If you’re already subscribed to Golf Vacation Insider or GolfWorld RSS feeds on your iPhone, the iGolf app from Palo Alto-based Social Gaming Network should be a healthy addition to fantasizing about your next birdie.

Originally, the iGolf app was released last week and has since seen over half a million downloads. In its basic form, you could go to the virtual driving range, choose a club, assume your best golf stance, and take a swing.

Today, SGN is issuing new par 3 and 4 holes and additional control features to the game. The application leverages the iPhone’s accelerometer technology for gaming, and could strike fear into the hearts of Wii players worldwide who remember their Wiimotes divebombing their TV sets a couple of years ago.

Be smart. No greasy McD’s french fries before iGolf.

“The launch of iGolf for iPhone marks a new era for SGN as we focus on integrating social gaming into a mobile platform to push the boundaries of the gaming experience for gamers and enthusiasts alike. Social networking features such as the viral nature of the game and the ability to challenge your friends has helped catapult it to the top of the iPhone App Store list,” said Shervin Pishevar, CEO of SGN.

By October 1st, SGN also plans to add left-handed controls and new audio controls that will allow players to set ‘applause’ sounds and the authentic ‘thwack’ sound made when the club hits the ball.

And the game is free, so there’s no reason not to download it. My high score was 214 at the driving range, so beat that. iGolf is currently available for download on the app store.

Source:Mashable!

There, I’ve said it. All morning I’ve been reading about G1’s flaws and the iPhone’s slickness in comparison; or, in another camp, about G1’s potential over iPhone’s closedness.

What most people seem to forget here is that iPhone is one, while the Android will be many. G1 is just the first of many different phones that will be inhabited by Google’s mobile platform, Android. It may not have multitouch functionality, as noted in Gizmodo’s most recent list of grievances, but that’s because the device itself does not support it. But some other device will.

In other words, you cannot directly compare the iPhone and G1, and you cannot directly compare iPhone’s platform with Android. Simply put, it’s not the same sport.

Android based phones will be very, very open. This means: a lot of apps for the same purpose, some crappy, some great, with the best of them probably forgetting about design slickness and bringing lots of functionality with great attention to detail. There will be many different Android devices around, which means that some will support some supercool applications while the others won’t be able to do so. There will (hopefully) be a fanatical community of developers for Android, and it will yield some great applications.

On the other hand, iPhone is one device that will change over time, but there will never be a wide variety of iPhones. It will never have every little bit of functionality that hardcore geeks salivate over, but it will be slick, applications will work without many flaws, and the entire thing will be a lot easier to use.

Sounds familiar? Yup, it sounds like Linux vs. Mac OS, or - to a degree - Linux vs. Windows.

So, it’s not about which one is better. It’s about which one is better for you. Like command line? Like tinkering with hundreds of options that common users can’t even begin to understand? Like having a choice of 15 apps that do the same thing? Then Android-based phones will be right up your alley.

On the other hand, if you just want the damn thing to work, you’ll probably choose the iPhone. Simple.

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Sears, the department-store operator, is inviting visitors to its website to join an online “community.” In the process, visitors may be unwittingly installing spyware from ComScore which monitors all of their online behavior “including … filling a shopping basket, completing an application form, or checking your … personal financial or health information.” Sears defends this installation process as clearly and appropriately disclosed. Computer Associates, a Harvard Business School professor, and possibly the government disagree.

The researchers argue that Sears fails to disclose its relationship with ComScore. Mentioning the tracking application and its purposes pages into a dense privacy statement and end-user l icense does not count, they say. The Federal Trade Commission may well think otherwise. The FTC has recently set standards for disclosure and consent related to third parties installing tracking software on users’ computers. The required disclosure should be clear, prominent, unavoidable, and separate from any other licensing agreements.

While Sears is taking all the flack for the tracking software, it’s really the problem of its business partner, ComScore, and the entire Internet-tracking industry. Why the deception? Because the benefits from the software flow to ComScore and other usage trackers, not the users being tracked. If Sears flashed even a token $5 discount at these people, you can bet they’d gladly hand over their privacy rights.

Source:Valleywag

The FBI has made a deal with Clear Channel to put “most wanted” bulletins and “hot pursuit” alerts on digital billboards around the country. Predictable: The SiliconView digital billboard on the 101 was just the beginning. The future of outdoor advertising is digital billboards which can display different ads depending on time of day or current traffic conditions, for example. So it makes sense that public security would be just the latest use for these annoying monstrosities. A trial of the technology in Philadelphia led to the capture of three criminals, so the project is being expanded to 150 billboards in 20 cities across the U.S. But the real question is when Google will start brokering the ad space. (Photo by AP/Jim Mone)

Source:Valleywag

On December 30 and 31, Mac OS X accounted for 8 percent of computers browsing websites monitored by Net Applications, up 6.8 percent from November. Windows Vista? 10.5 percent. [Computerworld]

newVideoPlayer(”The_Landlord_Ferrell.flv”, 475, 376);
AOL’s search engine Truveo put out a list of the top video searches for 2007. The list includes Will Ferrell’s Web classic “The Landlord,” an excerpt of which runs above. Here’s the list of videos, complete with links, so you don’t have to use Truveo anymore.

