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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - As music lovers mobbed an outdoor stage, vying for views of Radiohead, Beck and other rockers, Keith McPhail enjoyed a prime view of the show from a couch in an Internet "living room."

McPhail, 34, was ensconced in a red-and-white striped, circus-style tent where the worlds of online social networking and real-world rock-and-roll merged in what some predict is a computer-age concert trend.

Microsoft and Federated Media teamed with concert organizer SuperFly Productions to debut a "CrowdFire" experience at the three-day Outside Lands music festival that ended Sunday in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

"Sitting in that Microsoft living room was better than being at the show," McPhail told AFP.

"It was perfect; no one was blocking my view. The last 25 minutes of the (Tom) Petty set I sat on that couch, as comfortable as I could be."

The high-tech big top pitched within easy earshot of the Outlands stage was marked only with a wooden sign bearing the word "CrowdFire" and a picture of a flaming mobile telephone.

Inside, dozens of concert-goers queued to check emails and Facebook accounts at a bank of laptop computers while others competed for wannabe guitar star glory on "Rock Band" music videogames.

Beer-drinking visitors in an "experience room" peered at a colossal flat-panel monitor watching their photos while listening to live music streamed in from outside.

Some people waited patiently for personalized posters featuring photographs digitally manipulated to make it seem they are standing with their favorite bands.

An estimated 100,000 Outlands attendees were given a place to upload digital photos, videos, audio and text from mobile telephones for sharing at a www.crowdfire.net website.

Uploaded content was streamed in a continuous montage online, in the CrowdFire tent, and on screens dotting the festival grounds.

Microsoft digital innovation manager Laura User headed the project, the inspiration for which sprang from the US software giant's "emerging media trials" program earlier this year.

"We wanted to do it around an event that people are excited about which is music," User told AFP during the event.

"It is smaller-scale pilot programs like this that provide a great learning environment where the company can try out new ideas and implement them right away."

Federated chief executive John Battelle takes the majority of the "blame" for the idea of smashing together online social networking and live concert going.

"It's basically just harvesting what everyone is already doing and creating a platform to allow them to do more with it," Battelle said.

The CrowdFire name came from the idea of creating a "digital campfire" in the middle of the event that was built by the crowd.

"This tent idea is new to me, but I like it and I think it would take off in Spain and other countries in Europe," said Teresa Gispert of Spain, who attended Outlands while vacationing.

She contended that using computers during live shows is very social because it lets her and friends share experiences while apart.

Before dashing off to upload video of musician Steve Winwood, Battelle predicted the CrowdFire concept will spread like wildfire worldwide.

Federate Media and partners plan to create "virtual living rooms" at music festivals in Europe and Asia.

Not far from Battelle, Mercedes Gendron looked about frantically for help in a reminder that the worlds of live performance and technology have something else in common; there can be unexpected glitches.

"Can you please help me? I was trying to upload, but it's not taking pictures from my phone," the 26-year-old Canadian woman pleaded.

"I think computers are bizarre as it is."

Source: yahoo news

If you've every wanted to live forever, legendary game designer Richard Garriott--also known in the video game community as "Lord British"--may give you the chance.

That's because Garriott, who has paid well into eight figures for the chance to go to space, is planning to take the DNA of several of his games' players with him for eternal stellar posterity.

The mission, known as "Operation Immortality," will launch this October when Garriott will fly aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station, taking with him a time capsule that will include the DNA of players of his well-known game, Tabula Rasa.

The game's publisher, announced Wednesday that it will offer the opportunity to any Tabula Rasa player to have their DNA sequenced and digitized and added to the time capsule that Garriott will take with him into space.

Further, any player of the game with an active account as of September 2, will have their character uploaded digitally to the time capsule. Those who haven't bought the game will be able to use a free trial NCSoft is offering.

Source: YN

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By most estimates, Linux and other open-source operating systems represent about 1 percent of the PC market. But on mobile devices, Linux is growing fast. As of 2007, more than 18 percent of all embedded devices--from cell phones to PDAs to e-book readers--ran a Linux-based OS, while less than 17 percent ran embedded Windows. So it's no great surprise that this year's OSCON open-source conference is leading off with a new program focused specifically on mobile gadgets.

