Google Reader Play: a new way to browse the web

Google's new interface turns the web into an interactive entertainment magazine Google has launched Google Reader Play, an experimental feature that offers a new, highly visual way to browse the web. The new interface displays only one story at a time, focusing on pictures, videos, visual statistics and maps. "We think Reader Play is a fun way to browse interesting items online that you wouldn't find otherwise," said software engineer Garrett Wu in a blogpost announcing the new product. Unlike the standard Google Reader in which users have to subscribe to feeds, Google Reader Play requires no set-up. It learns new users' preferences by asking them to mark items they like with a star to read later. "We designed it especially for people who don't want to spend time curating their own set of feeds," said Wu. Google Reader Play is thus easy to use, and as the items are displayed in full-screen, there is one type of content it is perfect for: television. As Nick Bilton of the New York Times puts it: "Although Google doesn't address television in the description of the product, the promising use case for many people could be the ability to use Google Reader Play on a computer hooked up to a larger screen." Launched a few weeks before Apple's iPad hits the stores in April, Google Reader Play makes it clear that the big tech companies are aiming to take on the consumer market. Do you like the idea of Google Reader Play? Please have your say in the comments Google Digital media Mercedes Bunz guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

View original story : new+york+web Feed : Technology: Technology blog | guardian.co.uk

The Unfortunate Saga of Risqué Domain Naming and Branding Continues with the Sale of Sex.com

The domain name Sex.com is up for grabs. That's right, potentially the most expensive domain name in history is in foreclosure and will be sold at auction, with bids starting at a cool $1 million. It was sold for $14 million in 2006, which was a record then until Insure.Com went for $16 million. I have previously written about how the domain name Sex.com has been poorly managed, and even swindled from previous owners. Now, the story seems to have continued its downward spiral. It will be sold "as is" in the equivalent of a foreclosure sale and should generate a lot of interest, as it can apparently generate $15,000 of revenue a day if managed correct. Sex.com is one of the top five most profitable domain names on the web today, the others being Fund.com, Porn.com, Poker.com and Business.com. The Sex.com domain name has been mismanaged, of course, and is surrounded by clouds of legal skullduggery. It is claimed that one of the previous owners had the name stolen from him, and commenced a ten-year manhunt to find the culprit. DOM Partners, a New Jersey lender is foreclosing the domain and will auction it on March 18, at the New York law firm, Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf. Ecoconsultancy has a great post up entitled "Six things you can learn from Sex.com's failure," and number one is: A great domain only goes so far. I have to agree. It takes more than a name to make a product or a domain name shine. However, we at Strategic Name Development can say, a great name never hurts. Technorati Tags: Sex.com, Domain Name, Auction, Ecoconsultancy, Foreclosure,

View original story : new+york+web Feed : Name Wire: The Product Naming Blog

Business Professionals Invited to Learn how to Use Search Engine Marketing

Web Hosting Tools – Herndon, VA — Network Solutions® will host online marketing seminars for local business owners and managers interested in learning how search engine optimization and Pay Per Click advertising can help them attract new customers. Taking place at New York City, New York’s NYC Seminar & Conference [...]

View original story : new+york+web Feed : FindMyHost Directory

WWN Has a Stopwatch on Ad Visibility

ADOTAS – Considering how much time people spend online, why our brand dollars still heading to the boob tube? Because there aren’t effective tools to measure an online viewing experience like the ones for television programming, says Pierre de Grandmaison, founder of World Web Network (WWN), which recently opened an office in New York City. [...]

View original story : new+york+web Feed : Adotas

Python Web Developer - Boutique Web Consulting Startup - New York, NY

developer with the following skills... hands on expertise in building Python web applications, ideally Django - Must haves: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (yui... From CareerGrub - 08 Mar 2010 13:52:09 GMT - job details - View all New York jobs

View original story : new+york+web Feed : python Jobs | Indeed.com

Report: Google near certain to close China site

NEW YORK -- A newspaper Web site is reporting Google Inc. is "99.9 percent" sure to close its search engine in China after negotiations over censorship stalled.

