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Google acquires programming start-up PeakStream

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Google Acquires PeakStreamGoogle‘s empire continues to grow as it acquires PeakStream, a start-up that provides tools for programming chips with multiple processing units.

PeakStream sells tools for writing software that can unlock newer computers’ advance processors, taking advantage of multicore processors and graphics and gaming chips. Experts speculate that the acquisition could potentially change Google’s technology strategy as PeakStream uses graphic chips, called GPUs, which can double the speed of their server systems.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. A Google spokesman, however, had a prepared statement regarding the deal: “We believe the PeakStream team’s broad technical expertise can help build products and features that will benefit our users. We look forward to providing them with additional resources as they continue developing high performance applications for modern multi-core systems.”

Google’s interest in such technology, they say, is logical. With thousands of servers that the Internet search giant operates on, the PeakStream architecture could allow them to maximize their system to its full potential.

Originally posted on June 6, 2007 @ 12:08 am

First Pac-man World Champion crowned, Pac-Man Championship Edition now on Xbox 360

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Pac Man World Championship Edition The first ever Pac-Man World Champion was crowned during the inauguration of the new Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship Edition in Times Square, New York. Carlos Daniel Borrego Romero of Mexico bested 30,000 gamers who signed up to play on the Xbox Live online service from April 25 to May 9, the top 10 of whom were flown in from across the globe to play head-to-head in the finals. The finalists played the latest Pac-Man edition for the first time.

Along with the awarding of the Pac-Man champion was the announcement of Microsoft’s Xbox 360’s latest weapon: the Pac-Man Championship Edition — the rebirth of the old Pac-man we all loved and grew-up with, now with better HD graphics and new mazes.

Apparently, the relaunch of Pac-Man is a final tribute to Toru Iwatani, who designed the classic video game 26 years ago, who is retiring from the video games industry. This new game is the second and final version that Iwatani personally designed. Despite the latest advances in computer graphics technology, Iwatani designed the new Pac Man as he did the original — in two-dimensions. “I wanted to stay with the original simple rules of Pac Man,” he said.

The Pac Man Championship Edition can be downloaded for $10 on the Xbox Live online service starting Wednesday.

Originally posted on June 5, 2007 @ 11:19 pm

Rocketboom launches new sponsorship model, gets YouTube as first major sponsor

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Rocketboom on YoutubeRocketboom launches its new sponsorship model and gets YouTube, the biggest online video site when it comes to audience share, as its first major sponsor.

Andrew Michael Baron, Rocketboom’s founder and video publisher, announced in his blog this new sponsorship model, along with his personal account of the company’s rocky history detailing the site’s financial struggles and successes.

With the new sponsorship model, advertisers basically get (1) a 7-seconder post roll sponsorship gratitude with its company logo and byline, (2) company name and link that travels as metadata to most platforms, (3) sponsor blog page with text, graphics, audio & video, and (4) quicktime chapter marker that allows viewers to easily access sponsor message from chapter drop-down box. All these on top of a high-value audience that Rocketboom has accumulated through the years, as well as archived pages that can easily be searched. Cost per episode is at $3000 until Sept. 1 when it raises up to $5000. Startups get discounts.

“I’m extremely proud to kick off this Monday with YouTube as our first sponsor,” Baron said in his blog. “Regarding the broad topic of video online, in my personal opinion, there is not a single other group in the world that has done more to democratize the moving image.”

With YouTube as its first major sponsor, Rocketboom does not only get in front of a wide online video market, its videos can now also be easily syndicated, shared, embedded, and commented and subscribed to, through Youtube’s web browser. Apparently, Rocketboom does not have a YouTube account prior to this sponsorship deal.

You can view Rocketboom’s YouTube account here, and its new sponsorship package here.

Originally posted on June 5, 2007 @ 2:18 am

Lala.com sends unprotected digital tracks directly to iPods

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Lala.com's business developer John KuchLala.com jumps into the current online music revolution as it transforms its CD-swapping site into a music portal where songs can be downloaded without copy-protection, and directly to members’ iPods without having to go through computer hard drives.

“This is a turning point for music companies and the entire industry,” Lala.com’s co-founder Bill Nguyen said. “I have no idea if it will work — this is a bet,” he added.

This Silicon Valley-based company aims to sell about 200,000 songs from Warner Music for 99 cents each, starting Tuesday. Members will be able to play Warner songs through Lala.com’s web browser for free, and the company will pay Warner a penny every time someone listens to a song. Lala’s executives are currently aiming to make deals with other big labels such as Sony BMG, EMI and Universal as well.

Currently, Lala.com’s member subscription is free, and the site does not have advertisements, hence, revenue comes solely from new CDs purchased or used CDs swapped through their site. Lala.com has over 300,000 members to date.

According to analysts, this is a move that might be detrimental to Lala.com. Aside from having to compete with Apple’s official iTunes music site, Lala has to face equally powerful e-commerce businesses such as Amazon.com and eBay.com which also caters to the online music market.

Originally posted on June 5, 2007 @ 5:27 am

Krugle aspires to be ‘open-source Google’

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KrugleKrugle becomes the go-to search engine for open-source developers. With its partnerships with sites such as SourceForge.net and CollabNet (a community of 1 million developers), Krugle aspires to be the Google of software code search.

With its latest search appliance for software developers, Krugle aims to help users by allowing them to find codes that have already been written. In the case of SourceForge, for example, developers usually visit the site to download projects that are similar to the ones they’re doing. What Krugle does is to enable them to search through similar projects without having to download them entirely, cutting the search time significantly.

“They spend 25 percent or more of their time searching for lines of code to perform certain functions that may already exist. There’s no sense in writing code that’s already been written,” says Krugler, co-founder and CTO of the open-source search engine.

“Krugle gives software developers one thing they need most, time,” said John Andrews, CEO of Evans Data, a research firm. “If you could shave 10 percent of that time off, that is a huge productivity improvement either in costs savings, revenue generation or just spare time,” Andrews added.

While Google is still the first stop for many developers, having a search engine that’s solely dedicated to providing tools for developers will significantly make things easier when it comes to open-source search. Krugle was founded in 2005.

Originally posted on June 4, 2007 @ 12:44 am