Open-source and Linux developers are gathering in Portland, Oregon, this week to show off their work, compare notes, and hone their skills. Google, Intel, Sun, Yahoo, and even Microsoft have come to influence the future of Linux and other open-source initiatives. And if one thing is clear, it's that the future is mobile.

This year, OSCON is kicking off with a new day-long program called Open Mobile Exchange. The program started this morning with a look at the state of open source in general--and Linux in particular--on mobile devices, presented by Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin.

While server and desktop systems remain a key focus for open source developers, many at the conference see mobile devices as a major opportunity for growth of the Linux platform. In his opening talk, Zemlin attributed much of this enthusiasm to a the convergence of important technical and business considerations.

On the technical side, said Zemlin, Linux presents developers with a flexible platform that makes it easy to launch new software products quickly. It also now enjoys a wealth of new development platforms, including the much-touted (but somewhat delayed) Google Android and Trolltech's Qtopia. Additionally, Linux runs readily on a wide variety of CPUs and devices.

From a business perspective, Zemlin attributes the interest in mobile Linux, in large measure, to the lower development costs of royalty-free code. However, Linux also offers developers a chance to brand, skin, and customize their products in ways that major platform vendors Microsoft and Apple would never allow.

Of course, there's more to mobile open source than just Linux this year. The Symbian operating system, which represents roughly 22 percent of the smart-phone market, has gone open-source as well, in the wake of its acquisition by handset-maker Nokia. The combined Linux-Symbian OS juggernaut means that your next mobile phone has a good chance of running an open-source OS, even as Linux market share continues to flounder on desktop PCs.

Mobile software and devices will play a major role on the show floor at OSCON this year with Google, Intel, Trolltech, Ubuntu, and a host of other major developers planning to showcase their efforts on cell phones and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

Via YN

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital music seller Rhapsody is launching a $50 million marketing assault on Apple's iTunes, offering songs online and via partners including Yahoo Inc and Verizon Wireless, Rhapsody said on Monday.

The songs will be sold in MP3 format, which means users of the Rhapsody service will be able to play them on iPods.

Before now Rhapsody, jointly owned by Real Networks Inc and Viacom Inc's MTV Networks, had focused on a subscription service, allowing unlimited song streaming for $13 to $15 a month, rather than selling downloads.

But Rhapsody Vice President Neil Smith said the fact the service has not been compatible with Apple Inc's top-selling iPod digital player has limited Rhapsody's reach.

"We're no longer competing with the iPod," Smith said. "We're embracing it."

Rhapsody also will be the music store back-end to MTV's music Web sites and iLike, one of the most widely used music applications on social networking site Facebook.

Rhapsody will be available on mobile phones via the Verizon Wireless VCAST Music service. Buyers of a song over-the-air directly from phones also will be able to download that song to their computer. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.

Rhapsody executives describe the strategy as "Music Without Limits." They said it would be backed by a marketing blitz worth up to $50 million in media space over the next year in part by leveraging co-parent MTV's TV networks and Web sites.

CHALLENGERS

Rhapsody is the latest player to challenge iTunes's 70 percent-plus market share of U.S. digital music sales.

Last month digital music service Napster Inc launched an MP3 store. Both Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Amazon.com Inc launched stores last year.

None of the new stores has made much of a dent on Apple's lead. Early this year iTunes became the biggest music retailer in the United States. It has sold more than 5 billion songs since it launched in 2003.

Its success has been due partly to a seamless interface between iTunes and the iPod and because it provides a good user experience, said analyst David Card of Jupiter Research.

The new digital MP3 stores have been made possible because the four major record groups last year started to experiment with allowing retailers to sell music without digital rights management (DRM) software to prevent illegal sharing of music.

Analysts believe the move by Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI Group will help open the market for retailers and music companies.

"I think we'll see retailers begin to compete the way they usually compete with pricing, merchandising and promotions, rather than due to some arbitrary technology," Card said.

