Wordia - Dictionary 2.0

I found Wordia last week while I was searching for Youtube tools and tutorials. I stuck on the page because I liked the idea and I browsed through the different videos.

Wordia is a dictionary. But unlike an ordinary dictionary Wordia presents word definitions through video clips. Every user can upload a video and tell the world what he thinks about a certain word.

But I think Michael Birch and Ed Baker, the founder of Wordia, can tell you more:

There is also an interesting post on TechCrunch about Wordia.
I like Wordia and I bookmarked the site right away. What do you think?

Photosynth - a new way to show your vacation photos

Photosynth from Microsoft Live Labs is a new service to create incredible photo presentations. Photosynth builds a 3-D environment out of flat photos. You can click through that 3-D world like in that old graphic-based videogame called Myst.


Photosynth calculates the 3-D illusions by comparing the similarities in the pictures. And you need tons of pictures to get satisfying results. Some of the "Synths" consist of more the 200 pictures.


The whole service works with a client on your computer and with the servers of the Microsoft Live Labs. That's the main problem about Photosynth even with a fast internet connection it takes a lot of time to create a Synth. I started creating a 70-pictures-Synth and it took about 4h hours to get it done. You can watch my Synth of the football field in Ansbach , Germany here.To view a Synth you need to download the Photosynth plug-in.
The other negative aspect is that all of your created Synths are always available to every visitor of the Photosynth site. There is no option to hide Synth from the public.

Is Photosynth a great, innovative multimedia experience? Or just another desperate try of Mircosoft to fight the Apple and Google competition with buggy software? I can't decide, yet!

Do your FM radio stations broadcast digitally? - HDRadio.com will tell you

In the last couple of years Am and FM radio stations all over the U.S. started to broadcast their program digitally.
But how does it work?
Radio stations send out an analog and a digital signal. The digital signal is compressed and can carry more informations than the normal broadcast. The radio stations can send out song title, traffic and stock informations, too. All you need to receive a digital radio signal is a HD Radio device. First of all you'll need a digital radio station in your town, so check the list of local radio stations to find one near you.

What can you expect from HD Radio?
A whole new radio experience: new songs, new artists, new music, new formats and experimental radio programs. The sound is cristal clear like CD-quality. And there are no audio distortions, no hiss and no static.

What kind of HD Radio device should I buy?
HDRadio.com offers a big buyers guide, so you can find the HD Radio receiver that fits your needs. Take the Polk iSonic ES2. for example. A highly advanced HD Radio with an excellent acoustical system. It features a top-mounted iPod dock and a S-Video and composite video port. You can connect a TV or comupter monitor and watch video files stored on the I-Pod. The Polk iSonic ES2 also features iPod Tagging. If you hear a song you like with your HD Radio receiver, you can hit the "Tag" button and tag the song on your I-Pod. The next time you sync your iPod to the Apple® iTunes Music Store, you can open the "tagged songs" list in your iPod and buy and download the tagged songs directly.

What's the best thing about HD Radio?
It's free! No subscriptions fee or monthly bills! Just buy a HD Radio Receiver and enjoy the new era of radio broadcasts.

Swype - A new era for touch screens starts now!

I just saw the Swype presentation and it blew my mind.

What is Swype?
Swype is a software to input text via an interactive screen or touch screen. It was invented by Cliff Kushler (the creator of the T9 for cell phones) and Randy Marsden.
So how does Swype work?
With Swype you don't type in text. You draw a line from letter to letter and Swype forms the word. With this method you should be able to write 50 words per minute. Swype is similar to ShapeWriter (an Iphone software), but the inventors of Swype claim that their product is faster and their algorithms are superior to the ShapeWriter's programming.

Want to see Swype in action now? Here's a short promo video:

I'm really looking forward to the first cell phone or PDA with Swype. I want to try it myself!

Open Office 3.0 - The complete solution

Open Office 3.0 - the latest version of the open source office solution - will be presented to the public on September 16th.


I'm really looking forward to this day because I'm hugh fan of Open Office. It's the best office solution on the market and it's open source. And Open Office 3.0 runs with MacOS X and Windows Vista.

What are the biggest improvements?
First of all I like the new PDF file import option. You can open a PDF document and edit it. You are now able to open, save and edit MS Office 2007, ODF 1.2 and PDF files. And Writer (the word processing program) can now display several pages parallel while working on the text. Besides Writer, Open Office's spreadsheet program Calc is improved, too,there are more features and more security options. And you can now create bigger spreadsheets with up to 1024 column.


If you don't want to spent too much money on a Microsoft product but you need a complete office solution then you have to download Open Office. If you already using MS Office then you should try it anyway.
Open Office 3.0 is now better than Microsoft Office 2010!

Google Chrome - My two cents

Google Chrome!
That's the headline in every technology blog in the last couple of days! But today I won't write about the browser because I think everyone knows enough about the new kid in town.
But I want to point to one little "feature" of Chrome. When you download Chrome, Google assign a ID number to your browser. Chrome collects informations about your web surfing habits and in combination with the ID number Google gets a nice profile about you.
I don't suffer from paranoia, but I think it would be nicer if Google gives you a choice if you want to get a ID or not.
If you want to erase the ID number, than you should try UnCrome (unfortunately there is only a german version available!).
Anonymize Chrome or not...that's the question!

Lively - Google's next coup?

I rarely visit chatrooms. I don't like to type "lol" "rofl" and "omg" for hours without a real conversation. And I don't like those chatroom textboxes...red letters, blue letters, symbols and stuff - most chatrooms are just ugly.

And now there is Google's 3-D chatroom service called Lively.
Check out Google's promo video on youtube:



The visual appearance reminds me of Second Life mixed with The Sims. I think the virtual world of Lively is much more appealing to the eye than the old textboxes of the ordinary chatrooms.
You can design your avatar and your room and you can add a Lively chatroom to your website.

I don't know if I will use Lively regularly. It's nice and new, but 3-D virtual world or not...after all it's just hours of typing "lol" "rofl" and "omg"!

Fix-My-Template-Contest - The winners!

Three weeks ago I started my first blogging contest: The Fix-And-Enhance-My-Template-Contest!
I asked the participants for advise regarding my template problems. They could win 750EC for help and a post on their blog or 250EC for a helpful comment.

And finally here are the results:

The winner of 750EC is Vector Comic

Thanks for your helpful post. I followed your instructions and now I can use Blogger's latest feature: The Embedded Comment Form.

The winner of 250EC is Entertain me!

He actually took a look at my template-code,too, and he posted a comment with a corrected section of code. I like the effort. The 250EC are well-deserved.

Congratulations to the winners!