time? We don't have to. It would be much, much better to serve individual streams of data that could be combined by the receiving technology to create custom formatted, device-specific pieces of content.

What?

Let's walk it backwards for a second:

Problem 1: There are far too many devices that can play back video for anyone to deal with. I produce MediaBytes, my daily news feed, in 46 different formats and I don't cover even a tiny fraction of the consumer electronics devices that are out there.

Problem 2: There are far too many places to obtain copies of any piece of video.

Problem 3: It is very difficult to measure who is watching, where they are and what else they may be doing.

Problem 4: Location and time of day are critical data points for the proper contextualization of message management.

The Real Time Data-based Digital Television Solution:

Break the data down to its component parts and broadcast them separately. So, text, graphics, music, script, metadata, voice-over, picture elements would all be packaged as individual data streams and made available in real time.

Next, the industry adopts the Tom Sawyer Paint The Fence Paradigm. This calls for the creation of a database (for the content), APIs (application programming interface) so third party developers can get at the data, an SDK (software development kit) so third party developers can license (and pay for) their use of the content, and some modifications to the current commercial trafficking networks and measurement tools.

The immediate result would be thousands of passionate, interested parties jumping on the opportunity to create thousands of virtual DMAs with virtual networks that could all be advertiser supported at scale.

Of course, anyone could still record a finished piece and have their way with it. But, imagine a broadcast world where television stations were broadcasting digital data feeds and economically motivated third party developers were crafting consumer interfaces that our industry simply will never be able to afford to create. Consumers who can obtain an emotionally satisfying media experience are far less likely to spend their valuable time looking for workarounds.

The concepts of relevance, engagement and conversations all become meaningless when developers with enlightened self-interest are your partners. The business rules surrounding this kind of data-based, content distribution would require developers to build measurable messaging into the platforms they support. Partners who make money when you make money and lose money when you lose money make great partners! Stations and Networks would transmogrify into their true digital counterparts platforms.

You can think of it as a real time Apple App store. Throw in a little real time web (like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and you've got a serious media offering.

Studios have been wholesalers for years. They sell their programs to Networks who, in turn, package the shows for consumer consumption. It is abundantly obvious that Networks cannot afford to create all of the packaging that consumers now require (or are willing to pay for). We need a better, more cost-effective way to serve audiences that are growing in diversity and getting harder and harder to aggregate.

Problem 1: Too Many Devices get third-party partners to pay you to modify your content to work with them.

Problem 2: There are far too many places to get video turn the weakness into strength by getting third parties to pay you from all of the nooks and crannies of the media consumption world.

Problem 3: It is very difficult to measure who is watching, where they are and what else they may be doing computers love data, build this functionality into the platform and the SDK.

Problem 4: Context is king yes it is, and what could be more contextual than having a passionate partner create an application that is specific to a consumption form factor?

Real Time Data-based Digital Television is a viable solution. Broadcasting real time data in component parts can be achieved today with just a little bit of political will. Steve Jobs and a zillion other Silicon Valley companies have demonstrated how easy it is to create a passionate, motivated army of third party developers. To me, the answer to the television industry's marginal cost, marginal gain problem has been staring us in the face since the transition to digital was announced. I just didn't see it until now.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.netFor information visit www.shellypalmer.com

The Change your number functionality, as spotted today by Boy Genius Report, is great news for users like me. Unfortunately, it will cost you to change it. There's a one-time $10 fee, which in my mind is well worth it. Best of all, Google Voice will activate your new number right away and still keep your old one active and forwarding to the new one for three months.

What's also nice is that in picking your new number, you can search by area code and by a word that you want your number to contain. So for example if I search for area code 408 and the word tuna, I can get a 408 number that ends in 8862 (T-U-N-A on a keypad).

Here are the details:

There is a $10 one-time fee to change your Google Voice number. Here is how it works:

• Pick a new number in the area codes we have.
• Pay $10 with Google Checkout, using your credit card.
• Your new number becomes active right away.
• Calls to your old number will keep coming to your Google Voice account for three months, so you have time to tell everyone about your new number.

We're still waiting on number portability (the ability to use your existing numbers as Google Voice numbers), but this is a nice start.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Oh, and I would warn you that there'll be spoilers in this review except that, really, since I still have no idea what actually happened in this movie, I'm not sure how much I can spoil it.

