sense

My6Sense puts smart RSS reading in your pocket

Editor's note: This post was amended to reflect a later release date for this app. My6Sense for the iPhone was originally expected to be on the app store Thursday morning, although it remains in Apple's approval process. For the purpose of this review I was using the same version which was installed using a testing provision.

My6Sense, a company that previewed its RSS recommendation technology at the Under the Radar Mobility conference back in late November, is finally ready to get its tools into the hands of users. The company soon plans to release its first native application for mobile phones (currently for the iPhone only), which pulls in RSS feeds and adjusts what it presents based on your reading habits.

To make those adjustments, the product revolves around a machine learning algorithm called "digital intuition." As you read, it slowly builds a profile for recommendations on other items you should check out, and ranks them accordingly.

There are six levels of digital intuition in all. Any time you check for recommendations it updates a small bar that tells you how far along its cold, robot brain is to knowing your deepest reading desires. In the hour or two I spent with the app, I nearly got to level three. Apparently it takes much more browsing than I was willing to give it before it could offer expert recommendations. Nonetheless, after just that short amount of time it was doing a pretty good job pointing me toward articles I did, in fact, want to read.

Feeding frenzy Finding feeds to begin with is quite easy. You can enter URLs manually, download packs of RSS links that have been curated by My6Sense, or import the news feed from places like Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and Flickr. It's also got a tool for grabbing your feed collection from other RSS services like Google Reader, My Yahoo, NewsGator, and Netvibes. I just used my feed collection from Google Reader, which was as simple as plugging in the credentials for my Google account. My6Sense was even nice enough to keep all my folders and meticulous feed organization intact.

Now the real heart of the app is feed reading. My6Sense wants you to give up using any other readers, and do everything inside of its app, since that's what makes its recommendation engine tick. This would be fine, except for the fact that the app can get intolerably slow when it comes to loading headlines.

Over a healthy 3G connection it took around 12 seconds to load up a list of just 10 stories. It took even longer to pull in an additional 10 results. And this was just the text--images don't load until you open up a story to read. In comparison, Google Reader in Safari is not… Read more

Gadgettes 146: The Hot Topic Episode

Two months worth of Twilight talk has resulted in this homage that we lovingly refer to as "goth-lite." Take a walk on the dark side with the Gadgettes and special guest Natali Del Conte.

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EPISODE 146

Skull phone shows just how wild and crazy you are

Report: U.S. military developing robots that eat human flesh

Gory intercom system a savagely funny concept

Meet the black Wii

iKey's AK-39 wearable keyboard is about as weapon-like as it sounds

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters… Read more

HTC's Sense UI headed to other current Android phones

HTC unveiled its Hero at an event two days back, and the highlight of the launch, without a doubt, was not so much the physical features of the smartphone but its custom Android interface.

According to Pocket-lint, CEO Peter Chou confirmed that the new HTC Sense user interface "will be available on some other existing devices." This will give added capabilities such as an expanded Home screen with unique HTC widgets and tighter integration with social-networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. There's no word on which devices exactly will get this, but it's likely to be … Read more

Google bringing AdSense to mobile apps

Android and iPhone developers looking for an extra source of revenue will soon have an advertising option, sponsored by Google.

Google's AdSense program--in which it sells and distributes ads to third-party publishers--is coming to mobile devices as a beta program, the company announced Wednesday. A small group of developers have been testing this program but now anyone can apply, said Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management, in a blog post.

Mobile apps are one of the hottest topics in software development these days, as Apple's App Store continues to grow and other developers roll out their … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1004: We have come for your units

Dr. Kiki from This Week in Science joins us to talk tech and science, and we realize that we will all soon wear solar-powered Gundam suits and travel the Earth. That is until they become self-aware and eject us and kill us all. We also take NASA to task and tell you when to get a new Windows PC.

Listen now: Download today's podcast Subscribe now: iTunes (audio) | iTunes (video) | RSS (audio) | RSS (video) EPISODE 1004

HTC Hero running Android and Sense UI http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/24/htc-hero-details-begin-leaking-from-htcs-own-website/

China not backing off despite filter code post … Read more

Kids cheating with tech but are schools cheating kids?

The results of a survey showing that 35 percent of middle school and high school students with cell phones have used them to cheat at school is indeed alarming. And perhaps more alarming is the finding that nearly a quarter of the students don't even think it's cheating.

Cheating is cheating regardless of whether you use technology or old-fashioned paper notes. I'm appalled that kids may be using technology to cheat in school, but I'm just as appalled at how schools are cheating kids when it comes to technology.

But in addition to admonishing kids about … Read more

Teen cheating morphs with new tech, poll shows

Parents have yet another reason for a long, hard talk with their kids. More than half of teens admit to using the Internet to cheat, a new poll shows, while 35 percent say they've used their cell phones.

The results were released Thursday by Common Sense Media, which commissioned research firm Benenson Strategy Group to conduct the poll.

The report (PDF) uncovered several alarming trends. More than 38 percent of teens say they've copied content from the Internet and presented it as their own work, while 21 percent have downloaded an actual paper to turn in as their … Read more

Analyst: Google will walk away from bad AdSense deals

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Are the days of silly AdSense deals with the likes of MySpace and AOL over for Google? Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay seems to think so. The analyst upped his price target to $600 for Google shares on the theory that the economy is rebounding and the search giant's revenue per click ratio will follow. Meanwhile, Google's profit margins are likely to go higher.

And Google's ability to walk away from high-cost AdSense deals are one reason those margins are headed higher. Lindsay writes in a research note: … Read more

Microsoft opens up its answer to Google AdSense

Microsoft on Wednesday opened its PubCenter advertising service up for public beta testing, providing more of an alternative to Google's AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network technology that places ads on publishers' sites.

All the services scrutinize the content on a Web site and place advertisements the service deems to be relevant to that content. As with ads on search sites, the advertiser pays only when a reader clicks on one of the ads, and revenue is shared with the publisher and the company operating the ad service.

Kevin McCabe, senior product manager of PubCenter, announced the move at the … Read more