me2everyoneuk.com

Libin also foresees mashups that synchronize Evernote with data on services like Remember the Milk and Google Calendar.

Evernote, the multiplatform note-taking app that I can’t stop raving about, is opening up. New PC and
Mac clients will get additional HTML import and export capabilities as well as accessibility from scripting tools like AppleScript. The Web service (which synchronizes data with the PC and Mac clients) will get an application programming interface.

I can’t evaluate the API’s robustness or utility, but I do like the direction the company is going with it. Evernote is a strong personal productivity service, and I would like to see new ways to access and add to Evernote databases. As they did for Twitter, I believe third-party apps could improve the service’s utility.

CEO Phil Libin is of course eager to see what developers do with the all-access API to the service. He’s hoping that people build new clients–he’s holding out for a
Wii version of Evernote–but realistically suspects that developers of vertical applications will make the most use of the API. Already, he says, Salesforce.com developer Astitch is working on an app that will merge Evernote pictures and notes with Salesforce.com client and sales records. Evernote’s cloud-based OCR (optical character recognition) could be used to auto-file camera phone pictures of business cards into the appropriate records.

Evernote has under half a million users but Libin says demand for an API has been consistent from developers. He also points out that the current version 3 of Evernote has been out of closed beta for only about two months.

TiVo and Research In Motion are teaming up to enable BlackBerry users to remotely schedule recordings of TV shows on their digital video recorder, the companies announced Thursday.

“TiVo subscribers will soon be able to wirelessly control their TiVo DVRs using a BlackBerry smartphone–anytime, anywhere–and that is a powerful example of how our respective technologies can complement each other to serve our mutual customers,” Jim Balsillie, Research In Motion co-CEO, said in a statement.

Under the partnership, BlackBerry users will be able to use their smartphones to review television schedules and set their TiVo DVRs to record select television programming.

Later this year, the companies plan to jointly develop software applications to improve the simplicity of accessing video content via a BlackBerry phone. RIM’s recently unveiled BlackBerry Bold, which has a higher screen resolution than its Curve predecessor, is better positioned for video.

The spreadsheets: Layoffs | Openings.
(Latest updates: December 9, 2008)

There are plenty of other resources where the job seeker can turn. Check out job boards on TechCrunch, GigaOm, Mashable, and Center Networks.

I also recommend JobWire at ReadWriteWeb. It’s a new blog about people getting hired. Watch for people you know on it — they could provide leads to additional jobs at their new employers. And see my 14 things to do if you are laid off from a tech job.

We’ve been running a spreadsheet of layoffs at tech companies since October. It’s depressing, but it’s newsworthy. To offset the pain a bit, we also have a second spreadsheet tracking who is hiring. I’m happy to report that there are more companies on the record as having open jobs than there are that are executing layoffs. The raw number of jobs lost is higher than gained, unfortunately, but if you are laid off, check out that other spreadsheet for a potential new gig in your industry.

As a result, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), a joint venture between Micron and Intel, will discontinue the supply of NAND flash memory from Micron’s Boise facility. The NAND operation shutdown will reduce IMFT’s NAND flash production by approximately 35,000 (200 millimeter) wafers per month, Micron said.

Cash restructuring and other related expenses are anticipated to be approximately $60 million and “next year’s cash operating margin benefit is expected to exceed $175 million,” Micron said.

Last week’s red ink was Micron’s seventh straight quarterly loss–and it reported a net loss for the entire 2008 fiscal year of $1.6 billion.

Micron will reduce its global workforce by approximately 15 percent during the next two years. Most of the workforce cuts will occur in Boise.

NAND flash is used in flash drives for digital cameras and digital music players as well as solid-state drives.

“Micron is in a strong position relative to our competitors…but we are not immune to the difficult global market conditions that are affecting us all,” said Micron CEO Steve Appleton in a statement.

Micron and Intel have other facilities that make NAND flash, including one in Lehi, Utah.

On the heels of reporting a $344 million fourth-quarter loss last week–when Micron said it was cutting executive pay 20 percent–the Boise, Idaho-based memory chip maker said Thursday that it was restructuring its memory operations.

“The combination of declining customer demand and product oversupply in the marketplace has driven selling prices for NAND flash memory significantly below manufacturing costs,” Micron said in a statement.

After cutting executive pay last week, Micron Technology is now paring staff as it scales back flash memory chip production.

The memory chip industry overall is caught in a particularly brutal downward price spiral that is threatening the viability of even the largest players, including companies like Hynix.

Fear not, though, Mr. Morrison is not another humorless, marble-free techie. For he ends his plaintive Internet cry with these words: “We’re expecting a baby November 16th, and we need help choosing a name. This is a difficult decision that will have a huge impact on the life of an innocent human being. Naturally, we are turning to random Internet strangers for help.”

