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IBM on Thursday said it is donating code for securing mashups to the Open Ajax Alliance, a group of vendors and open-source Ajax projects.

The software, called Smash (for secure mashups), is designed to make it easier to keep the sources of data separate in a mashup so that the application can’t be hacked, according to IBM.

Better security for Web applications built with Ajax is generally a good thing.

For IBM, this is particularly important because the company is trying to build tools that let business users create their own mashup applications. Without better security, IT managers could block the use of these tools.

For more technical details, a blogger at Web application development and design firm Pathfinder Associates dug out an IBM research paper on Smash (click here for PDF).

To my mind, the killer feature of Google Docs is not that it is Web-based, per se. It’s that it makes real-time collaboration easy. You can invite a user into a document you currently have open, and you both can edit the file at the same time. It’s not a feature you’re going to need all the time, but when you’re on a deadline and need to get sign-off from one or more other person on a document right away, it’s a life-saver (see also: Zooos).

Plutext adds new collaboration functions to Word.

(Credit:
Plutext)

Fighting this killer feature is Microsoft Word’s own killer feature, which is: Everyone in business has Word, and most people know how to use it effectively. There are plenty of people who would use a simultaneous editing feature in Word if it had one, and who aren’t going to switch to Google just because it does.

A new service, Plutext, currently being developed, will bring nearly live editing to Word documents. I saw a demo at the Office 2.0 conference.

The service works as a plug-in to Word, adding a collection of buttons in the “Review” tab. These new functions let you invite users into a document, push your changes to the Web, and read in new changes.

While Plutext does not support strictly simultaneous editing (you have to intentionally publish your changes and get new updates), neither does it let two users get out of sync by letting them work on different versions of the same file. You really can have a dozen people in the same document at the same time. Plutext uses Word’s existing Accept and Reject Revisions function to review changes other people have made on your open document.

With Plutext, you won’t have the problem of multiple versions of the file floating around with different revisions in them, nor will you run into the issue of trying to open a document to edit it only to find that some other user has it opened and locked for changes, and is out to lunch.

There’s also a wiki-like revision history that acts as an audit trail of all the work done on a document. Revisions in this report are flagged either by paragraph or section heading (user’s choice); the latter could make reading updates on technical and legal documents much easier than it would be otherwise.

The system creates readable audit trails of changes.

(Credit:
Plutext)

Plutext Managing Director Jason Harrop told me that real-time co-editing is technically possible with his platform, but that his research says users want the level of control that the intentional publishing gives them.

Plutext is also going to release a free Java-based editor, Docx4all, that natively supports Word .DOCX files as well as the Plutext system. It’s not a pure Web-based editor, but it will allow document authors to send links to active versions of their files to users who don’t have Word.

The demo I saw was early and a bit rough; taking a file from standard single-user mode to collaborative looked complicated; Harrop says the system will be cleaner when it ships in October.

Plutext will be available as server-based software for companies that want their documents stored inside their own firewalls; a cloud-based Plutext service may also be forthcoming.

See also: Expresso, EditGrid, Sharepoint. And keep an eye on Docverse.

Bomomo is a wonderful Flash-based art application that runs in your
Firefox or
Safari browser. Instead of giving you some simple MS Paint-like tools like a paintbrush, bucket, and eraser, everything in Bomomo is dynamic and moving, leading to some kaleidoscopic creations that you can either e-mail to friends or squirrel away to your hard drive. I spent about 15 minutes layering effects on top of one another, and while the results aren’t nearly as professional looking as SXSW Interactive winner Viscosity (review), if you know what you’re doing you can create some really gorgeous abstract creations.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

[via Google Blogoscoped]

Create wonderfully distracting art the simple way with Bomomo.

What makes the tool particularly interesting is that each of the 18 drawing tools are tied to your mouse in a different way. Some tools will follow it around, while others do their best to escape your pointer–creating some genuinely gorgeous effects. Some also take advantage of where your pointer is, either changing in size or color based on what part of the screen you’re on. It’s also just plain fun.

