The judges for the 2009 .info awards competition have selected the top 10 finalists allowing you to vote for your favourite .info site
The final 10 are
Cast your vote here
The 2009 Afilias .INFO Awards are open to any .INFO site owner, in any country.
The call for entry opens on October 7, 2009 and runs through October 23, 2009. No submissions will be accepted after 11:59 p.m. October 23, 2009.
Details @ http://www.info-award.info/about
US$7500 – 1st Prize
US$5000 – 2nd Prize
US$3000 – 3rd Prize
Sedo has just completed it’s auction of 1 character .biz names rasing $369,195*. The highest price made was $66,001 for e.biz
$32,003 … 1.biz
$ 5,801 … 2.biz
$ 7,601 … 4.biz
$ 7,601 … 5.biz
$ 8,100 … 6.biz
$ 7,877 … 7.biz
$ 8,200 … 8.biz
$ 7,901 … 9.biz
$10,099 … a.biz
$10,005 … b.biz
$ 8,988 … c.biz
$26,110 … d.biz
$66,001 … e.biz
$ 8,250 … f.biz
$ 9,400 … g.biz
$ 8,177 … h.biz
$ 8,250 … j.biz
$ 6,900 … k.biz
$ 7,999 … l.biz
$15,611 … m.biz
$ 8,001 … n.biz
$ 7,878 … p.biz
$ 8,855 … r.biz
$ 8,211 … s.biz
$ 7,602 … t.biz
$10,099 … u.biz
$ 6,100 … v.biz
$13,500 … w.biz
$10,099 … x.biz
$ 8,988 … y.biz
$ 8,988 … z.biz
* These results were noted during the live auction so may contain errors. Also some of the domains sold may not have been paid for yet.
Google Maps has just announced they intend to create a place page for businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighborhoods, landmarks and cities all over the world.
This is a huge step forward for Google Maps and a truly game changing idea if Google is able to implement this successfully for places throughout the world.
The official Google Blog has more details in this post, from that post here is a Place Page example
Microsoft’s bing.com has introduced visual search technology.
After studying the ways humans process information Microsoft Research concluded that humans are able to process results with images 20% faster than text only results.
The new Bing Visual Search tool allows users to formulate and refine search queries using image galleries. This more structured the data the more impressive the speed of search improvements.
Bing Community has more details in a visual search post at their search blog.
o.biz is to launch on the 31st October aiming to give small businesses and customers the opportunity to buy large quantities at deep discounts for restaurant, office, and hotel products.
Overstock.com Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne said the .biz extension was chosen because “The .BIZ extension is appealing to growing, innovative businesses. Our goal is to have O.BIZ help small to medium-size businesses save money by leveraging the purchasing power of Overstock.com.”
Overstock’s o.biz press release here
The Broadband Forum using data from Point Topic has just released its latest broadband and IPTV report looking at the number of worldwide broadband connections and the associated uptake of IPTV subscriptions.
Connections . Country
93,549,000 … China
86,227,582 … USA
31,085,500 … Japan
24,086,250 … Germany
18,324,300 … France
17,838,200 … UK
15,876,992 … South Korea
12,855,463 … Italy
10,469,755 … Brazil
9,618,107 … Canada
Growth is not often not linear, with the number of connections slowing in the last Quarter in Latin America, Eastern Europe is currently the fastest growing region.
Connections … Q2/09 Inc.
109,650,503 … 1.64% … Western Europe
105,389,289 … 4.46% … South and East Asia
95,845,689 … 2.51% … North America
65,959,917 … 2.11% … Asia-Pacific
29,292,408 … 4.81% … Latin America
25,107,902 … 5.88% … Eastern Europe
13,054,260 … 1.83% … Middle East and Africa
Sedo announced yesterday it has been awarded the contact from Neustar, the registry operator for the .biz gTLD, to auction the enitre available catalogue of single character .biz names - a.biz … z.bz and 0.biz …9.biz.
The auction will begin at 12:00 noon (EDT) on 23rd September and close at 11:59 a.m (EDT) on 30th September, 2009.
The Sedo auction of single character names can be found at www.sedo.biz
Google has already scanned 10 million books in its bid to digitise the contents of the world’s major libraries. The 10 million titles are from libraries in America and Europe – including half a million volumes held by the Bodleian in Oxford. Google’s aim being to construct a universal online archive, which will be freely searchable.
The Guardian Newspaper has an update on the project here.
The internet has changed how the world communicates. The RepRap printer designed by Adrian Bowyer of Bath University in England has the potential to change the distribution of manufacturing and the supply chain. RepRap is a 3D printer that should able to ‘print’ a copy of itself by melting plastic and building it up into solid 3D objects which solidify when they cool.
All the software for the RepRap is licensed under GNU, this means the designs for the RepRap machine are distributed free and include the designs for the printer so you can “print” a new RepRap printer for a friend for free!
RepRap from Adrian Bowyer
