Characteristics of "Web 2.0"

Earlier users of the phrase "Web 2.0" employed it as a synonym for "Semantic Web," and indeed, the two concepts complement each other. The combination of social-networking systems such as FOAF and XFN with the development of tag-based folksonomies, delivered through blogs and wikis, sets up a basis for a semantic web environment.[citation needed]
On September 30, 2005, Tim O'Reilly wrote a piece summarizing the subject. The mind-map pictured above (constructed by Markus Angermeier on November 11, 2005) sums up the memes of Web 2.0, with example-sites and services attached.
On September 30, 2005, Tim O'Reilly wrote a piece summarizing the subject. The mind-map pictured above (constructed by Markus Angermeier on November 11, 2005) sums up the memes of Web 2.0, with example-sites and services attached.

In the opening talk of the first Web 2.0 conference, Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle summarized key principles of Web 2.0 applications:

* the web as a platform
* data as the driving force
* network effects created by an architecture of participation
* innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of "open source" development)
* lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication
* the end of the software adoption cycle ("the perpetual beta")
* software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of The Long Tail.
* easy to pick up by early adopters

Tim O'Reilly gave examples of companies or products that embody these principles in his description of his "four plus one" levels in the hierarchy of Web 2.0-ness: [5]

* Level 3 applications, the most "Web 2.0", which could only exist on the Internet, deriving their power from the human connections and network effects Web 2.0 makes possible, and growing in effectiveness the more people use them. O'Reilly gives as examples: eBay, craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball, and Adsense.
* Level 2 applications, which can operate offline but which gain advantages from going online. O'Reilly cited Flickr, which benefits from its shared photo-database and from its community-generated tag database.
* Level 1 applications, also available offline but which gain features online. O'Reilly pointed to Writely (since 10 October 2006: Google Docs & Spreadsheets, offering group-editing capability online) and iTunes (because of its music-store portion).
* Level 0 applications would work as well offline. O'Reilly gave the examples of MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, and Google Maps. Mapping applications using contributions from users to advantage can rank as level 2.
* non-web applications like email, instant-messaging clients and the telephone.

While interested parties continue to debate the definition of a Web 2.0 application, a Web 2.0 web-site may exhibit some basic characteristics. These might include:

* "Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser.[6] See also Web operating system.
* Users owning the data on the site and exercising control over that data.[7][6]
* An architecture of participation and democracy that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.[6][1] This is a sharp contrast to hierarchical access control in applications, in which users are categorized into roles with varying levels of functionality.
* A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax[6][1] or similar frameworks.
* Some social-networking aspects.[7][6]
* a Public good. "public goods" are characterized by two properties: jointness of supply and non-excludability (Hardin, 1982 [[1]]. The impossibility to exclude group members who didn’t contribute to the provision of goods from sharing its profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and "free ride" (see Free rider problem) on contribution of others (Marwell and Ames, 1979 [[2]]. (see web 2.0 as public good [[3]]

The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, founder and former CEO of Flock calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web"[8] and regards Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0.

Technology overview

The complex and evolving technology infrastructure of Web 2.0 includes server-software, content-syndication, messaging-protocols, standards-based browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client-applications. These differing but complementary approaches provide Web 2.0 with information-storage, creation, and dissemination capabilities that go beyond what the public formerly expected of web-sites.

A Web 2.0 website may typically feature a number of the following techniques:

* Rich Internet application techniques, optionally Ajax-based
* CSS
* Semantically valid XHTML markup and the use of Microformats
* Syndication and aggregation of data in RSS/Atom
* Clean and meaningful URLs
* Extensive use of folksonomies (in the form of tags or tagclouds, for example)
* Use of wiki software either completely or partially (where partial use may grow to become the complete platform for the site)
* Weblog publishing
* Mashups
* REST or XML Webservice APIs

taken from : wikipedia

Flushed Away

directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell :
* Hugh Jackman: Roddy St. James
* Kate Winslet: Rita Malone
* Ian McKellen: The Toad, local crime lord
* Andy Serkis: Spike Leslie, one of The Toad's henchmen
* Bill Nighy: Whitey, one of The Toad's henchmen
* Jean Reno: Le Frog, The Toad's cousin
* Shane Richie: Sid, a sewer rat who accidentally ends up in Roddy's house
* Kathy Burke: Mrs. Malone, Rita's mother
* David Suchet: Mr. Malone, Rita's father
* Miriam Margolyes: Granny Malone

This is the movie from 2 big animation producer, from America and English,Dreamworks Animation and Paramount Pictures decided to split with Aardman Studios. Aardman Studios took all their films with them during the split.Their exclusive partnership in creating animated films collaborated on three feature films: Chicken Run (2000), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), and Flushed Away (2006).