Since the days of Un Chien Andalou and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, filmmakers have reached beyond meaning. But with this summer's biggest, loudest movie, Michael Bay takes us all the way inside Caligari's cabinet. And once you enter, you can never emerge again. I saw this movie two days ago, and I'm still living inside it. Things are exploding wherever I look, household appliances are trying to kill me, and bizarre racial stereotypes are shouting at me.

Transformers: ROTF has mostly gotten pretty hideous reviews, but that's because people don't understand that this isn't a movie, in the conventional sense. It's an assault on the senses, a barrage of crazy imagery. Imagine that you went back in time to the late 1960s and found Terry Gilliam, fresh from doing his weird low-fi collage/animations for Monty Python. You proceeded to inject Gilliam with so many steroids his penis shrank to the size of a hair follicle, and you smushed a dozen tabs of LSD under his tongue. And then you gave him the GDP of a few sub-Saharan countries. Gilliam might have made a movie not unlike this one.

And the true genius of Transformers: ROTF is that Bay has put all of this excess of imagery and random ideas at the service of the most pandering movie genre there is: the summer movie. ROTF is like twenty summer movies, with unrelated storylines, smushed together into one crazy whole. You try in vain to understand how the pieces fit, you stare into the cracks between the narrative strands, until the cracks become chasms and the chasms become an abyss into which you stare until it looks deep into your own soul, and then you go insane. You. Do. Not. Leave. The Cabinet.

Michael Bay understands that summer movies are about two things: male anxiety, and pure id. That's why he casts Shia LaBoeuf, that supreme avatar of pure male inadequacy, in the lead role. LaBoeuf projects a pathetic, wall-eyed dorkhood, when he's not babbling like a tumor removed from Woody Allen's prostate that somehow achieved sentience. I imagine the DVD of ROTF will include a whole disk of outtakes where they had to stop filming because LaBoeuf was drooling on camera. As it is, the film includes several extreme closeups of LaBoeuf's dazed stare.

Where was I? Oh yes. So LaBoeuf, who's actually a fine actor, is the stand-in for the male viewers' greatest fears about themselves. No matter how great a loser they might be, they can't be as losery a loser as Sam Witwicky. And yet, Sam has awesome giant robots stomping around telling him he's the most important awesome person ever. And he has the hottest girlfriend in the universe, Megan Fox, for whom banality is a huge aphrodisiac. The more pathetic Sam gets, the more Fox's lips pout and her nipples point, like little Irish setters.

To make matters more awesome for the insecure males in the audience, Sam actually tosses aside his giant robot fanclub and his walking-pinup girlfriend, so he can have a normal life. Of course, this only leads to other robots and hawt chicks (who turn out to be robots too) throwing themselves at him and telling him how important he is. In the end, everybody learns to appreciate Sam just a bit more than they already did, and a booming voice tells him he's earned the "matrix of leadership" through his courage and stuff.

And then there's the "id" part, which is the part where stuff blows up real good, and huge machines smash each other up. And every single performance is so ridiculous that it looks down on "over the top" as if from a great height. It's the part of your brain that thinks it would be awesome to see robots with giant dangling testicles, or hot chicks turning into robot tentacle monsters, or "ghetto" robots that talk in inept hip-hop slang and smash each other playfully, or funny Jewish men who talk about their "schmear" and randomly strip to their G-strings. Is that going too far? Then let's go 100 times farther than that and see what happens!

Transformers: ROTF is so long, you'll need to wear adult diapers to it. But the movie's pure celebration of the primal urge, and unfiltered living, will make you rejoice in your adult diapers. You'll relieve yourself in your seat with a savage joy, your barbaric yawp blending in with the crowd's screams of excitement.

And yet and here's the part where I really think ROTF approaches "art movie" status the movie's id overload reaches such crazy levels that the fabric of reality itself starts to break down. Michael Bay has boasted about how every single shot in the movie has so much stuff going on in it, it would take your PC since the dawn of time to render one frame. After a few hours of this assault, you feel the chair melt and the floor of the movie theater becomes an angry mirror into your soul. Nothing is solid, nothing is real, everything Transforms.