Top ten video search results from 2007

1. Miss Teen South Carolina Answers Questions

2. Leave Britney Alone!

3. Prison Inmates Perform “Thriller”

4. Paris in Jail: The Music Video

5. The Landlord, Featuring Will Ferrell

   The Landlord on FunnyOrDie.com
   

6. Safari Animals Battle at Kruger;

7. “Chocolate Rain” by Tay Zonday

8. “I Got a Crush on Obama” by Obama Girl;

9. Karl Rove’s Rap Debut as MC Rove

10. College Student Tasered at Kerry Forum (”Don’t tase me, bro!”)

Source:Valleywag

newVideoPlayer(”Venture_Capital_Idle_1.flv”, 475, 376);
Onset Ventures didn’t just send out a Christmas card this year. They also performed the card, a parody of American Idol. Avert your eyes. Onset partner Shomit Ghose penned the lyrics, but none of the singers actually work for the Sand Hill Road firm. (For the record, the performers are Tom Shields of Yieldex, David Binetti of Sentilla, Randy Haykin of Outlook Ventures and IT consultant Tim Salaver — yeah, we haven’t heard of them either.) Embedded, above, a parody carol called “It Came Upon a Midnight Beer.” Which describes the song, too.

Source:Valleywag

The Web is deriding Microsoft’s decision to rename PlaysForSure, its digital rights platform, as “Certified for Vista.” It’s actually a rare sign of intelligent life in Redmond’s marketing cubes. PlaysForSure never spawned the hoped-for army of iTunes killers, and Microsoft itself created another format for its own Zune, kneecapping any stores foolish enough to adopt PlaysForSure.

In short, there’s no loss of brand equity here for Microsoft. The new label suggests that devices and music stores are merely compatible with Windows — the real butter on Microsoft’s bread. And even though the stores and players will likely work just as well with Windows XP, Microsoft has just tricked its music partners into giving free advertising to its newer, unloved operating system.

A former PayPal executive recently pointed out that PayPal, as a division of eBay, has swelled to 7,000 employees — vastly more than it ever had as an independent concern. “What do those people do?” he asked. The growth in headcount had not led to a concomitant increase in inventiveness. Take, for example, the news, breathlessly reported by TechCrunch, that PayPal would roll out a “virtual credit card” for shopping even at stores that don’t take PayPal. This would be more impressive had PayPal not rolled out the same product six years ago.

Source:Valleywag

Extensive testing by members of the Exo.performance.network has found the forthcoming Service Pack 1 upgrade to Windows Vista to be no faster than the first relase. IT departments worldwide had hoped that by postponing their upgrade from Windows XP to Vista until SP1 was released, they’d get a performance boost to brag about. Instead, aspiring Vista users will bite the bullet and buy new computers. Not to get all MacWeenie on you, but my 2003 12″ PowerBook has gotten faster with every new version of Apple’s OS X.

Word around Seattle is that Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg is headed out of the troubled job-search website — for parts east. Sources say that Goldberg’s husband, Thomas, has been telling friends of their upcoming move to New York City and, on his last day at Seattle advertising firm Wong Doody, sent out a company-wide goodbye email indicating that he was leaving for geographical reasons, not personal or professional ones. Goldberg glosses over the rumor, telling us “My husband Thomas is applying to graduate-school programs in a number of cities. We currently have no plans to move. And no, I am not leaving Jobster.” Though he might be mistaken on that last part. We’ve heard that the VC community in Seattle is abuzz about the Jobster board’s stealth search to replace him. Why is the CEO always the last to know?

Source:Valleywag

Despite the software giant’s aspirations, Microsoft’s older Windows XP is still the newer Windows Vista’s biggest enemy. It’s cheaper, a known quantity, and “good enough.” The software developer has, in some measure, conceded this by allowing PCs to be preloaded with the older OS for an additional five months and, in emerging markets, until the middle of 2010. Copies of XP will also continue to be available at retail. [News.com]

If at first you don’t succeed, be Peter Adderton. Ever since Amp’d Mobile, the troubled wireless carrier, messily declared bankruptcy in June, Adderton, its former CEO, has been trying to plot his own exit strategy. A rumored deal with Qualcomm never materialized, which makes us equally suspicious of MoCoNews’s report that Adderton is “close” to joining Clearwire, the broadband-wireless Internet service provider. Why Clearwire would want to get entangled with Adderton isn’t clear. Granted, Amp’d Mobile had a hit in “Lil Bush,” the mobile-video series that made the jump to the boob tube on Comedy Central. But most ISPs fare poorly in the content business. And even if Clearwire really wants to make a go of it, is Adderton the best possible partner?

Source:Valleywag
This parody video pokes fun at Microsoft Paint, the aging art software includes with Windows. YouTube commenters already point out that Vista Paint, the latest version, isn’t much of an improvement. But that’s not what makes it so funny to me.The real humor in the clip is its reminder that no one gets this excited about desktop software anymore. Take Apple’s announcement earlier this week of iLife ‘08: The only real selling point of Apple’s newest iLife software, used to manage photo collections, edit movies, and so forth, is that it’s integrated with Apple’s .Mac Web service. Yes, Microsoft Paint seems hilariously out of date. But to today’s Web generation, it’s not Paint that’s outdated — it’s the entire field of programs written to run on a PC instead of on a website. If you’re in your 30s, this video will make you laugh out loud. If you’re in your early 20s, I’m betting it will just bore you.

I read something a couple of weeks ago about a “free” Windows-based screencasting setup. For the capture George suggested using CamStudio. I’ve played around with it a little, and I’ve been very impressed with the simplicity and general quality of the capture. CamStudio’s captures are fairly large, so George took a suggestion from Free Vlog and used Windows Movie Maker to achieve better compression — and convert the AVI file to WMV.

What other options are out there? I’ve read about Wink, but haven’t tried it yet. What do you use for Windows-based screencasting?