Non-US: $108,690,711 (as of Feb 7, 2007)managing only $63,722,310 (as of Feb 7, 2007) in the United States.

This is the rat story, with the rat city, that set like London, of course, in the rat scale, and rat building, cause the movie, made by English, all the english jokes, that sometimes, make you laugh with surprise, brilliant funny action just like mr.bean (famous comedian star from England).
Hugh Jackman with Kate Winslet(both Australian)played as Roody and Rita, used their English dialect, and Jean Reno, as Le Frog (used his French dialect), and of course British joke always make French people as a joke,but american action was take a place too, but this is completely British movie, you must see this, niche refreshing anime movie, not like another holywood anime movie, but had american character and picture.

Roody was a rat from high society apartment, he was life along in palace, with a lot of toys, as his friend, he lived a lonely life. Until Sid the bronx rat, unfortunately coming to Roody house, and he take away all of rudi life, he was flushed away by Sid, into the rat town,discovers a world very different to his own and it was the first time for Roody to life with the other rat, and their life so much different from his usually boring life, then he meet Rita, the adventure rat girl, they had an great adventure since they were take the cable from Le frog (the french frog bandit) that will be used to watch world cup final , actually football England team match, and Le frog hired all the gangs he have to took the cable back again.
Simple story, with a delightfull animated effect, and so many surprise joke, uniquely fresh from England.
The soundtracks, were good to, u will be heard JET,billy idol, tina turner,tom jones, fatboy slim,and special performance its characters, The Slugs . They even provide vocal support on Bobby McFerrin's mellow "Don't Worry Be Happy". "Ice Cold Rita", also featuring Hugh Jackman, who voices the primary rat, The slug is the most fun of the tiny tunes, beyond a few dozen moments in the film far better, it's funny to watch them come, in the moment that you will never think about, and the frog ninja,too, they are trully funny character, you must watch their french scene, with one of them as a cell phone..

This is one alternative animation movie for this year, hope you watch it,
enjoyy Plumbing Soon!!

The Fountain

Editor, RogerEbert.com

Cast & Credits
Tomas/Tommy/Tom Creo: Hugh Jackman
Isabel/Izzi Creo: Rachel Weisz
Dr. Lillian Guzetti: Ellen Burstyn
Father Avila: Mark Margolis
Grand Inquisitor: Stephen McHattie
Antonio: Sean Patrick Thomas


If Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" is an ambitious folly, that's hardly inappropriate because the movie itself is about one of humankind's most grandiose follies, the quest for eternal life.

Aronofsky, director of the relentless "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream," dares to hurl himself, and his movie, way "out there" -- in three narrative directions at once. But unlike some other films that have divided critics this year, "The Fountain" springs from a passion to take risks, rather than from hedged bets (M. Night Shyamalan's tepid, jokey, incoherent "Lady in the Water") or stillborn multi-story conceits (the calculating "Babel"), where the various narrative threads are only tenuously connected to a core theme.

OK, if this sounds more like a defense of "The Fountain" than a straightforward review, so be it. The movie has already been damned as silly and praised as audacious at film festivals from Venice to Toronto -- and both those assessments are valid, in part because of the movie's biggest aesthetic gamble: its earnestness.

Well, death is a serious matter. And "The Fountain" isn't so much about the quest for eternal life as it is about the will to stave off death. It's one thing to fantasize about living forever; it's quite another to fight the cessation of earthly existence in the next moment, or next week, or next year. "The Fountain" is a science-fiction historical adventure-fantasy about a man's (or Man's) struggle to face the incontrovertible fact of death.