When Googlies are clever enough to name their latest, most wonderful brainchild “Goggles,” you wonder why it is they have no idea what to call their human children.

“In the next couple days, I’ll also put up a live graph of the results. If you’d like to learn how to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets to put a poll on your site (or name your baby), check out this post.” (No, I won’t be linking you to a Google Docs and Spreadsheets site.)

Some children just won't listen to their parents.

And it’s hard to tell just what wasn’t working for Jason and his wife. Were their chosen methods all suggesting Jim for a boy and Alanis for a girl?

Strangely for a Googlie, Mr. Morrison is not going to trust in the word of the masses, if they choose something that he and his wife deem unsuitable: “We do reserve the right to ignore the results of the poll completely. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a kid named Mr. Splashy Pants. Actually, that has a nice ring to it…”

Jason Morrison, whose LinkedIn page describes him as a search quality strategist at Google, has begun to conduct a worldwide Internet search for a high-quality name to adorn his and his wife’s unborn child.

All one can be sure of is that Mr. Morrison is conducting a poll, asking for any and all suggestions, though his site offers a shortlist from which visitors can vote. This shortlist includes Asma for a girl (um, breathing difficulties, anyone?) and Dylan for a boy (isn’t Sean Penn’s daughter called Dylan?).

Mr. Morrison doesn’t offer us any of the personal clues that would make the chances of helping this forlorn couple so much more possible. However, you will be discombobulated to hear that he is taking the opportunity of his child emerging into this uncertain world to sell you some Google products:

My vote: Larry if it’s a boy and Page if it’s a girl. What do you say?

On his own personal, very personal Web site, Jason declares: “We’ve perused baby name Web sites and tried the Freakonomics tactic of predicting popular names, but to be honest, none of it was really working.”

I’m a little confused. Is this the Freakonomics tactic that’s related to the world’s current financial “am I wearing underpants” moment?

Please, yes, I know I like a joke or two when the world’s winds are against me, but this is serious.

(Credit: CC Teds Blog)

In a move to tie their collaboration tighter, Microsoft and Lexmark on Tuesday announced that they have entered into a broad patent cross-licensing agreement.

Under the arrangement, Lexmark will license its patents for its printers and multifunction devices, as well as its other products, to Microsoft. And the Redmond, Wash., based company, in return, will offer access to a wide range of its software.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“We believe this agreement will improve the productivity of both our companies and result in enhanced product offerings and increased satisfaction for all our customers,” Marty Canning, Lexmark’s printing solutions and services division president, said in a statement.

And so far, the company is pleased with the results. According to its own figures, Popular Mechanics generated more than 20,000 lines of conversation in the first 48 hours from a single online article, and the Meebo chat room associated with it was loaded about 70,000 times by 30,000 unique visitors.

Instant-messaging service Meebo announced on Thursday that it has inked a deal with Hearst Magazines Digital Media that will bring its Meebo Rooms chat tools to the sites of glossies such as Popular Mechanics and Seventeen.

Meebo’s ability to bring its embeddable chat rooms to Hearst is a major victory for the instant-messaging specialist. Although it is largely competing against the likes of Yoomba and eBuddy to serve as a log-in hub for outside messaging services such as those of AOL, Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft, embedding chat rooms into other sites makes it unique and adds a new angle for revenue generation that its competitors simply don’t have. And if its Meebo Rooms catch on, it could find itself in an extremely lucrative position.

In tandem with the partnership announcement, Seventeen.com integrated Meebo’s technology into its “Style Stars 2008″ feature to allow visitors to browse photos, read articles, and watch videos of celebrities while they chatted in real time with others on the site. Hearst believes that the chatting-while-browsing formula will generate a lively community around its properties and help engage audiences more effectively.

“Meebo is excited to provide readers of Seventeen.com and other Hearst Magazines Digital Media Web sites with a live forum to chat with people who share similar interests and differing opinions,” Martin Green, chief operating officer at Meebo, said in a statement.

PR Director Whitney Burk said that programs such as SearchPerks are still needed to introduce people to Microsoft’s search product.

The latest project doesn’t just require one to use Microsoft’s search engine, however. At least for now, it also requires Microsoft’s browser (Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher) as well as a Windows PC. Microsoft said those latter restrictions are not necessarily permanent.

People can sign up for SearchPerks through the end of the year, or until Microsoft reaches its target of 250,000 participants. Rewards can be earned through April, though Microsoft may decide to extend or expand the program.

Microsoft’s latest effort to get people to use its search service is something called SearchPerks, which gives people points for using the search engine that can later be redeemed for prizes.