The closest thing I can think of to this movie is the Wachowskis' Speed Racer, which had a similar kind of CG image overload, although it was only five hours long as opposed to ROTF's nine.

And around hour six of ROTF, something curious happens: the two components male enhancement and pure id start to clash, badly. Usually, in a summer movie, the two aspects go together like tits and ass: Jason Statham plays someone who faces the same insecurities as regular dudes, but he overcomes them, and in the process he blows up everything in the world. But creating that kind of fusion requires enslaving the id to the male enhancement, and that in turn means only going way over the top instead of crazy, stratospheric over the top. Michael Bay is not willing to settle for going way over the top, like other directors.

So you have a movie that tries to reassure men that they can actually be masters of their reality but then turns around and says that actually, reality is not real. There's no such thing as the "real world," and the only thing that's left for men to dominate is a nebulous domain of blurred shapes, which occasionally blurt nonsensical swear-words and slang from ethnic groups that have never existed. If you're drowning in an Olympic swimming pool full of hot chewing gum fondue, do you still care if Megan Fox likes you?

So yes, ROTF approaches the sublime, and then just keeps rocketing. Next stop: total anarchy. In a sense, it's the first war movie ever to convey a real sense of the fog of war, the confusion that comes with battle. Somewhere around hour nine, you will understand why friendly fire happens in wartime.

So I've gotten almost all the way through this review, and I still haven't summarized the movie's plot. Here goes. It's a couple years after the first movie, and Sam is going off to college, leaving his transforming car and his hot girlfriend, whom he still hasn't told he loves her. And meanwhile, the soldiers from the first movie are running around with a bunch of late-model GM cars and trucks, which turn into robots and fight other robots sometimes. Sam sees weird symbols which make no sense (and they still make no sense at the end of the movie) and they turn out to be the key to the location of a thing that can control another thing, that will enable the bad guys to destroy the sun. Sam has to embrace the heroic destiny he's rejected, so he can save us all from solarcide.

But that bare plot summary doesn't include the twenty or thirty other storylines that could also claim to be the movie's plot. There's the whole thing where someone from Washington D.C. wonders why the U.S. military is running around the globe with a bunch of late-model GM cars from outer space, and tries to put the kibosh on the military-Autobot complex. There's the teenager who's got a conspiracy website, that competes with another conpsiracy website which turns out to be the work of a secret agent who's decided that the best way to keep things secret is to put them on a website. (It works. I post secret stuff on io9 all the time.) Various robots die and then come back to life, and there's a whole strand about whether Decepticons (the bad ones) can become Autobots (the good ones). And there's the Fallen, who's sort of the movie's villain even though he barely shows up. And people from 17,000 BC who had weird teeth and fought robots. And the ancient Egyptians did stuff. And Sam's parents go to France except that they meet a robot and then they're in Egypt.

Really, I could go on and on. This movie starts out with a coherent storyline, for the first half hour or so, and then it just starts to spin faster and faster until the centrifuge of random events slams you into the walls. It doesn't help that there are 500 robots in the movie and they all look kind of the same.

Oh, but that's the other thing about ROTF. It's actually quite funny, a lot of the time. Some of the jokes fall flat, like the "twin" robots with the ghetto speak, and a lot of the stuff with John Turturro. But the movie's relentless silliness is mostly pretty hilarious, in a Saturday morning cartoon kind of way, and almost nothing in the movie seems intended to be taken seriously.

So, to sum up: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is one of the greatest achievements in the history of cinema, if not the greatest. You could easily argue that cinema, as an artform, has all been leading up to this. It will destabilize your limbic system, probably forever, and make you doubt the solidity of your surroundings. Generations of auteurs have struggled, in vain, to create a cinematic experience as overwhelming, and as liberating, as ROTF.

Women as well as men, everyone watching this film will feel the dissolution of all their certainties, all their illusory grasp on the world... but after you fall into a brazen despair that the walls of reality have become toxic ice cream of a million flavors, you will gasp with a greater realization: that once the world is reduced, forever, to a kaleidoscope of whirling shapes, you are totally free. Nothing matters, effect precedes cause, fish spawn in mid-air, and you can do whatever you want. Let yourself go in your adult diaper, Michael Bay invites you. Feel the music of total excess stir inside your deepest core. It is your Allspark, your cube. And you are a Transformer.