It begins with Tomas (Hugh Jackman, a boy a long way from Oz) as a 16th century Spanish conquistador exploring the land of the Mayans in search of the biblical Tree of Life at the behest of Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz). The movie slips into the 21st century, where Tommy (Jackman) is a surgeon and research scientist desperate to discover a cure for the tumor in the brain of his wife, Izzi (Weisz), who is writing a fairy-tale book called The Fountain that includes the 16th century story.

Slipping forward another few millennia into the 26th century, the film finds Tom (Jackman) as a kind of zen astronaut hurtling through space in a big bubble with a dying tree and the ghost of 21st century Iz (Weisz) on their way into a mysterious nebula. The three stories flow into and out of one another.

Does that sound a little silly? Sure, and it's even sillier in synopsis.

The image of the tree -- the oldest living things on Earth, with their roots gripping the ancient soil and their branches reaching for the heavens -- is at the core of the movie, and the source of some of Aronofsky's most spine-tingling effects, from the tiny hairs on its trunk to its milky, essence-of-life sap.

Sap of a different kind inevitably seeps into the story, particularly the contemporary episodes, but Jackman and Weisz commit to their roles as deeply as Aronofsky does to his concept. Their gravity helps keep this Tilt-a-Whirl of a movie from completely flying apart.

Yes, "The Fountain" overreaches on every level, and that's exactly what I like about it. Big subject, big canvas, big ambitions. A young director's ungainly and overwrought folly? By all means, in the sense that Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" or Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho" or Martin Scorsese's "New York, New York" or Bernardo Bertolucci's "1900" are follies.

They're all bold attempts -- some more successful than others -- by passionate young filmmakers in their late 20s to mid-30s to sum up their own sensibilities and experience, to cram just about everything they know and feel, about life and about movies, on the screen at once.

That doesn't make for smooth, comfortable viewing, but I'd much rather watch somebody shoot for the moon when the stakes are sky-high than sit back while they play it safe.

binatang pra sejarah !!

Hiu ’Prasejarah’ Muncul Lagi di Jepang


TOKYO, KAMIS - Semakin banyak saja hewan-hewan laut aneh yang muncul hidup-hidup di perairan Jepang dalam dua tiga bulan terakhir. Setelah cumi-cumi raksasa dan hiu rumbai, kali ini seekor hiu goblin (Mitsukurina owstoni) yang jarang sekali terlihat di perairan dangkal juga berhasil ditangkap.

Hewan sepanjang 1,3 meter ini memiliki warna tubuh abu-abu serta bentuk yang unik dengan moncong pipih dan panjang. Predator laut ini biasanya hidup di kedalaman 150 hingga 200 meter. Namun, secara tidak sengaja muncul di dekat kapal motor yang ditumpangi sejumlah staf Taman Kehidupan Laut Tokyo bersama para nelayan lokal pada 25 Januari.

"Kami berhasil membawanya ke akuarium dan memamerkannya ke khalayak," ujar salah seorang staf. Namun, hiu tersebut tidak mampu bertahan hidup dan tewas dua hari kemudian. Meski demikian, lagi-lagi ini merupakan kali pertama seekor hiu goblin ditangkap hidup-hidup dan bertahan dalam waktu lama.

Hiu goblin sering tertangkap jaring nelayan beberapa kali sebelumnya namun jarang sekali dilaporkan dalam keadaan hidup. Rekaman video hiu goblin yang ditangkap hidup-hiduo selama di akuarium menjadi petunjuk yang sangat berarti para para ilmuwan untuk mempelajarinya. Begitu mati, hiu tersebut juga langsung dibedah dan dipelajari anatomi tubuhnya.

Seperti halnya hiu rumbai, hiu goblin termasuk jenis hewan yang diperkirakan muncul sejak zaman prasejarah dengan struktur tubuh yang tidak berubah selama jutaan tahun. Sejauh ini, informasi ilmiah mengenai hiu goblin masih sangat terbatas.





Cumi-cumi Raksasa Ditangkap Hidup-hidup


TOKYO, SENIN--Untuk pertama kalinya, seekor cumi-cumi raksasa (Architeuthis) berhasil ditangkap hidup-hidup dan sempat direkam aktivitasnya. Hewan sepanjang 7 meter itu ditangkap di dekat Pulau Chachijima yang berada sekitar 1000 kilometer sebelah tenggara Tokyo, Jepang awal bulan Desember.

