Previously we have published review of Sirius XM app for iPhone. However you cannot find Howard Stern in that app. You can find him however in this app:

Baba Booey, Baba Booey, Baba Booey!

What? You thought that you will be able to listen to him on iPhone? Not so fast Speedy Gonzales!

So here comes an app that is a trivia about Stern show, a description from developer:

‘Whatta You Know About Howard Stern’ is a trivia game with attitude! Test your skills about everything Howard – from his early days at WRNW to his current time at Sirius, Wack Packers, song parodies, staff members, and much more! Think too long and a few options will go away, making it easier for you, but beware… you’ll also lose points! Play rounds of 10, 20, or 30 questions, or if you think you got what it takes, try ‘Pro’ mode and keep on going until you get three wrong. You’ll be quizzed on all your favorites – Howard Stern, Robin Quivers, Fred Norris, Artie Lange, Gary “Baba Booey” Dell’Abate, Beth O, Beetlejuice, Gary the Retard, Bigfoot, Eric the Midget, and so many others. You can’t hear Howard on the Sirius XM iPhone app, so if you’re away from your satellite radio, use that time to test your knowledge of the greatest radio broadcaster in history! So go ahead and see what you got. Think you know Howard? WHATTA YOU KNOW?!?!

It is better than nothing but still people remain angry that Sirius app for iPhone offers no ability to listen to the most overpaid radio broadcaster of all times (in our view Jay Thomas – also available on Sirius XM – is way better than Howard Stern, but that is a different fairytale…).

But was this a fair fight?

Mobile analyst firm MSearchGroove has just published the results of a series of tests which show that the mobile search service ChaCha beat out two other voice-enabled search applications on the iPhone when it comes to search query accuracy. To test this, the researchers used Google’s own mobile application and Vlingo for iPhone, an app that lets you search both Google or Yahoo. Oddly, they ignored Yahoo’s mobile app, which also has voice search built in.

The results of their study aren’t entirely shocking: if you want to be understood, ask a human, not a computer.

The Mobile Search Tests

ChaCha’s mobile search service can be accessed both by SMS and by calling a toll-free 1-800 number. Since these tests focused on voice search, the phone-in method was used. When using ChaCha, the service identified the queries accurately in 94.4% of the cases and delivered accurate search results 88.9% of the time. Vlingo, which the researchers used to test Yahoo search, only interpreted queries correctly in 72.2% of the cases and delivered accurate results 27.8% of the time. Google, surprisingly, fared worst of all. Their mobile application only understood spoken queries in 16.7% of tests and delivered accurate results 22.2% of the time.

To test the applications, the researchers conducted two rounds of tests using both keyword search and natural language queries where they asked questions using sentences. The queries represented a cross-section of typical mobile searches in categories like navigation, directions, local search, general information, social search, and long-tail search.

It’s not all that surprising to find that ChaCha outperformed the other voice-enabled applications – after all, they have real, live humans on the other end of the line to interpret the spoken questions. What is surprising, though, is how wide the gap is in between the human-powered search and the speech recognition apps, especially when contrasting ChaCha with Google.

Did Google Just Get Beaten at Search?

When you think of search, you tend to think “Google.” When you use Google, there’s a certain expectation that your queries will be interpreted accurately and your results will be relevant. What these tests show, however, is that when it comes to the mobile platform, all bets are off. Not only was Google outperformed by a mobile application whose name few mainstream users have probably heard of (Vlingo), they were also outperformed by a crowdsourced workforce who answer ChaCha queries in their spare time. Could this mean that mobile search is an area – perhaps the only area – where a competitor could actually get a foothold and steal away a bit of Google’s market share?

Well, not so fast. Google could still dominate on mobile thanks to brand recognition alone. Mainstream users aren’t going to seek out new alternatives to search, even if they’re better. That’s precisely why companies like Microsoft have to spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns just to gain a percentage point or two of search market share.

Then there’s the fact that tests which compare human-interpreted queries to machine-interpreted ones seem a little unfair. We all know that people can still understand each other much better than computers can. (Well, for now at least). ChaCha wins this round, but only because this was never a fair fight to begin with. Speech recognition and natural language processing are technologies still in their infancy. But if we know Google, they’re coding away right now to improve them as we speak.

The rest is here:
ChaCha Beats Google and Yahoo in Mobile Voice Search Tests

Opera has released beta 3 of Opera 10 – with the browser getting ever closer to a full release.

The latest beta includes a few minor changes – like a more visual tab option, continued tweaks to the UI, more languages integrated and crash protection.

However, Opera Unite – the tool that Opera are calling Web 5.0 – is not included in beta 3, with the company explaining that it remains in its Alpha testing phase.

Testing phase

More than a million people have been testing beta 2, to the delight of the company.

