Friedbeef’s Tech

Fosfor Gadgets just released a list of the Top 10 weirdest keyboards which includes items ranging from…

a keyboard which is supposed to keep your arms in a more relaxed state (Relaxed? Are they kidding?)

…A laser projector keyboard that allows you to use almost any flat surface as a keyboard…

…and a decorative, washable tablecloth, which leaves your fingers cozy…

What will they think of next?!

Related Links:

Fosfor Gadgets

Technorati Tags: keyboards ,weird, fosfor, gadgets

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Kudos to The Star Newspaper - The first mainstream Malaysian news source with RSS feeds! FINALLY - I can get all my local news aggregated with the rest of my world news feeds (CNN, BBC) on the single page.

RSS in a nutshell if you’re new to it, is a way to aggregate all the news updates from your favourite sites in a central location, saving you lots of time. Learn more about it here.

It is worth mentioning that the Star Online’s use of RSS is not really new. However, until very recently, it has been a feature restricted to the technology section, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a tiny link on the main page - which led to a page with close to 40 RSS feeds covering practically all sections of the newspaper!

Custom Classifieds Searching

The one big thing which I was really impressed with was the implementation of customised RSS search feeds for the classifieds section.

What this allows you to do is create your own custom classifieds section dynamically updated with only the information YOU want to see.

Type in ANY keyword and select the relevant classifieds category and it will generate a custom RSS feed for your use.

In the example I searched “Honda Civic” under auto & mororcycles and subscribed to the the RSS feed which was generated. Now all the Used Car ads with “Honda Civic” will be displayed to me, and this list will be dynamically updated everytime I check the feed, with my RSS reader instantly bringing to my attention any new Honda Civics advertised. If I’m also considering buying a Toyota or Nissan, I just need to subscribe to their feeds, and I’ve just created my own custom classifieds section which only shows me updates and listings of the cars I’m interested in.

Issues with RSS discoverability

A few kinks are still present with the current setup. The autodiscover feature for RSS is not working properly (unable to discover the correct feed if searched on - and feeds have to be inputed manually) and it’s not Firefox Livebookmark friendly (No RSS icon to subscribe to) .

This makes it slightly user-unfriendly, and is something they have to overcome in order to gain proper user-traction with this feature - especially with the bulk of The Star Online readers probably unfamilliar with the benefits of RSS.

Roundup

All in all, a pretty solid effort, and I look forward to more tech innovation from TheStar which is also experimenting with podcasting, and citizen blogging.

Related Links:

The Star Online
The Star Online RSS Main Page
The Star Online RSS Classifieds
The Star Online Podcast
The Star Online Citizen’s Blog
What is RSS?
What is Podcasting?

Technorati Tags: star, thestar, rss, classifieds, podcast, podcasting, blog, blogging, newspaper, news

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Workplace seminars are a pretty common event in many organisations, but Google has brought in some really interesting people to conduct some of their seminars. Even better, is the fact that they record it, and place in on Google Video servers to share it with the entire world.

I took the opportunity to watch this one about Electronic Frontier Foundation, which I found quite good. It’s long but it’s pretty informative, and it gives you a real fascinating insight into EFF. Read the video abstract below for more information.

Abstract from Google Video:
“Everything you wanted to know about the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but were under a federal court order not to discuss. Activism co-ordinator Danny O’Brien and attorney Jason Schultz explain the mechanics behind how the digital rights group works, give status updates on recent cases (including the Sony BMG debacle, the suit against AT&T for collaborating with wiretaps, and the EFF’s patent-busting project), and give insider revelations about the EFF’s work against the broadcast flag and for fair use. Plenty of time for questions - no warrants necessary.”

If you liked this lecture, you can find a library of Google Techtalks on various topics here.

Technorati Tags: google, video, google+video, eff, electronic+frontier+foundation

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