Sejak bulan September, para peneliti dari Departemen Zoologi, Museum Sains Nasional Jepang telah memulai mencari jejak cumi-cumi raksasa dengan mengikuti predatornya, yakni paus sperma. Selama September hingga Desember, paus sperma memang bergerak di sekitar Kepulauan Ogasawara untuk mencari sumber makanan.

Untuk memancingnya keluar, para peneliti menggunakan cumi-cumi kecil yang dikaitkan di ujung kail. Para peneliti yang dipimpin Tsunemi Kubodera akhirnya mendapatkan seekor cumi-cumi raksasa yang berwarna coklat kekuningan dan berhasil merekamnya sejak muncul ke permukaan hingga diangkat ke atas kapal pada 4 Desember.

Kubodera mengatakan, hewan tersebut sempat melakukan perlawanan sehingga sulit dibawa ke atas kapal. Bahkan karena luka-luka yang dialaminya selama ditangkap membuatnya tidak bertahan hidup beberapa lama kemudian.

Ia mungkin termasuk cumi-cumi raksasa yang masih muda. Pasalnya, sebagai hewan tak bertulang belakang terbesar, cumi-cumi raksasa dewasa bisa tumbuh mencapai 18 meter. Namun, karena hidupnya terpencil hingga ratusan meter di dasar laut, keberadaannya di alam masih belum banyak dipelajari.

"Tidak seorang pun pernah melihatnya langsung dalam keadaan hidup kecuali para nelayan," ujar Kubodera saat menunjukkan rekamannya Jumat (22/12). Ia mengatakan, ini mungkin rekaman video pertama cumi-cumi raksasa hidup yang pernah dibuat.

Cumi-cumi raksasa lebih banyak dikenal sebagai mitos sebagai penyerang yang memiliki tentakel beracun. Tim peneliti Jepang telah memulai ekspedisi untuk memburu cumi-cumi raksasa sejak tiga tahun lalu. Mereka berhasil membuat foto pertama cumi-cumi yang hidup di dasar laut menggunakan kamera bawah laut pada 2005.

Dari foto-foto tersebut, para peneliti bisa lebih memahami bahwa cumi-cumi raksasa bergerak lebih lincah dari dugaan semula. Mereka juga memanfaatkan tentakelnya sejak awal untuk menangkap mangsanya.

"Sekarang kami tahun di mana harus menangkapnya, kami yakin dapat mempelajarinya lebih banyak lagi ke depan," ujar Kubodera.

panasonic SDR-S150

Panasonic SDR-S150

PRICE £600.00

FEATURES

* Three CCDs.
* 10x optical zoom.
* 3.1MP photos.
* 2.8-inch LCD.
* SD/SDHC card slot.
* 50x100x83mm.
* 290g.

This improves on its predecessor in a number of ways. The optical image stabiliser is superb, and it uses SDHC Flash memory cards, an updated version of SD which promises sizes up to 16GB. Well, one day, anyway; for now it comes with a 2GB card, which is good for about 25mins of SuperFine quality video, 50 mins of Fine and 1hour 40 of Long Play.


It sticks with the trusty pistol design, although if you’re someone with tiny hands – Tom Cruise, say, or a lady, its girth can make it tricky to grip. It’s nowhere near as thin as Sanyo’s Xacti.


Mind you, the Xacti is nowhere near as good as this. Three CCDs means fantastic colour quality and this camcorder’s performance is second to none in its class. Outdoor footage taken in good light looks brilliantly colourful, although it’s less fun in low light.


Getting the footage off the cam is easy. The clumsy-but-simple editing software is largely redundant since we’re dealing with MPEG2 – the video file equivalent of Ready Salted. Just change the file extension to .mpg and you can play them in Windows Media Player. After that you can edit, burn, or stick them on YouTube.


Hi-Def camcorders may be widely considered the gold standard, but standard-def camcorders still have an awful lot to offer. For filming people hurting themselves or spectacle-theft, in order to have a laugh on YouTube, you won’t do much better than this.

CamcorderInfo takes a look at a very nice tapeless digital camcorder in their Panasonic SDR-S150 review. The Panasonic S150 was announced back in June, and has just started shipping. It features three 1/6″ CCDs, 10x optical zoom, and the capability to record high-quality video to SD card. A 2GB card is included, but at the highest quality this only gets you 25 minutes of footage. Fortunately this camcorder also supports the new SDHC cards, which will be capable of capacities far greater than 2GB. So how did the SDR-S150 fare when put to the test?