View original story : new+york+web Feed : Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Business

Feature: Ibogaine Forum 2010 -- Mourning the Movement's "Tare," Celebrating New Hopes for Research and Development

special to Drug War Chronicle by Doug Greene Over a cold President's Day weekend, dozens of researchers, providers and activists converged on the Yippie Museum Cafe for the Ibogaine Forum 2010, the annual conference about the controversial African rainforest addiction interrupter. This year's event was held just downstairs from the lair of conference organizer, Global Marijuana March facilitator and Cures not Wars cofounder Dana Beal (who remains free on bail from his October 1st bust following last year's NORML conference). This year's Ibogaine Forum, like last year's, was streamed to hundreds of viewers. Howard Lotsof Tabernanthe iboga has been used for several centuries by practitioners of the Bwiti religion in equatorial Africa. But it wasn't until June 1962 that its principal alkaloid's effects on opiate dependence were discovered. Howard Lotsof (then a Fairleigh Dickinson University dropout with a heroin habit) took a dose that a chemist friend gave him, and after a 36 hour trip full of Freudian imagery, discovered that he didn't want to cop heroin anymore. That random trip started Lotsof on his life's work and led to thousands of people participating in "a vast uncontrolled experiment" (in the words of writer Brian Vastag) to treat drug dependence. However, its status as a Schedule I controlled substance, long duration of action and intense psychological and physical effects have kept it outside of the medical mainstream. Ibogaine has been receiving more media attention and public interest in the past few months. It was featured in the plot of an episode of "Law & Order Special Victims Unit" in November and in "I'm Dangerous with Love," Michel Negroponte's new documentary about New York based on underground provider Dimitri Mobengo Mugianis. Although the buzz about ibogaine has been slowly building for decades, efforts to develop ibogaine as a medication for drug dependence in the United States have been stalled since 1995, when a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Phase I study in humans was halted after the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) spent $2,000,000 in pre-clinical and animal testing, due to financial issues and disputes among the study sponsors. That may be about to change, since Dr. Walter Ling, the Director of UCLA's Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, has allegedly undertaken a review of current ibogaine research for NIDA. Dr. Ling's web page states that he is a consultant to NIDA. According to conference presenter Dr. Anwar Jeewa, co-director of the Minds Alive life rehabilitation and treatment center in Durban, South Africa, he met Ling at Schering-Plough's launch of Suboxone in Durban on Feb. 2, where Jeewa asked Ling if he knew about ibogaine. Ling admitted that he did, having received many phone calls from Lotsof, but was not aware of the amount of treatment providers and published research. He then revealed that NIDA had contracted with him to reassess ibogaine. Ling's research is overseen by Dr. Cecelia (Cece) McNamara Spitznas, PhD, of the Behavioral and Integrative Treatment Branch at NIDA's Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Research. Adult treatment research is part of Dr. Spitznas' portfolio for NIDA. However, according to David McCann, Associate Director (acting) of NIDA's Division of Pharmacotherapies and Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse, "nobody at NIDA knows anything about it. If [Ling] is in fact writing a review, he's apparently not doing it for NIDA." Jeewa said this week that NIDA had not officially sanctioned Ling to reassess ibogaine, but had done so unofficially. Ling had not responded to requests for clarification by press time. Despite that and other enormously positive news, conference attendees were still reeling from Lotsof's death on Jan. 31st after a long struggle with liver cancer. Lotsof was recognized as "[the] discoverer of ibogaine's anti-addictive effects, patient activist, president of the Dora Weiner Foundation and author of the Ibogaine Patient's Bill of