(Editing by David Gregorio and Braden Reddall)

Source: yahoo news

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Even if you're an active Web surfer you probably don't pay much attention to the browser you are using. By default, you likely employ Microsoft's Internet Explorer on a Windows machine, if only because Internet Explorer sits right there on your desktop. The Apple crowd typically sticks with Safari.

Still, many of us in recent years have been drawn to a feature-rich browser called Firefox from the non-profit Mozilla organization. This week Mozilla released a speedy and more secure new version called Firefox 3.

I've generally had a very good experience testing Firefox 3 on Windows PCs and Macs. (It also works on Linux.) It's snappier than Internet Explorer and uses less memory. I had no trouble migrating from Firefox 2. And Mozilla claims Firefox 3 has more than 15,000 improvements, though I'll have to take their word for it because most of the action is under the hood.

Why go to the trouble of switching browsers? Through the years, Microsoft has been slow to innovate. Guess that comes with owning a monopoly share. It was late to the party with such features as tabbed browsing, which lets you keep multiple browser windows open at the same time. (The feature is there now.)

And for a while anyway, Internet Explorer seemed to have more gaping holes than Swiss cheese, though to be fair it's gotten a lot more secure in recent iterations. Still, the door was left wide open for more nimble rivals, including Apple's Safari (which now also works on Windows), Norway's Opera and, of course, Firefox.

I've long appreciated the "restore previous session feature" in Firefox, which opens the tabs and windows from your previous session should the browser unexpectedly crash. A Firefox pop-up blocker arrived early on. A built-in spell-checker is another core feature.

As "open source" software - meaning the code is open to all programmers - Firefox is also extremely customizable. Some 5,000 add-on programs have been made available, though not all of them are ready for version 3. I was unable to load Google Send to Phone for Firefox because as a pop-up window warned, "It does not provide secure updates." Mozilla said about 75% of the most-used add-ons were compatible with Firefox 3 in the days leading up to the launch; most of your favorites should catch up quickly.

Firefox 3 is less of a hog on system resources than its predecessor or Internet Explorer. I opened a dozen popular sites in Firefox on a Vista machine and opened the same ones with Microsoft's browser. Firefox used a lot less memory.

Let's take a closer look at the latest version of the Mozilla browser.

•Easy navigation. Arguably the most useful new feature is the "Smart Location Bar," aka, the "Awesome Bar." Start typing and Firefox serves up a drop-down list of possible cyberdestinations based on sites you've already visited, bookmarked or tagged. It learns as you go. The words you type appear in bold, making it a cinch to find an appropriate match if there is one. Typing "Ru" brought up listings of sites I visited after Tim Russert died.

Firefox makes intelligent (and usually correct) guesses when you enter text. You won't always have to type in a complete Web address. When I typed "Mets" and pressed enter, I was transported to the official site of my favorite ball club. When I typed "onion," I was taken to the Onion humor site. On Internet Explorer, typing "Mets" and "onion" took me to search pages instead.

Bookmarking is also a breeze. A star icon appears to the right of the Web address in the location bar. Click the star once to save the location as a bookmark. Or double-click the star to tag and save the site to a particular location.

And you can click on a new Most Visited folder to check out the sites you hang out at most often, one of the available "smart bookmark folders."

•Security. You were warned in Firefox 2, and for that matter Internet Explorer, when coming upon a "phishing" site. These bogus sites try ripping you off by masquerading as real financial (or other) institutions. With Firefox 3, Mozilla broadens the alarm to include sites that attempt to attack your machine with viruses, spyware or other "malware." A pop-up appears with a "get me out of here" button; you can also click for an explanation of why the site is blocked.

Clicking on a tiny icon to the left of the location bar lets you determine if a site you are visiting is legit.

Mozilla's rivals aren't standing still. Opera just released its own new version with features that keep bookmarks and notes synchronized between the desktop browser and one on your cellphone. Microsoft is readying a new version of Internet Explorer, and the bet is Apple is doing the same with Safari. And the Flock "social browser" (which is built on top of Firefox technology) is in trials with a new test version of its own. The way it's going, you may even start paying more attention to the browser that you are using.

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