Also: eBay buys Stumbleupon | Yahoo loses chief tech officer | Facebook to open UK office | iPlayer's final tests | Using Google offline | Wikipedia's open search engine | First Tuesday is back | Old gags
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates made a rare joint appearance at the D conference yesterday.
The Wall Street Journal's coverage is painfully reverential: Gates said he" "give a lot to have Steve's taste" and said that back in day, he would "see Steve make decisions based on a sense of people and products. The way he does things is just different, and it's magical."
In return, Jobs said that Gates charity work had made the world a better place - "he's goal isn't to be the richest guy in the cemetery," he said.
Those adverts caused some uncomfortable shifting in seats from Gates, who had to listen to Steve Jobs explaining that the point wasn't to be mean about PCs but that they should get on.
"PC guy is great," said Jobs.
"His mother loves him," said Gates.
"PC guy is what makes it all work," said Jobs. Bizarre.
For the full running commentary, you need to read Engadget.
eBay buys Stumbleupon
And another one: eBay has spent $75m on Stumbleupon, the serendipitous link aggregator. Stumbleupon's thing is that it matches stuff on the web with its users profiles - something that has tediously been dubbed "Web 3.0". Current management will stay in place. (AP)
Yahoo loses chief tech officer
Yahoo in the US is losing its chief technology officer Farzad Nazem, leaving two of its three operating group-head posts vacant. Nazem joined in 1996 but said on Yahoo's blog that it is time he "slowed down". It's another blow for Yahoo which is trying to reassure shareholders in the face of falling revenues and stiff competition from Google, Microsoft and the like. (Wall Street Journal)
Facebook plans UK expansion
Facebook is planning to open a London office in August and has 15 commercial deals line up over here, according to NMA. Facebook still lags behind MySpace and Bebo over here, but last week's move to open the site to developers was designed to steal a march on MySpace, which has clamped down on widgets and links to external sites. UK partnerships to date include a student competition with the prize of a £50,000 O2-branded campus party. (NMA)
iPlayer's final tests
The iPlayer's eternal development cycle is about to end - the player is in its final beta testing phase with launch due in the next few months. The Beeb won't be more specific than that about a launch date, alas. (NMA)
Using Google offline
Google has created software called Google Gears that allows users to use email, online calendars and news readers whether they are online or offline. Hurrah. I can see why the vice president of engineering got the job: "The Web is great but it doesn't work very well when you don't have a Web connection," said Jeff Huber.
Gears will be open source and will expand on existing Google products, presumably GMail, calendars and maps. Adobe, the Flash and Acrobat producer, is an early partner for the project as are the mobile software firm ASA and Mozilla, the Firefox people.
Google Reader will be the first product to combine Gears, which at last means you can browse your news feeds while you're on the train.
(Reuters)
Wikipedia's open search engine
Wikipedia is launching its own search engine and plans to make public the algorithms that determine its search results. That's very different to Google, which built its empire on the search techniques that form the core of the company's intellectual property. The Wikia search engine will elicit the trust of its users in a way that commercial search engines can't, claim the project's leaders. Google, for its part, welcomed the news saying that a new development is good for the space. (The Herald)
First Tuesday is back
First Tuesday, the original dot com networking do, is resurrecting itself. See Mike Butcher's able post on that: "First Tuesday has decided to re-animate itself like some kind of crazed zombie from 28 Weeks Later (or perhaps the bath tub scene in Fatal Attraction?)" (tbites)
Old gags
The delight of BoingBoing. This rumour may have been drifting around since 2001, but apparently Mike Figgis was detained for five hours at LA airport on Tuesday after telling security: "I'm here to shoot a pilot."