Rights" last November, when the Drug Policy Alliance co-awarded him the Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action at their biennial conference. (The video is here). At Ibogaine Forum 2010, Lotsof was posthumously honored by a large number of presenters and attendees during Sunday's memorial. "Ibogaine-Rite of Passage" producer and director Ben De Loenen showed footage of Lotsof he took at last March's Lotsof tribute First Ibogaine Providers and Facilitators Conference, in which Lotsof called ibogaine "a magnificent tool and road to freedom over slavery" and expressed his belief that ibogaine would eventually be used successfully in drug treatment, in contrast to his pessimism at the end of the film. That conference also marked the founding of the International Federation of Ibogaine Providers. Another presenter, NYU Langone Medical Center Associate Professor Ken Alper, pointed out that in addition to Lotsof's personal qualities, his work was directly responsible for NIDA's research into ibogaine, a slew of peer-reviewed publications and the First International Conference on Ibogaine, which was held in 1999. But perhaps Beal summed it up best when he told the audience the best way to memorialize Lotsof was to move ibogaine forward and help realize his dream. The sheer diversity of the presenters, attendees and topics discussed would have heartened Lotsof. Among the attendees were Midge Potts, a Missouri US Senate candidate calling for ibogaine treatment as part of her platform, a nurse from New Jersey whose boyfriend was part of a Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) long-term outcomes study on ibogaine's efficacy for treatment of opiate dependence at Pangea Biomedics in Playas De Tijuana, Mexico, and LEAP's Matthew Fogg. Presenters included: MAPS' John Harrison, discussing the preliminary results of their ibogaine study (of 20 participants, 10 were confirmed as still not using), a revised study protocol, ibogaine's potential in treating HIV, HTLV, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and other personality disorders and "aftercare as an afterthought" among providers. Robert Sisko of the Addiction Research Institute on efforts to produce ibogaine according to Good Manufacturing Practice for use in clinical trials and a proposed multinational study to have the FDA approve ibogaine for alleviation of opiate withdrawal symptoms. San Francisco provider Krista Howard on tips for new treatment providers. Sandra Karpetas of British Columbia's Iboga Therapy House and New Zealand activist and aspiring provider Marie Cotter on ibogaine's status in their countries (where it's not regulated, but also not officially legitimized for use), the need for further research, standardizing data from ibogaine therapists, defining best practices in ibogaine therapy, and the rationale for adopting language that defines ibogaine as a natural health product. However, none of the ibogaine enthusiasts present believed that it was going to conquer the drug treatment world in the near future. The mainstream treatment establishment remains skeptical, if not outright hostile to ibogaine -- as witnessed by the comment of Dr. Herbert Kleber, director of the division on substance abuse at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University in Lotsof's New York Times obituary, who cited a lack of controlled studies and a number of deaths to conclude that "it is [not] something that should be used in the absence of such evidence." Alper and others have attributed these deaths to factors such as cardiac risks that could have been detected by better screening and overdoses from taking opiates during or just after an ibogaine experience. Naysayers like Kleber aside, with research, production techniques, initiates and providers experiencing rapid growth around the world, ibogaine's potential for transformation of the way drug dependence is viewed and treated seems boundless. The spirit of Lotsof, as the tare ("father" in the Fang language, which is spoken in Tabernanthe iboga's native equatorial Africa) of it all, must be pleased that so many believers are, as Krista Howard said at his memorial, "working together to finish this masterpiece, make it even more beautiful and legitimize it." read full post