The world of video advertising right now is a bit chaotic with multiple types of ad formats and different players, making it difficult for publishers and advertisers to easily serve up the best ads on sites.

The technology supports Flash Action Script 2 and 3, Adobe Media Player, IPTV, and Microsoft’s Silverlight. Panache also offers a technology that allows publishers to specify exactly where in a video the ad will go and how interactive it will be.

A Los Angeles-based start-up thinks it has found the solution. Panache offers technology that allows publishers to use video ads in any format and plug them into any type of video player. Now, publishers have to re-engineer their players for different ad formats.

The company is working with ad networks like Gorilla Nation, Burst Media, and CPX Interactive. Its customers include CBS, Yahoo, and Break.com.

I think that means I can’t even afford one pixel of its logo. That’s one heck of a brand.

In WPP-owned research company Millward Brown’s annual study of the world’s top-100 brands, Google came out on top for the second straight year, registering a 30 percent increase in the value of its brand to maintain the ranking. Google’s market capitalization is $169 billion as a I write this, but the value of its brand?

Which are the other top-10 brands? General Electric, Microsoft (but going down according to other research), Coca-Cola, China Mobile, IBM, Apple, McDonald’s, Nokia, and Marlboro. It’s fascinating to see how technology brands dominate. Maybe we really do rule the world?

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$86 billion.

Unfortunately, LeapFrog is not all about education, as it charges $2.99 for the application at Apple’s App Store, which is rather expensive for a simple game. But at least as far as math is concerned, that’s less that $3.

With the Number Rumble game, they can practice simple math skills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division by themselves or they can challenge friends. The game helps them memorize math basics through three modes of play:

This is the first in LeapFrog’s planned series of learning games. Taking advantage of the multitouch technology, the application lets children spin and tap the devices to increase their math skills.

I’ve heard people say that two-thirds of Americans are not good at math and the other half just don’t care. I totally agree, and we need to do something about this.

Learn It mode lets the player spin the number wheels to create a math problem, then tap the equals sign to see and hear the answer. Quiz Time mode lets the player use their skills by choosing the problem type and spin the wheel to get a random quiz. Then they can shake the phone to select an answer. Random Quiz mode lets the player practice all four operations at once. For example, they can shake the iPhone to a fill-in-the-blank style questions, such as “13 + 7 = ?” or “? ÷ 2 = 11.” and so on.

(Credit:
LeapFrog)

Apparently, the folks at LeapFrog think so, too. The company on Monday released its new game for the
iPhone and
iPod Touch called “Number Rumble” (hands-on review.)

Earlier on Wednesday Apple released iPhone OS 3.0. CNET also has a review of the new iPhone 3G S.

AT&T received harsh criticism from some customers who wanted to upgrade to the new
iPhone 3G S but discovered they would not receive the best upgrade price. However, the company on Wednesday changed its tune.

If you still don’t qualify for the iPhone upgrade pricing, but really want to have one, you can buy a 16GB model without a contract for $599 or a 32GB model for $699.

If you qualify for the best upgrade pricing, you will pay $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model–these are the same prices AT&T will charge new customers signing up for a two-year contract. If you don’t fall into either of those categories, you may be eligible for what AT&T calls its “early upgrade pricing”: $399 and $499 for the 16GB and 32GB models, respectively.

Saying it has been “listening to their customers,” AT&T is changing its policy to allow customers who are eligible for an upgrade in July, August, or September to upgrade starting on Thursday at what it calls the “best upgrade pricing.” The upgrade eligibility tools won’t reflect the change in policy until Thursday, the company said.

Previously, early iPhone 3G adopters would have had to pay the “early upgrade pricing”–which had some customers upset.

AT&T will examine several factors to determine eligibility (PDF) including the amount of money you spend a month. For example, if you spend more than $99 a month on services, the company said you are more likely to be eligible for an upgrade after 12 to 18 months.

