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When you first look at 3D Mailbox, it almost seems like a joke, or an article from The Onion. "The world's first 3D e-mail client!" the Web site proclaims. Well, there's a reason for that. Most of us struggle with too much e-mail these days. Taking the time to add 3D animations to each message seems ludicrous...and it is!

3D Mailbox delivers almost exactly what it promises. It creates a 3D world in which your e-mail messages can live...and walk, shower, swim, or even shuffle about aimlessly. When you receive mail in 3D Mailbox, a 3D character representing each message walks in the front gate and talks to the bouncer (who decides if he or she is spam).

By default, the gender of the new avatar is determined by the (supposed) gender of the sender (it thinks Vladimir is a woman's name), and any questionable senders default to female. If the bouncer lets him or her through, the 3D character for each message takes a disinfecting shower, then walks extremely slowly over to the pool, climbs the high-dive platform, jumps in the pool, and swims laps until you decide to read it.… Read more

We may not be advocates of Japan's future human-free society, but we do think there's at least some hope: A few of the country's robots are actually providing some useful functions like doing the dishes, not just handing out Kleenex or presiding over weddings (perhaps both, at some auto-nuptials).

The latest practically minded bot comes from Mitsui and Yaskawa Electric, which have partnered with the Hokusho packaging systems company to develop a mechanical worker that can sort parcels, clothing and other relatively small objects. The "Motoman-DIA10," according to Pink Tentacle, has "a pair of … Read more

Visto erased one of its patent lawsuits Tuesday, settling all claims against Seven in exchange for a licensing deal.

Last year Visto won a jury verdict against Seven, as well as $7.7 million in damages and an injunction against the sale of Seven's products that was stayed pending appeals. At the time Seven had expressed hope of overturning Visto's patents, but it has since thrown in the towel and will now license Visto's patent portfolio, the two companies announced in a press release Tuesday.

Sound familiar? It seems that patent lawyers are making just as much … Read more

Google and Postini? Makes sense to me. Postini adds vertical integration for Google's outsourced Gmail business. Large companies won't outsource e-mail without security while mid-market companies want turnkey bundled solutions. Now Google has all of the pieces in hand.

The e-mail marriage is obvious but there's more here than meets the eye. Postini has focused on broadening its offering to secure other forms of communication beyond e-mail. For example, Postini has a great portfolio for compliance including e-mail encryption, archival, and policy-enforced TLS. Not very attractive for consumers doing Google searches, but real credible stuff for enterprise … Read more

Last week FoxyTunes rolled out a cool new feature called Signatunes that lets users add whatever music they're listening to as their e-mail signature. Users with the latest version of Foxytunes get access to a button that integrates into supported e-mail and blogging services. Clicking it inserts a small link that lists artist and song information. This link goes straight to the song's FoxyTunes Planet page--a helpful service that aggregates artist information from various music reference sources on the net, and in many cases includes a preview, or free streamed version of the track.

I had a go … Read more

Despite the ubiquity of e-mail in all of our lives, most of us probably know someone who still doesn't use it. (Hi, Grandma!) And when was the last time any of us wrote and sent a letter via snail mail? A new service called eSnailer promises to bridge that gap by sending your virtual messages to actual mailboxes for free, but the whole process may cost you much more time and aggravation than the price of a first-class stamp.

If eSnailer seems too good to be true, you're right. It is supported by advertising, and in order to … Read more

Visto announced Thursday that its push e-mail software will support the iPhone, giving gadgetheads a round of ammunition for the upcoming battle with their IT department.

Apple isn't pitching the iPhone as a business device, but lots of executives with money to burn on sexy gadgets might try to find a way to use their new toys for business purposes. The iPhone supports the MAP e-mail standard with SSL encryption, which means it is feasible to connect an iPhone to any mail server using IMAP. However, this isn't the most secure way of connecting to a corporate network … Read more

Today, users of AOL Mail can start chatting from within their in-boxes, without having to open the AIM application. If you want to add this feature to your AOL Mail account, then visit beta.webmail.aol.com each time you log in, which will roll the new features into your existing AOL e-mail service. The changes are set to take effect later today. Gmail and Yahoo Mail beta both offer built-in chatting.

AOL Mail, which is undergoing many changes lately (details here), also offers POP3 and IMAP access for free. And by the end of this month, users of both … Read more

You and I may be RSS junkies, but plenty of Internet users are not. The masses still dig reading e-mail. And sending it: many small business owners are more comfortable blasting their customers with e-mail than they are updating a blog.

Feedblitz, an established blog-to-e-mail service provider, is rolling out new capabilities that serve both readers and authors who aren't comfortable with blogs and RSS feeds. Like Feedburner, Feedblitz can convert blogs to e-mail feeds. In fact, Feedburner offers Feedblitz-powered e-mails to its users. But Feedblitz on its own offers a lot more customization options, including a solution that … Read more