View original story : new+york+web Feed : Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) - Public Health

Telecommute, United States, Telecommuting Ruby on Rails developer for work on existing nonprofit site, and creation of a new site to help the poor with Daily Source Limited

If you e-mail us, it’s important to provide the information listed in the “Information we need” section below. If you have applied with us in the past, you are very welcome to apply for this. We are a small nonprofit organization and we were not able to reply to all of the applicants for our past openings. We are happy to consider you for this position. EXISTING SITE Our first Web site is below, and most of the first two months would probably be spent helping with it - mostly implementing new features, and doing some refactoring/optimization in some areas: http://dailysource.org/ The site’s mission is to bring high-quality news and information from around the Internet to the public. You can read more about it here - http://dailysource.org/about/site http://dailysource.org/about/benefits The site was chosen by PBS’ Media Shift blog as a top 5 trend to watch. We have some top journalists in the U.S. working and/or volunteering for us including; Laura Noueihed, who was the chief editor in charge of the night editions of the front page of the New York Times' Web site in the past; Vince Winkel, who has won 20 awards for excellence in journalism while working for places like CBS, NPR, CNN, and the BBC and who is the former operating editor of monitor.org; and Lynne Adams who headed up a 30 person division at the BBC covering international and national stories for their Web site and mobile platforms. NEW SITE This is the project you’ll be working on about 90% of the time after the first two months. Its focus is on helping the people in the world in the greatest need, especially the 2 billion extremely poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America who are trying to live on less than $2 a day: http://leastof.org/about/intro http://www.leastof.org/ http://leastof.org/about/samplepages Check out the innovative World Wealth Calculator on the front page, that the top economist at the World Bank volunteered to help us create. We are very excited about LeastOf.org and have received an extremely positive response to it so far. While we are on a somewhat small budget at the moment, we expect the site to eventually have tens of thousands of users and believe it will be a feather in the cap of whoever develops it. It will be a great portfolio builder and excellent basis for references. We are looking to make a big impact on the world with this project. We developed DailySource using Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and a good amount of AJAX - and are looking to do the same with LeastOf.org. INFORMATION WE NEED If you think you might be interested in these, please e-mail the following to: developer (at) dailysource (dot) org: * Your resume (or the equivalent information such as work experience and skills, or curriculum vitae). * The number of hours per week you are available. We prefer 30 to 45, and will consider as low as 15 a week. * How much you would charge per hour to work on these. Again, we are a nonprofit and do not have a large budget. In the past we’ve paid $10-$17 but we might be able to go a little higher depending on the candidate. * If English is not your native tongue, please let us know the levels of your written and verbal English. THE ROLE Telecommuting from anywhere in the world is possible. The times of day you do the work are totally flexible, though finding times 1-2 days a week to talk briefly via IM will be important. The types of things we need done are - * Helping design the architecture of the site * Writing the code for the core functionality and features * Ideally some systems admin work, and at the very least helping get the site back up if it’s down. Our current developer does some systems admin work, and we likely will have a very part-time sys admin to help us. If you’re good at sys admins, especially AWS’ Ec2, it’s a plus. * Once the site is live - some occasional (about once a week) technical support mostly through e-mail for our users. REQUIREMENTS The basic skills requirements are: * Rails and Ruby * XHTML/CSS (not necessarily design) * MySQL * Comfortable with Linux, Apache, FastCGI * Ability to be highly organized, keep lists of numerous things you’re working on and keep track of time spent on items. * Paying attention to details and thoroughness. * Ability to take specs and turn them into functional features. * Understanding how different parts of a system affect each other. * Ability to communicate on a regular basis. * Ability to be productive and follow-through. * Familiarity with tools such as Git and Redmine is helpful, though these are pretty easy to figure out. * Some basic graphic design/layout ability is a plus. We are forward thinking and passionate about making the world a better place — particularly for those most in need. We look forward to hearing from you, Rachel

View original story : new+york+web Feed : RailsLodge - Jobs

Controversial Scottish Data Center Build Goes Forward – Web Host Industry Review

Click here to RSVP to WHIR Events: New York City - March 25, 2010 Chicago - April 22, 2010 Toronto - May 20, 2010 Five Most Recent Posts News: Web Host The Planet Joins Tumblr, Kickstarter, and SoundCloud to Host SXSW Meet-Up Blogs: CO2 Impact on Datacenters News: Controversial Scottish Data Center Build Moves Forward (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A massive data center in North Lanarkshire, Scotland has been approved by the local council, despite the mounting controversy surrounding the build.

