Google Adds IMAP Support To GMail
GMail has gained IMAP support, one of the most requested features for Google’s web-based e-mail service.
More than storage space or other features, free web-based IMAP access pushes GMail over the top when compared to offerings from Yahoo, Microsoft and most other web-based e-mail services.
If you log into your GMail account and head to “settings,” the tab for “Forwarding and POP” should now read “Forwarding and POP/IMAP.”
If it doesn’t, be patient, Google will be rolling out the new IMAP features across the service over the next few days.
If you’re not familiar with IMAP, it’s like POP access, but allows your changes to live on the server rather than just your e-mail client.
For instance, if you move a message in Thunderbird via POP, the movement isn’t mirrored in GMail, but with IMAP it is.
With IMAP you can access your mail via your desktop client, read mail, make changes and have those changes mirrored by any other client accessing the account.
If you access your mail from multiple machines, IMAP allows them all to stay in sync. If you don’t access your mail with a desktop client, then IMAP support won’t change the way you interact with GMail.
To enable IMAP in GMail just head to the settings page and change your access from POP to IMAP.
Then you need to configure your desktop client to connect via IMAP rather than POP — be sure to backup your client’s mail store before making changes.
The Google help center has more details on configuring IMAP settings in both GMail and on the client side.
Spark IP: an eBay for Ideas
SparkIP.com is a new Web site that aims to create a marketplace where ideas can be bought and sold.
Today SparkIP.com covers over 3.5 million US patents going back to the late 1960s.
They have plans to add patent applications, international patents, and other data sets in the coming weeks and they hope to soon have dozens of new innovations showing up on the site daily!
As you search on technologies, inventors, organizations or other terms, you will be introduced to our SparkCluster maps which are designed to give structure and context to the vast amounts of information available.
SparkClusters are self-organizing and self-naming, ensuring that the maps reflect the latest trends in innovation.
Today, there are over 49,000 SparkClusters on SparkIP.com; and each month, new ones will form as the innovation landscape evolves.
SparkIP connects ideas and investors in two ways.
First, you can dive into a database of 3.5 million U.S. patents using a Google-inspired keyword search.
Second, technology owners can list technology available for licensing.
SparkIP.com is a data-rich exchange designed for scientists/inventors, universities, government labs, corporations, patent attorneys, and anyone doing research on patented or emerging technologies.
Slashdot 10th Anniversary
The Sputnik launch isn’t the only big anniversary this month; Slashdot is celebrating, too.
The influential “news for nerds” site famous for swamping unsuspecting websites with huge amounts of server crashing traffic turns 10 this month and Slashdot parties are popping up all around the country.
It all started in 1997, in a time before there was Gmail.
Slashdot founder and editor Rob Malda, aka CmdrTaco, wanted a non-college-affiliated e-mail address, so he simply registered his own domain name.
While he was at it, he decided to add a little humor and make the URL as unpronounceable as possible: “H, T, T, P, colon, slash, slash, slashdot, dot, org.”
What Malda didn’t expect was that Slashdot would become one of the most popular geek news sites on the web, overloading so many websites’ servers that the phrase “Slashdot effect” would be coined.
Microsoft Acquires Jellyfish
Microsoft gave its official nod to the social shopping boom today, with news of the acquisition of discount shopping start-up Jellyfish.
Described on its site as “the Internet’s first buying engine,” the Madison, Wisconsin-based company is known for its unconventional approach to online commerce.
Although the details of the deal were not disclosed, we can’t help but wonder whether or not Redmond’s acquisition is going to alter that stance.
In short, Jellyfish has created a niche search platform designed to provide a more efficient and rewarding discount shopping experience.
“Think of us as a search engine for shopping,” the site suggests, “except we share at least half of every $1 we earn when you shop.” Sounds like an ideal property for Microsoft to scoop up, right?
Well, the crux of this platform is that it turns a cold shoulder on an aspect of online commerce that Microsoft has been attempting to grow — namely, the pay-per-click ad model.
According to Jellyfish’s zeitgeist, pay per click advertising “fails to align incentives properly between the consumer, the advertiser, and the search engine intermediary connecting them.”
It’s certainly an interesting take on sponsored links, but it will most likely be a complicated stance to maintain after being acquired by one of the larger players in the pay per click game.
Regardless of the possible conundrum that creates, Jellyfish’s mojo seems to work just fine for Microsoft.
Jellyfish has done some really innovative work in comparative shopping engines.
We think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search.
Source: Microsoft blog post announcing the Jellyfish purchase.
We’ll stayed tuned, but it sounds like it could go either way with this one. It’ll all come down to whether or not Microsoft wants to grow the site, or assimilate it.
Microsoft Joins The Documents-For-Free Movement
It seems that online word processing has suddenly become sexy.
Within hours of each other, both Microsoft and Adobe have joined Google, Zoho, and other companies in promoting new online document creating/sharing services. What gives?
With Microsoft, which just announced the forthcoming Office Live Workspace, it may be simply that somebody at Redmond has finally figured out that they’re no longer the only kids on the block.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Adobe is apparently putting together an online document collaboration service that will include its latest acquisition, an online Flash-based word processor called Buzzword.
Not all of Adobe’s online services are free of charge - for example, its Create PDF service is $10 a month but there’s no reason to think that Adobe won’t have the good sense to offer at least this application without cost.
In fact, it’s become increasingly evident that basic applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation are moving out of the realm of for-pay software and into the new category of “free for individuals.”
Some of these services are financed via advertising; others by charging for more storage or increased functionality.
The bottom line for many users, however, is that it’s here, it’s available, and it’s free. Why pay several hundred dollars for Microsoft Office?
Well, because there are still plenty of things that you can do with Microsoft Office or Corel’s WordPerfect, for that matter that haven’t yet been matched online, such as indexing and columns.
In addition, most online word processors haven’t yet been able to sync their documents in real time so that users can have full editing access while away from an Internet connection.
So it seems that Microsoft’s shiny new Office 2007 suite isn’t in jeopardy quite yet.
However as more free applications become available, and as their feature sets continue to widen, it’s obvious that office suite vendors will have to get on the wagon or be left behind.
It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft will give Office Live Workspace enough muscle to really compete.
Torrent Tracker Demonoid.com Taken Offline
The popular Demonoid.com, a semi-private BitTorrent tracker, has been taken offline.
Both the torrent tracker and the site have been unresponsive for over twenty-four hours.
Although there has been no official word, or statement from the Demonoid administrators, the Dutch news site nu.nl reports that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) is responsible for the downtime.
TorrentFreak reports that it contacted some of the Demonoid administrators, but even they are not yet sure what happened to the site.
If it does turn out to be the CRIA, this won’t be the first time Demonoid has suffered major downtime due to pressure from the recording industry.
Earlier this year Demonoid moved its servers from The Netherlands to Canada after a Dutch anti-piracy group filed a subpoena demanding the site’s ISP remove Demonoid and cough up the administrator’s identities.
It would seem that Canada is not the safe harbor Demonoid was seeking and we suspect that the site will likely move its servers again.
While The Pirate Bay is still the most popular torrent tracker online, Demonoid is a close second.
Much of the site’s popularity stems from the fact that membership is limited and strict ratio tracking means Demonoid is faster than most trackers.
Demonoid is also remarkably free of the spam and fake torrents released by groups like the recently exposed MediaDefender.
Although the site requires registration for older torrents, Demonoid recently began offering the newer torrents (within the last two weeks) to the general public.
So far there’s no word on when Demonoid may come back online, but as with the resurrected Suprnova.org, it would seem that you just can’t keep a popular torrent site down for long.