Geekly Update December 14

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Last weekend, DARPA held a challenge with over 4,000 groups participating. They launched 10 large red balloons in undisclosed locations and wanted to see if social networking sites could be used to spread information and find all ten. MIT won the $40,000 prize. In other news, sightings of large red UFOs have increased dramatically. Scientists from DARPA are looking into it.

Sir Richard Branson has finally brought space flight to the masses. The very rich masses, anyway. For the paltry sum of $200,000, any earthling can take off in Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two and spend an entire 5 minutes in space. Branson is so psyched about the VSS Enterprise (clever name, eh?) that he wants to take his mom and kids with him on its maiden voyage.

Google has yet another clever Internet tool - Goggles. With an Android-based phone and the Google Goggles application, you just take a picture and Goggles will identify it for you. Goggles it still in development, but for now it can identify well-known landmarks, logos and artwork, bring business cards to life, and a few other tricks.

Nielsen reports that although there is more Internet video every day, 99% of all video viewing still takes place on regular TVs. The Three Screen Report concluded that Internet video is adding to, not replacing, the video diet of American viewers.

Time has announced their top ten lists for the year. In the electronic gadgets category the Droid took first place, followed by the Nook, the Dyson Air Multiplier and the iPhone 3GS.

Thanks to Dell, there is now an affordable thin, light notebook. The 13.3" Vostro V13 features a CULV Intel processor, Windows 7 or Vista OS, an LED-backlit HD (1366x768) anti-glare display, up to 4GB of RAM, a 5-in-1 card reader, lots of options for memory and features, and a price of $449.00.

What happens to your Gmail and Facebook accounts when you die? A new service called My Webwill will soon take care of your Internet interests after your demise. Launching in Sweden and the US this month, users can decide what to do with their social networking accounts and email after they die. The basic service is free while the $29.00 premium account includes account deactivation and unlimited posthumous emails.

Barnes & Noble has updated the shipping status of the Nook. No, they're not going to ship your Nook *earlier*, silly. If you were hoping for a January 15 ship date, there's bad news -- the new date is February 1.

AOL finally ended ties with Time Warner this week. Now that they are on their own, they plan to launch sites written by freelancers and to utilize their content management system Seed for easier searches.