date

It's not often that I get to meet a listener of my Open Season podcast that I do with Ashlee Vance (The Register) and Dave Rosenberg (Mulesource). But today, I scored twice. I had a prospective customer meeting in the Northeast and walked into the room to discover that I was (in)famous.

It turns out that one of the two is married to a woman who used to date Dave Rosenberg back in college. Now, from this you could rightly guess that anyone married to anyone who dated Dave must have serious selection problems, making Alfresco a highly … Read more

Kevin Carmony, former CEO of Linspire, couldn't make a viable business in Linux. Perhaps, however, his attempt to marry Linux to Microsoft inspired his next move: an online dating service.

The fact that Carmony's dating service has nothing to do with Linux may bode well for its success. Reading through the press release above, it's difficult to see how Carmony's service (Dating DNA) is much different from other dating sites, except that this one has trendy names like "social networking" thrown in, but perhaps it will finally help Carmony to match up like-minded groups. … Read more

The first dating service to use lab-based genetic profiling launched online last week. Scientific Match promises to pair up people who will be physically attracted to each other because their DNA is different.

Well-matched couples will like each others' natural scents, have more fun in bed, and bear healthier children than those who are genetically similar, the company claims.

The service, available only in the Boston area, charges $1,995 for a year-long subscription.

"I strongly believe this will dominate the future of dating services," said founder Eric Holzle, a mechanical engineer.

Members swab their cheeks and send … Read more

If the Lucas empire and its legion of trademark attorneys get all hissy about this latest Wii attachment, they have only themselves to blame for not making it first. The "Wii Light Sword" is coming out in time for the long-awaited Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Although the game isn't expected until the spring, U.K.-based Play.com has jumped the gun--or the sword, as it were--and will unsheathe its luminescent weapon for shipment soon at about $31, according to Coolest-Gadgets. This saber-like remote accessory gets its intergalactic glow from 22 LEDs but can be dimmed … Read more

This invention reminds us that certain species in the animal kingdom, such as pandas, sometimes require artificial encouragement to begin their mating ritual--and that humans need a little help in this department from time to time as well.

The "SNIF Tag System," according to Gadgetell, not only tracks a dog's whereabouts but also stores information about the pet and its owners that can be traded to create a kind of canine social network. It's created by SNIF Labs, after all, which stands for "Social Networking in Fur."

"When you get home, all the … Read more

WooMe is opening up its doors to everyone this morning after being in private beta for the last few months. They were one of the presenters at the TechCrunch 40 conference back in mid-October and opened up to a little more than 100 folks who wanted to be a part of the dating site. Since then they've been ramping up the site, and have made a few updates, including a change in focus from dating to simply finding other people to interact with.

The underlying idea is that you've got a minute to talk to someone one-on-one via Webcam, and after that minute you move on to someone else. If you connect with someone, you can befriend them on the service, and can opt in to get in touch outside the site for further communication via private message.

Instead of one massive pool of users to sort out, the site manages everything through themed sessions that are created by users. Each session has a certain number of spots, and to be a part of them you need to sign up and be there when it starts. If you're not, someone else can take your spot, and potentially your next ex-girlfriend. Session topics range from singles looking to mingle by geographical area, all the way to folks trying to find babysitters or carpool partners. You can also scope out who has signed up to be a part of the session before you throw yourself in the mix. Despite the site advertising a minute per person, the session creator can dial up the time up to 3 minutes.

To help schedule the sessions, users can set a time when they want it to start. In order to aid users in remembering they've signed up, WooMe is launching an alerts system that will give users a heads up when it's time to hop back on the site. Currently users can set up a 10-minute e-mail alert, but there are also plans to add SMS and IM reminders (via a bot) to help users get a ping before a session is about to begin.

In addition to video, users can also opt for voice chat that comes in tandem with whatever picture they've associated with their WooMe account. Interestingly enough, the majority of a profile on WooMe isn't populated by information the user puts in; instead, it comes from other users who can use tags to describe them. Users have their own tag cloud, which gives you a quick snapshot of what others think of them. You can see this on their profiles, as well as while chatting with them in one of the sessions. Besides the big "no thanks" button when you're chatting with someone, this is the only real use of user ratings. Users can also reveal their age, location, and real basic traits like body type and social archetypes.… Read more

The CNN article about the Aqua Dots product recall says:

U.S. safety officials have recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots bead toys that contain a chemical that has caused some children to vomit and become comatose after swallowing them.

We immediately did our own product recall, removing the unsafe toy from our house last night after our daughter went to bed. But how did this product get into our house in the first place?… Read more

Put romance and Webcams in the same sentence and we're often talking about sites that are neither safe for work, nor a proper replacement for face-to-face human interaction. SpeedDate (formerly known as "SpeedEdate") would like you to think otherwise, with their online speed-dating solution that gives you three minutes a pop with a grouping of daters via Webcam. The site has already setup more than 15,000 virtual dates after making its debut in late October.

Similar to WooMe (which is still in private alpha) dates are short, (hopefully) sweet, and one-on-one. SpeedDate will match you up … Read more

"Sometimes you just want to go out immediately, with reckless abandon."

So says the front page of CrazyBlindDate.com, which aims to get people together on sporadic blind dates with very little notice. The site--whose creators also are responsible for OKCupid.com--was soft-launched in Austin awhile back and officially entered a beta phase on Tuesday with new urban centers in New York, Boston, and San Francisco. The interface is sleek, and the concept is cool, but with this kind of thing it's really all about the people who use it.

Short version: You fill out a … Read more