In pilot testing, Microsoft said it saw those in the program perform three times the number of searches they had been doing. Savoye noted that in the airline industry, for example, loyalty programs have become a standard part of doing business.

On the broader goal of boosting Microsoft’s share of the commercial search business, Savoye said, Cashback has yet to make a meaningful shift in share. “We haven’t seen it move significantly yet,” Savoye said.

“At this time, SearchPerks is a limited promotion, though we remain open to expending availability of the promotion to different browsers and operating systems based on consumer interest,” Microsoft said.

“Over the long-term these programs have changed people’s behavior,” he said.

“We know we have some challenges with the brand and perception,” Burk said. “Simple awareness is still a challenge for us.”

Microsoft has seen mixed results with its incentive programs. Live Search Club, for example, gave Microsoft an initial boost, but its gains appear to be directly tied to its level of incentives. With Live Search Cashback, Microsoft said it has seen some advertisers boost their Live Search spend. eBay, in particular, is spending 50 percent more on Live Search thanks to Cashback, which Microsoft says offers significantly higher conversion rates than traditional search.

In an interview, Live Search Senior Director Frederick Savoye said that the new business models, as Microsoft likes to refer to these programs, are just one part of a three-prong strategy that includes continued improvements in core search as well as in vertical search, or “simplifying key tasks” in Microsoft parlance.

It’s the latest in a series of financial incentive-related projects from Redmond, joining such efforts as Live Search Club, Search and Give, and Live Search Cashback, a program Microsoft introduced in May.

There’s also the broader question of what it says about Live Search overall that Microsoft has to keep coming up with gimmicks to get people to try it. Not to mention the fact that Microsoft has continued to struggle to make inroads on Google in overall share, promotions notwithstanding. According to figures recently released by ComScore, Google increased its share of the U.S. search market in August–it’s at 63 percent–while Yahoo and Microsoft both slipped a bit, to 19.6 percent and 8.3 percent respectively.

Users who agree to download a small program to track their usage get one “ticket” per day for every Live Search query, up to 25 per day. The program runs through April, at which point users can “cash in” the tickets that they get and trade them in for prizes or donate them to a charity.

The newly company aims to offer an open all-IP network that features mobile WiMax technology with download speeds of 2 to 4 megabits per second. The open IP (Internet protocol) will be designed to allow any WiMax device to connect to the network, said Clearwire CEO Benjamin Wolff during a conference call to announce the closing of the transaction.

Clearwire, as it has previously laid out, will receive a $3.2 billion investment from Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Google, and Bright House Networks, as well as an additional investment from Trilogy Equity Partners in the coming months.

The transaction, announced in May, creates a new company valued at $14.5 billion, formed with the WiMax assets of both Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire. The new company aims to create a nationwide broadband wireless network to rival AT&T.

The new company is also working on launching a nationwide 4G wireless broadband network using WiMax, which aims to run five times faster than 3G technology. The combined spectrum holdings of the new company provide it with 100 MHz, or more of potential 4G spectrum in most U.S. markets.

He added the new Clearwire also aims to offer greater spectrum and an all IP-network to bolster its network capacity and improve performance.

“We are the underdog,” Wolff said, but noted the steps Clearwire is taking will prompt other companies to hold similar aspirations.

The newly formed company expects to begin making upgrades to its mobile WiMax network early next year.

Clearwire and Sprint-Nextel announced Monday they have completed their joint-venture transaction and will offer mobile WiMax service under the “Clear” brand.

As part of that plan, the new company will retain the Clearwire name and offer mobile WiMax under the Clear brand. Over the coming months, Sprint Nextel’s XOHM service will undergo a name change.

(Credit:
CNET)

On Friday, AccuWeather released an even simpler solution–a small weather-checker for Windows, Mac, and Linux that runs on the free Adobe AIR platform (Windows|Mac). AccuWeather’s widget is about as basic as they come, with just enough information for the daily or five-day forecaster. There are daytime and nighttime readings, icons that communicate clear, cloudy, or rainy conditions at a glance, and the ability to change locations. Click a button and a five-day forecast pops out. Click another to switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius, between light and dark text, and to get a read on one of your saved locations. If you click a temperature itself, AccuWeather takes you to its Web site, where more information abounds.

The new AIR application isn’t quite as polished looking as Yahoo and Google’s widgets, but it makes for a convenient download that supplies desktop meteorologists the weather-watching essentials.

Just in time for Groundhog Day, I pulled together a small collection of desktop weather applications for checking everything from current weather conditions to 15-day forecasts and detailed readings on wind and clouds. For those with modest forecast needs, Yahoo and Google both offer a small, attractive widget that shows the temperature at a glance. The only problem is, you have to have already installed a much larger desktop application in order to get the tiny widget.