popular

As its name suggests, SitePopularity is a program that allows users to check a specific Web site's ranking using top ranking systems. It comes with two trial restrictions, but we found that it still managed to perform well during our tests.

The user interface is extremely easy to navigate. Large, self-explanatory command buttons reside at the top of the window, and URLs are listed in the main window, along with their ranking among such ranking sites as Google Pagerank, Alexa Traffic Rank, and Altavista. Novices will especially appreciate the wizard that walks you through the process of entering the … Read more

Although it delivers information from some of the most well-known sources to gauge link popularity, the interface design makes it a bit awkward to see all the info provided. And Link Popularity Checker only exports information in .CSV format.

Link Popularity Checker's interface is professionally designed, but the ads and links to increase site traffic hint at this free tool's true purpose. It is easy to navigate, even with no Help file in sight. Command buttons line the top of the interface and allow you to quickly add URLs, get data, and export it. The final of the … Read more

Though computer monitor technology has long since passed the days when you truly needed to "save your screen," screensavers are still a lot of fun and a great way to personalize your desktop when you're away from the computer. This collection features screensavers that are most popular with our users.

Free Fire Screensaver sets your icons and windows ablaze. Watch as each item slowly catches fire and begins to smoke on your desktop. Crackling and popping sounds and a musical soundtrack complete the effect. Add your own MP3 to customize your desktop flare-up.

3D Fish School Screensaver … Read more

Bernardo Huberman, Hewlett-Packard's director of the HP Social Computing lab, and fellow researcher Gabor Szabo have published a highly detailed report (PDF) on "predicting the popularity of online content." Focusing on content submitted and popularized on popular social sites Digg.com and Google's YouTube, the two concocted not one but three ways to predict how much traffic and overall user interaction a story or submitted video will receive well after it hits its initial popularity.

To do this the pair kept an eye on 7,146 videos from YouTube's recently added section, and every digg from registered digg users between July 1, 2007, to December 18, 2007. From this data, they found that stories on Digg got more votes and views during peak traffic hours than those at nights and on weekends (duh), and that YouTube videos tended to get more and more views a month into being submitted--and in many cases well beyond the initial 30-day evaluation.

To dig a little deeper into this data, they were able to figure out which time of day story submissions on Digg had the most chance of getting attention, right down to the hour. The data also showed how many diggs a story would get after being promoted to the front page depending on both what time that story hit and when it was originally submitted. The lesson: submit, and hit the front page early.

The prediction models, which you'll have no problem understanding if you paid attention in your grad school numerical analysis class, outline three different ways to guess any one submission's popularity. All three depend on any number of variables, as dictated by Huberman's research, including what time of day you're submitting compared with how many others are submitting at the same time.

One thing that slightly outdated the research done on the Digg-side is the somewhat-recent introduction of the recommendation engine. Digg has been quite vocal with the success of its engine, both in terms of additional traffic and higher user interaction levels.

Also, at the time of the survey Digg was just two weeks out from a redesign that put more emphasis on friends activity--a precursor to the mid-September overhaul of user profiles, which made the site resemble a social network. Neither of these things changed Digg's overall method of having popular stories roll off the front page in a matter of hours--something that hasn't changed during the lifetime of the site, but it's worth noting nonetheless.

I've embedded the paper after the jump. You can also track some of HP Labs' other projects on this page.… Read more

From what I hear (from documentaries, reality TV shows), prison ain't nothin' nice. I don't mean just for the prisoners, but for the guards as well. Not a job I envy in the least, but one that obviously is necessary. Sometimes a person just decides to hurt himself or another and prison guards need tools to deal with this. Assault weapons are necessary in some situations, but sometimes knowing a lot about what you're getting into can be useful.

Popular Mechanics posted a story about the California Department of Corrections' decision to test a new recon robot … Read more

Tom couldn't decide whether to go with the "marginalized whackjob" wall paint, or just get a marginalized whackjob fringe. Vote? In other news of the day, the McCain campaign discovers that the DMCA can be ANNOYING! Maybe they'll do something about it once they're back in politics-land! Also, EA says no one cares about DRM except an organized online cabal. We know how well that attitude worked out for the music industry.

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McCain campaign complains about takedown notice procedure http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1795 http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081014-mccainpalin-campaign-angry-over-bogus-dmca-takedowns.html … Read more

Popular Mechanics magazine will unveil on Wednesday its Breakthrough Awards, the publication's annual celebration of the brightest innovators and innovations.

This year's winners include tech that lets you read books on a thin, digital device, see all around your car as you park, and explore outer space through your imagination.

Logan Ward, a contributing editor at the magazine, said that he and a team of fellow researchers scour the country looking for 30 to 40 candidates that are then winnowed down to the eventual 10 winners. The magazine also identifies 10 individuals for special innovator, leadership, and future-looking … Read more

On Friday, Google's Picasa Web Albums rolled out a new page that highlights community photography, with featured shots from its users, a stream of live updating uploads, and a game that makes use of media that's been geotagged.

Of all the new features, the "Where in the World?" game is the most fun. It lets you guess where a photo was taken by clicking on a giant world map. You're awarded points for how close you were, with closer guesses racking up massive points. It does this using shots that have been geotagged, although that … Read more

Performance-monitoring firm Pingdom thinks we should look at social networks differently.

The popularity of a social site such as MySpace or Twitter is frequently measured in unique users, page views, or user registrations. But a recent ministudy by Pingdom chose instead to look at how much of a proportional lock a given social network has on the countries' Web users. The tool of choice was Google Insights for Search, which was formally launched earlier this week.

Facebook, for example, started in the United States and still has more members there than in any other country. But there's more proportional &… Read more