The video quality of the Panasonic SDR-S150 was not unlike its predecessor: very good. The noise levels are low, and colors are not oversaturated, which can be very common in any consumer digital camcorder. The picture was quite sharp.

The optical image stabilization worked quite well, actually beating out most other camcorders, according to CCInfo. On the other hand, low light performance was not very good, and other similar camcorders on the market performed much better.

In conclusion, we love this camcorder, if you can accept the handling issues inherent in an ultra-compact and the almost assured necessity of purchasing an additional SD card. It’s a tough call, but the quality just about makes it worth it.

EVOLT E-500 (Olympus)

25 SHOOTING MODES.
The EVOLT E-500 makes it so simple to capture great pictures with 15 easily selectable scene modes and 10 exposure modes that all you need to do is point it in the right direction.

ALL DIGITAL LENSES.
Each pristine Zuiko digital-specific lens is perfectly matched to the camera's image sensor and features an internal CPU for direct communication with the camera to produce super sharp, bright, colorful pictures from edge-to-edge.

BIG, BRIGHT 2.5" HYPERCRYSTAL LCD.
View and share pictures with outstanding color and contrast - up to a 160-degree viewing angle, from left to right and up and down - on this super high-resolution 2.5" HyperCrystal LCD that makes pictures stand out and menu options and icons simple to see.

DUAL MEDIA SLOTS.
Shoot, store or backup pictures on your preferred choice of an xD-Picture Card, CompactFlash or both with the convenience of two media card slots.

SPEED AND QUALITY WITH TRUEPIC.
Our exclusive TruePic TURBO Image Processor delivers a camera that responds with impressive speed from the moment it's turned on and smooth, colorful images every time.

SPOTLESS PICTURES.
Olympus is the only digital camera manufacturer that has a proven anti-dust system. Our exclusive Supersonic Wave FilterTM vibrates 35,000 times per second to eliminate dust from the image sensor, along with any concern you'll ever have about changing lenses ... anywhere. With the EVOLT E-500 you can be confident that you’ll get spot-free pictures, every time.

ADVANCED 8 MEGAPIXEL CCD.
The full-frame transfer CCD is designed to capture more information from each individual pixel to help you receive brilliant results from edge-to-edge with a full range of color, contrast and detail.

Steve's Digicams
"The Olympus EVOLT E-500 is a full-featured, 8-megapixel digital SLR camera that was designed to be used easily by photographers of any skill level...(and) delivers the versatility and power that are the hallmarks of a performance SLR, but at an affordable $799 USD price." - Steve's Digicams

Much like an Olympus digicam, the EVOLT E-500 has a wide selection of Scene modes for common shooting situations. The Mode dial covers the basic Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, and Night Portrait modes, but the Scene setting opens up even more. Landscape and Portrait, Children, High key, Low key, and Candle modes are among the interesting offerings that are not often seen on digital SLR cameras. Also missing from the E-300 but present on the E-500 are separate Full Auto and Program modes.

In addition to Black and White and Sepia, Olympus has added new filter and tint modes to the Black and White shooting option. Much as you can on the Rebel XT and EOS 20D, you can set modes that emulate color filters used in traditional film-based black and white photography, useful for darkening skies, for example. Filters include Yellow to darken skies, Orange to enhance sunset shots, Red to give dramatic contrast in skies, and Green to improve contrast in skin tones and foliage. Black and white images can also be tinted Blue, Purple, and Green.

Three color settings allow the user to select the type of color output they want, a common strategy among consumer SLR manufacturers. Film and digicam manufacturers have been amping the color on our images for so long that when a digital SLR comes along and gives us true color, we assume something's wrong; the color seems so dull. The human mind remembers colors more vividly than the eye sees them, so film companies like Kodak learned long ago to give our minds what they want. The E-500 does the same. The default setting is Vibrant, but you can set the camera to Natural and Muted if you like. Natural and Muted will be easier to modify later in programs like Photoshop, so experienced computer photo tweakers will want to use these settings, but consumers will probably be more happy with Vibrant mode (we'll see when we test the real deal.