“For us, it is a resounding success when more than one million people try your beta and are excited enough to give us so much actionable feedback,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software.

“This third beta comes after a lot of careful improvements. We have never released such a solid piece of technology that not only runs seamlessly, but is so nice to look at as well.

“I am proud of this release, and I hope that the Web-using world will benefit from a browser that is truly ready to do some heavy lifting.”

Change list – in Opera’s words

Tab tweaks – Multiple Opera users who tested the previous betas shared their preferences for more visual tab options. Opera has responded in beta 3 by offering options for tab placement. Now users can view their visual thumbnail tabs on the right or left side of the screen, in addition to placement options on the top or bottom. Tabs are resizable and the thumbnail view is optional.

Eyes on the UI – Designer Jon Hicks continues his renovation of the user interface (UI) by implementing several new tweaks designed to make using Opera even more efficient.

Multilingual – With a whopping total of 38 languages, Opera’s beta 3 aims to make it easier for users around the world to feel more at home while online.

Crash prevention – Opera’s integrated crash logger has made beta 3 a rock-solid ride.

Even more turbo – Opera Turbo has been further refined for increased speed when browsing over slow network connections.

Excerpt from: 
Opera 10 gets to beta 3 stage

Boxee is an open source software company that developed a platform that integrates your own personal media with social media.  This means that the service broadcasts what you are listening to or watching with other friends on social networks.

New York based Boxee raised $6 million in Series B funding, led by General Catalyst Partners.  Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures also participated in this round.  The company now has a total of $10 million in funding.

Avner Ronen said that he plans to use the capital to add more content and make the software more friendly for indie developers.  The company also takes Internet video from the web and makes it more presentable for watching on TV.  Boxee already works with Netflix, YouTube, and MLB.com but they had struggled to add Hulu.com to their service.

Ronen believes that content creators would have an easier time doing a deal with Boxee over other vidoe websites because of its unique applications and social features.  Boxee accumulates hundreds of video services in one.  Boxee claims to have about 600,000 users.

Photos:

Read the rest here: 
Boxee Raises $6 Million Series B

Images of the Verizon Diamond 2 pictured on the left and the HTC Mega picture of the right.  The image was sent to WMExperts.  The Diamond 2 is expected to land on Verizon’s networks sometime in September or October.

The Diamond 2 has a 3.6″ touch screen, and 5 megapixel autofocus camera w/ image stabilizaiton.  The Diamond 2 also has a 528MHz 7600 processor with 256MB RAM and 512MB ROM.  The Diamond 2 will have gpsOne and CDMA.  The Diamond 2 will run on Windows Mobile 6.1.

The HTC Mega will run on Windows Mobile 6.5 and will have a 528MHz 7225 processor.  The phone also has 256MB of RAM and ROM.  The screen is a 2.8″ QVGA.  The camera is 3 megapixel and has fixed-focus.  The networks that the phone can on is GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA.  The phone will also have TouchFlo 2D.  No word on the Mega’s availability yet.

Photos:

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Images Of Verizon Diamond 2 And HTC Mega Leak

There’s a demographic of VIP people out there that feel that they are constanly being threatened. Of course these people should have the right to drive around in an automobile without feeling vulnerable to a bomb attack. This is where the BMW 7 Series High Security automobile comes in.

The BMW 7 Series High Security has armor plating around the doors, the roof, the pillars, the undercarriage, the separation wall between the passenger and luggage compartments, and the front footwell.

The windows are made out of multiplayered with a unique level of resistance. The glass is over 2″ thick and is covered with polycarbonate layers on the inside. This prevents shattered glass particles from hitting the passengers.

There is an intercom system built into the car that has concealed microphones and speakers to record conversations taking place. There is also an assault alarm and a fire extinguishing system. The car also has irritant gas sensors that will automatically close the windows, shut down air valves, and activate the central locking system. Then an internal fresh air supply system will kick in.

No word on whether the door sensor hazards being developed will make it to the Series 7 High Security.

Photos:

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Originally posted here:
BMW 7 Series High Security Has Explosion Protection

The biannual International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence has this year shed light on a new effort to standardize robot instructions around a common platform, so that designers won’t have to “reinvent the wheel over and over” with every project. Presently, robot design is undertaken in an ad hoc fashion, with both hardware and software being built from scratch, but teams at Stanford, MIT and the Technical University of Munich are hoping to change that with the Robot Operating System, or ROS. This new OS would have to compete with Microsoft’s robotics offering, but the general enthusiasm for it at the conference suggests a bright future, with some brave souls even envisioning a robot app store somewhere down the line. Video after the break.

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ROS: a common OS to streamline robotic engineering

Socialcast has released their official API today, opening up their real-time enterprise collaboration platform to developers for the first time.