While this change is good news for those customers who want to upgrade, it does mean that they will have to go to a retail outlet and hope for an iPhone. AT&T has already sold all of its pre-order stock and said orders after June 12 will be processed in the next two weeks.

If you pre-ordered from Apple, it will issue a credit for the difference.

You can also try an Apple retail store if you’re lucky enough to live close to one. If not, AT&T says you can order the iPhone from Apple’s online store.

If you already pre-ordered the iPhone 3G S and find that you’re now eligible for the lower price, don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of. AT&T said it would adjust the price of the phone when you pick it up from the store it was ordered from. If you bought it online from AT&T, it will issue a credit.

I was a talented teacher, but let’s face it, when you are trying to convince 16-year-olds that they really are interested in learning chemistry at 8:30 in the morning, it helps to have a captive audience.

The games had begun. In a darkened classroom at Great Neck South High School on a recent afternoon, the Advanced Placement physics students sped through a pop quiz, furiously pressing keys on hand-held clickers. A projection screen tracked their responses in real time, showing who knew what through an animated display of spaceships–individually numbered for each student–that blasted off or fell by the wayside with each right or wrong answer.

What’s going on now while college professors are lecturing? I asked my Mojo Mom Podcast co-host Sheryl Grant what she’s seeing as an information and library sciences graduate student at the University of North Carolina. Sheryl says, “The most shocking part of going back to school at this point in my life (in her 30s) is looking around and realizing that nobody is in the room. The professor is just another open browser window, 1 of 10.” Students work much as they would at their desks at home, multitasking like crazy, even when they happen to be in the live lecture hall. If the professor does not set standards for paying attention, students will multitask with Facebook, Gmail, watch live basketball games or YouTube videos, carry on IM conversations with many people at once, and play games like Boggle and Scrabulous on the side. Sheryl describes it as “Total ADD” that is light-years beyond doodling-in-the-margins distraction.

Professors can react in several ways, from ignoring this behavior, to calling it out and developing new etiquette, to doing their best to create their own multimedia presentations. Watching last week’s Frontline episode “Growing Up Online” it was clear that some teachers relished these new challenges, using new tools like smartboards to create interactive multimedia presentations, while others seemed stunned that their old methods no longer effectively reached their students.

Now teachers face new pressures: competing for their students’ attention inside the classroom, and presenting material in a way that resembles the variety of mass media that teens consume on average more than 40 hours a week.

“…Nobody is in the room. The professor is just another open browser window, 1 of 10.”
–UNC graduate student on the distracted classroom experience

Anyone…Hawley-
Smoot tariff act?

I have mixed emotions as I read about new “audience response” systems that can turn an AP physics class into an interactive video game:

Immersion in online technology and media has fundamentally changed the way our minds work, the way we gather information and split our attention. It may be harder than ever for educators to avoid coming across like the monotonous economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I taught high school 10 years ago, and in many ways I am thankful that I was teaching in the era before networked laptops.

These tools will help education continue to evolve in engaging ways, but it is sad to me to think that we are heading to a world of 24-hour a day entertainment. Sheryl and I are convinced that there’s a backlash on the way in the near future. We envision families looking for opportunities to unplug, to have a chance to reconnect with the here and now. In the meantime, I can only extend my sympathies to those teachers who are dancing as fast as they can to keep students engaged in the classroom.

“We believe that robust competition serves the public interest but if the DOJ blocks this agreement we fear that the threat of additional scrutiny may chill future agreements,” the letter says.

Under the deal signed in June, Google will provide Yahoo with ads that will run on Yahoo’s search site.

In a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the lawmakers point out that the agreement is not exclusive and warned that blocking it with a lawsuit as the DOJ is considering could stifle online ad market growth and innovation.

A Google representative said the company had no comment on letter. A Yahoo spokeswoman provided this comment: “We believe strongly that this agreement will strengthen Yahoo’s competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users.”

