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fall

Reinventing the keyboard, yet again: Kannuu

It feels like I write this headline every year or two: a new company has engineered a new and better way to enter text.

The latest: Kannuu, presenting at the DemoFall conference tomorrow. This one uses the four-way directional pad of your mobile phone or remote control as the input mechanism. For each letter you enter, you get four choices (one each for up, down, left, and right) for the next letter or the rest of the word--guaranteed by the system to be the most likely things you'll want to type. You can also get another set of selections … Read more

Diigo adds social network features

Diigo (previous coverage) makes a rich and complex online tool kit. It's a product that's easily dismissed as yet another social-bookmarking tool, yet another Web "clip" saver, or yet another Web page annotator. It is all those things, which makes for a tough pitch. But it's a powerful tool that several people I know swear by.

At the DemoFall 2007 conference tomorrow, the company will be showing off the 3.0 version (which should go into public beta in a few weeks) that CEO Wade Ren previewed for me recently. It pushes on the social … Read more

The social network where you can't understand anyone: LiveMocha

Plenty of language learning tools leverage technology. Recently I've taken to listening to the Coffee Break Spanish courses on my iPod during my commute, and last week Jessica Dolcourt covered the new online language learning system Mango. There's yet another system being released at DemoFall tomorrow that also looks very compelling: LiveMocha.

Like other language learning tools, LiveMocha has online lessons you can take at your own pace. Compared with Mango, I found LiveMocha easier to get into. My test case was beginning Spanish, and lessons flew by as my vocabulary and comprehension grew quickly. But what really … Read more

Anatomy of a Buzz Report screwup

So, I came in to work today to this e-mail in the CNET TV Feedback mailbox, about last week's Buzz Report:

"The segment with Molly 'playing' video games was horrible. The 360 was upside down and the game playing was Resistance, which is a PS3 game."

Er. D'oh. Yes. Yes, all that is true.

Now, let me explain. I am using my Xbox 360-to-PS3 adapter. See, I love Resistance: Fall of Man, but I have an Xbox 360, and I just really prefer that controller. So, I use my adapter to play cool PS3 games. Oh, … Read more