Socialcast’s basic collaborative feature set isn’t in dire need of enhancement through an API. But what it will definitely bring is a higher level of customization and better access to the real-time stream of information it’s aimed at creating within the enterprise.

Sponsor

This enterprise 2.0 startup prefers to be compared to the now-acquired FriendFeed, rather than be labeled a Twitter for business. That comparison could continue to hold true even after the release of the API.

Currently 80% of Twitter’s traffic comes via the API, and that’s because the native Web interface pretty much sucks. But in both FriendFeed and Socialcast, the functionality that is built in is enough to satisfy most of their customers. If Socialcast customers don’t need the API in order to get even a few advanced features, then there’s two basic views to take on it:

1. A higher level of customization for the enterprise. If there’s one thing enterprise customers find attractive, it’s an already robust platform that can be augmented to meet their specific requirements. As Socialcast’s blog post puts it, “we hope that our clients will enjoy creating their own applications that fit into their company’s workflow and needs.”

2. Easier access to the real-time stream. As a platform approach, rather than just a microblogging tool, Socialcast is pushing hard on the fact that their software creates a dynamic, collaborative flow of real-time information within the enterprise. Giving users more direct access to that stream enhances the platform’s effectiveness. As the first example of that kind of easier access, their official desktop app is built through the API.

Socialcast, which recently switched to a freemium model, may be facing many of the same hurdles that standalone microblogging tools like Yammer are (Yammer also has an API).

But today’s announcement is one more step on the road to seriously competing with larger intranets that have integrated micro-messaging and other real-time features into their platforms.

More: 
Enterprise Platform Socialcast Opens Up An API

Just 46% of iPhone users discover new apps via recommendations from friends, but that number could take a big jump if a new app just submitted to Apple gets approved for placement in the iTunes App Store.

Israeli and French project AppsFire has submitted a new app that will allow anyone to select from the list of apps they have on their phone and send links to those apps to anyone else by email. Exploring the App Store is maddening, sharing App suggestions with friends is enough fun to make almost anyone jump up and down, clapping like a little school girl. Now AppsFire aims to make that easy to do – and that’s just the beginning of the company’s vision.

The company already offers a service for sharing lists of your favorite iPhone apps, but its software requires a desktop download and is not being used by very many people. We’ve tested a new version of the downloaded software and it’s a breeze, but not publicly available yet. The first fifty RWW readers who click can download the Mac version via this link and anyone can register for Beta access, including Windows users, via this link. The mobile version is still awaiting approval from Apple.

Sharing apps by mobile email could be the killer meta-app.

Company co-founder Ouriel Ohayon told us today that the app will be free and will be monetized through affiliate app links and other mechanisms. Here are the favorite apps of founders Ohayon and Yann Lechelle. I’ve posted an AppsFire widget of my own favorite apps below, RSS readers can click through to the full post to see it. Note that AppsFire has only indexed about 10,000 apps so far (!) and there are a number that you may have on your phone but won’t show up right away. (Breaking News Online and PDX Bus for me.) BoomBox Pro, by the way, is super hot. It’s a Blip.fm player and oh my do I love it!

“The vision is to provide many discovery mechanisms,” Ohayon told us by Skype, “there are many more coming. For example, in our app we have a VIP section, a way to check Twitter and ask how many recommendations an app has, what the best app for this or that purpose is. Allowing influencers to show the world what apps they use, we’ll have a top ranking of shared apps (something Apple does not provide) including geo targeting (top shared in your region). Think of it as a Connected Genius with several layers of discovery for apps with zero data input required since we read your iTunes.”

Ohayon says the app was submitted about a week ago. Our fingers are crossed that it will be accepted soon. We’re quite excited about it.

Read the rest here:
Share Your Favorite iPhone Apps by Email; There’s An App (Submitted) for That

Think of them as 24-hour bugs for your computer.

PandaLabs announced today that over half of all new viruses, worms and Trojans exist in the wild for less than a day before running out of steam.

Sadly, that’s not because security companies like Panda (or AVG or Symantec) wipe them out in a flash, but because virus writers are always swiftly moving on to the next big thing.

Always wash your keyboard and mouse thoroughly

Malware authors naturally want their creations go unnoticed by users and security companies. According to Panda, just 24 hours after hackers put any strain of virus into circulation, they will modify its code so that it can continue to spread without being detected by security software.

“This is a never-ending race which, unfortunately, the hackers are still winning. We have to wait until we get hold of the malware they have created to be able to analyse, classify and combat it,” said Luis Corrons, Technical Director of PandaLabs.

The race is hotting up, too. While Panda identified a staggering 18 million malware samples during the whole of 2008, the company had already spotted over 30 million pieces of malicious code in 2009, by the end of July. There are now over 37,000 new viruses, worms and Trojan appearing online every day.

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Half of all viruses last less than a day