View original story : new+york+web Feed : VRYTEK

Alain Ducasse signs new FranceGuide 2010´s preface

Montréal – ATOUT FRANCE, the France Tourism Development Agency is thrilled to present its most recent edition of FranceGuide, the reference for Francophiles and sophisticated travelers. The magazine (www.franceguidemagazine.com) offers twice as much, with over 40 articles available only online. This new hybrid print/web publication welcomes the interaction of readers, providing travel stories, interviews, videos, and more. Readers are also invited to share their comments and post specific contents to social network media. Alain Ducasse, ambassador of the French art of living This year, we welcome Alain Ducasse as an exclusive collaborator to our magazine. The chef, trendsetter and leader first prefaces the magazine, and then, for our cameras, elaborates on sustainable development and the fascinating diversity of his homeland, so intricately linked to the excellent reputation of French cuisine. The web video interview is available on page 1 of the webzine. FranceGuide will also entice travelers who truly wish to cover French ground, with articles on walking trails in Brittany, Riviera and the Alps, incredible canoe races in Tahiti, romantic getaways in Martinique… Nothing goes unnoticed to our collaborators - well-known journalists throughout the Americas — from the latest designs of Paris hotels and museums dedicated to fashion, to private lessons in wine-tasting. Ten reasons to visit France in 2010 The release of FranceGuide magazine is the perfect opportunity for the France Tourism Development Agency to remind Canadians why the world’s most visited destination deserves to be seen again this year. 1. Because it’s affordable: since January 1st, 2010, there has been a 7% decrease in the value of the euro compared to the Canadian dollar, which makes travelling to France more advantageous (Source: Banque de France). 2. Because it’s accessible: transportation services are in constant expansion, with more than 100 flights to France per week leaving from Canada during peak season. 3. Because it’s easy to get around: vast choice of transportation options, with the freedom to travel by train (TGV) or by car. 4. For the diversity of its terroir: so well illustrated by Alain Ducasse. franceguidemagazine.com, p. 1 5. For its wines and vineyards: in April 2010, ATOUT FRANCE LAUNCHES an important wine tourism oriented campaign, presenting vineyards from the Rhone-Alps region, Aube in Champagne and the Narbonne surroundings. Another major event: Bordeaux Fête le Vin. franceguidemagazine.com, p. 23 6. For its Impressionist painters: the Normandie Impressionniste festival will mobilize an entire region from May to September around arts and artists inspired by this movement. To fully appreciate this event, we have created an exclusive itinerary on the Web section of our magazine. franceguidemagazine.com, p. 8-9 7. To see the new Pompidou Center in Metz: opening May 12! franceguidemagazine.com, p. 43 8. To go on a girls’ trip (friends, mothers and daughters, sisters…): ATOUT FRANCE will nourish this niche market, a growing trend in North America. 9. To visit the New Paris *: capital of creation in all fields, from fashion, arts and culture, to urban planning and tourist attractions… Paris, joyous and always festive, will help you travel with emotion. franceguidemagazine.com, p. 58 (* Press and tourism industry professionals are invited to attend the annual tradeshow featuring the new Paris Ile-de-France, March 24th in Toronto and Vancouver 26th . Don’t wait to sign up.) 10. For Jazz à Juan’s 50th anniversary, a festivity-filled program, from April to August, combining the perfect mix of big names and new talents. franceguidemagazine.com, p. 10 500,000 copies throughout the Americas The print edition of FranceGuide is 60 pages (with an extra 44 pages of exclusive online content), and is available in four languages. As of February 2010, 500,000 copies are distributed throughout five countries in the Americas, free of charge, to select subscribers of major daily newspapers. In Canada, these include The Toronto Star, The Gazette, La Presse, Le Soleil, Le Devoir, and in the United States, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Los Angeles Times. Visit www.franceguidemagazine.com to discover this new publication and find out about Canadian distribution points.

View original story : new+york+web Feed : SMR » Search