“Similar agreements are commonplace in many industries and standard among Internet companies,” the letter says. “In fact, Microsoft had a similar agreement with Yahoo and Google has similar arrangements with tens of thousands of companies.”

A group of Democratic congressional members from California have sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department urging officials not to block the proposed online advertising agreement reached between Google and Yahoo.

The letter, dated September 26, is signed by 11 people, including Reps. Anna Eshoo, Ellen Tauscher, Zoe Lofgren, and George Miller.

Yahoo has stepped up its efforts to defend the deal with a blog post from President Sue Decker following opposition from a newspaper group and news that European anti-competition officials are investigating the deal.

Track your defrag progress on a map of rectangles representing your drive's sectors.

If you’re really bored, you can watch the program work. While the drive’s fragmented sectors are cleared out, the process is represented by colored blocks on a disk map. Below this is a progress bar and a list of the names of the files currently being shuffled. You also get a count of the total files processed, as well as the number of fragmented and defragmented files.

XP’s built-in defragmenter provides a similar show, but Vista’s equivalent doesn’t indicate what it’s doing, or how much progress it has made.

Once you’ve taken out the digital trash, you’re ready to tighten up your hard disk’s sectors. Open Disk Defrag, and select your disk or partition to see a pie chart showing its used and free space. Click Next to begin the defragmentation.

Windows’ own Disk Defragmenter is a slug compared to Auslogics’ alternative. At least in XP, you got some feedback while the Windows defragger was working; Vista doesn’t give you a clue what’s happening after you click the Defragment Now button, other than to let you know that the process could take from a few minutes to a few hours (my bet’s on the latter). I know many people scoff at the dancing colored blocks on the map as pointless, but I kinda like ‘em.

When the defragmenting is done, you’re shown the results, including the percentage of drive or partition space that was recovered. You can see more information in a browser window when you click Display Report, but don’t bother clicking the Optimize PC link at the top of the window. That simply leads to a page where you can download the company’s $30 BoostSpeed performance-boosting utility. Hey, you can’t fault the company for trying to make a buck.

In the long list of odious chores, defragmenting your hard drive is right up there with flossing your teeth and washing your dog–or flossing your dog’s teeth, for that matter.

There is little agreement on how much–or even whether–defragmenting improves your PC’s performance, but having files closer together on the disk reduces the amount of movement required by the drive’s mechanical parts. This should make it last longer, though such factors as operating environment and the quality of its components probably have a greater impact on its life span.

The greatest benefit of third-party defraggers such as Disk Defrag is their speed: The program did its work in less than 5 minutes on my Vista machine, while Vista’s own defragmenter took more than 20 minutes to finish. And on a tremendously fragmented XP machine, Disk Defrag got the job done in about 40 minutes, which was a third the time required by Windows’ own tool.

Regardless of whether it will actually improve your system’s performance and reliability, I do know that there’s a better way to defragment your drive than using the utility built into Windows: you’ll get the job done in less time by using Auslogics’ free Disk Defrag utility.

The amount of drive or partition space recovered by the defragmentation is shown when the Disk Defrag utility finishes.

View a pie chart showing your used and free disk space prior to beginning to defragment using Auslogics' free Disk Defrag utility.

Tomorrow: Create your own social network in 60 minutes or less.

I wish I could say that I’m guaranteed to recoup many times over the time I spent defragging my PCs by having them run so much faster post-defrag. Maybe I’m kidding myself that there’s any practical benefit to defragging, but then again, maybe my dog wouldn’t smell any worse without a bath.

Before you begin, open the Control Panel’s Add or Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista), and uninstall any applications you no longer use. Then use a program such as CCleaner to empty your Recycle Bin, Temporary Internet Files folder, and other locations where clutter tends to accumulate on your PC.

By default, Vista defragments your drive once a week. You can set the defragmenter to run on a different schedule, though you don’t want to defrag when you’ve got lots of applications open because of it’s guaranteed to slow everything down.