Even though still technically in Beta (isn’t everything in Google “Beta?”) the search giant has announced today that anybody can now use their Wikipedia replacement, Knol.

The system is based around the idea of users being accountable for what they write. And if people are accountable, they’re more likely to concentrate a little more on getting their facts straight. Unlike Wikipedia where anybody can edit a page, if you don’t log into the Knol website, you can only view the articles available. I think it’s poignant that Google have allowed users to access the system now - the same accountability idea has just recently been talked about (again) by the Wikipedia team.

Knol includes articles that are written by professionals in their field, as well as people from the general public, which provide information, I think, that allows the reader to trust a little more - but at the very least gives a more rounded opinion on the subject. Plus with users being accountable for what they write, it should stop the majority of article spamming that has plagued Wikipedia since it’s inception.

Knol is still in it’s infancy, so don’t expect to find the find of information you would on Wikipedia - for instance I couldn’t find any instances of “telephone” or “laptop” within articles on the site. However, I’m sure it won’t be long before Knol starts to increase it’s article count as people become aware of the system after today.

It seems there are so many social networking sites coming out nowadays that it’s hard to keep up. Well the latest one is a little different, on the face of it, but dig deeper and it’s all too familiar

The ugame network in principle is a good idea. You link together like-minded individuals, who in this case all happen to enjoy the odd bit of gaming, and you let them create clubs, groups, online leagues and form friendships and things. You also have a place to record the games you play on a regular basis - although only the most popular are available. However, if you find yourself with a game that isn’t in the list, rest assured you can request the game be included on their master list. Once done, your profile is available publicly (along with your system specs if you so wish) by default so people can search for you and the games you play.

So is it worth doing? I don’t think the vast majority of gamers need something like this. There is generally at least one website, including forums, for every game you play online - why would you need another one? The only use I could think of for this website is if you have a game that isn’t played anymore very much - so you can go with the law of averages and hopefully find a few people on the planet that still do. If you are one of those people, or you still reckon there might be a use for the network, sign up here - ugame has just been released as public beta.

Wow, what a great find. If you’re into computer graphics then this site will be of immense use to you. It will convert raster graphics to vector graphics for free. If you have no idea what I’m on about, I’ll give you a quick explanation of what vector graphics are first, and why they’re so much better than rasters for computer work.

Raster

No it’s not what you call a religious type from Jamaica, it is in fact the name given to the graphic type that is made of lots of tiny squares of varying shades of colour. Look at the image to the right. You will notice that everything is blocky and that the squares that are next to each other are similar in shade. This is called “anti-aliasing” and is a trick to our eyes so that we can see smooth curves as curves, and not a progression of blocks. However, this trick only works when you’re zoomed right out of the image. The closer you get the worse the blocks appear. And if there is no anti-aliasing the picture will look blocky unless the resolution is massive (again essentially making the blocks even smaller to the eye, which hides the “steps”.)

So what use are raster images? They look rubbish, don’t they? Well they are, but they have their uses. For one thing, everything digital that captures an image (a digital camera, a scanner etc.) will do so as a raster. And also everything digital that displays an image, also does so as a raster. And if it isn’t a raster, it will be converted by the screen to one without you even knowing.. It just has to be that way for everything to be compatible. It’s the same reason that digital cameras need higher and higher resolutions as people start to print more and more detailed pictures - they would just appear too blocky if they weren’t that way.

Vector

Now, compare the image on the right to the raster one. The detail has not been lost when we’ve blown it up. The reason is that this image isn’t stored as a series of squares - this one is stored as a series of formulas for circles, and curves and squares and things. As this image is essentially a load of maths, it scales perfectly. Keep on zooming, and the details remain. It’s the same technology as that used by the fonts on any modern computer system. If you check, there is one file for every font, but you can have any size you want without losing detail. The real world, of course, isn’t made out of maths - at least not in an easy to store way - so that’s why vector images are essentially the realm of the computer artist and why they’re not interchangeable.

So here lies the problem.. What if you need a vector image to do things? What if you’re into rendering & CGI, or you want to create a nice christmas card from your tiny company logo? Normally of course it would mean either putting up with the horrible blockiness or re-creating it in a vector art package - something like Corel Paint.

In steps Vectormagic. A website & web application created by the boffins of Stanford University. Vectormagic will walk you through the process of converting a raster to a vector from beginning to end in only 4 steps. If at any point you want to change one of the settings, you can easily go backwards and forwards. Don’t let me put you off, there are only 3 choices or so for every step that are explained in plain english. In fact they really just require you to zoom into your raster image to have a look at the quality and things. And the results are amazing. For instance, the two images in this example are taken from a raster I downloaded ages ago of the half life 2 logo. The first one is the original, whilst the second is the Vectormagic-erised version. It will however, as you would imagine, struggle with a hugely complicated image with lots of colours. But for logos or high-contrast pictures it works a treat. [SHOW ME]

Do you want to know the extent to the problems the human race is causing to Mother Earth? Well, you’re in luck - it seems poodwaddle have created the solution to our inquisitive nature, with EarthClock.. [SHOW ME]

Despite what the American record industry want, there are still internet radio stations available for the masses. This resource will give you access to the vast majority (and not just the ones you would find on iTunes.) [SHOW ME]

YouConvert is the name of the website that lets you convert your files between all the well known file formats. You can convert audio files, documents, videos and images. It’s really simple and do you know the best thing? It’s all for free! Firstly you select the type of media you want to convert, find the file on your PC, enter your email address and away it goes into the youconvert servers for conversion. When the conversion is complete, you are sent an email (it took about a minute after I uploaded a wav for conversion to mp3) and this gives you a link to download your new file from the website. All in all, very painless and smooth. I wonder what the business model is?? [SHOW ME]

Not much chance, as you’re reading this. HOWEVER, if you found me by accident, this is the website to verify if you’re actually clever or not.. =) Look I’m only joking OK? Check out the website, all will become clear…

[link]

I wound up here the other day for no reason, but to try and see if the BBC had a stats page for their website. I was suprised to find it relatively quickly. However I was presented with a password. So I tried the first thing I thought of and it worked: Username: stats, password: stats. Simple…

It’s interesting to see they have seperate stats for the biggest crowd pullers to their website, such as when Princess Diana died. Sad but poignant.

I don’t know if they advertise this stats page or not, or if they just password protect it to prevent google from sending it’s armies of robots in!!

[link]

As you may know if you are a regular reader of my ramblings, I am a bit of an avid podcast listener and really enjoy listening on the bus, at home and anywhere else. So when the release of a new social podcasting site for listeners was announced I thought I’d check it out - although I’ve left it a few weeks to settle down first.

The coolest thing I’ve found so far is the ability to search for your favourite podcasts, combine them into a channel and either play them at the site, which is streamed, or create an RSS file or playlist. I’ve taken my channel and dropped it straight into Juice.

I will continue to test over the next week and let you (and the owners) know of any problems I find or tips/tricks in getting the most out of it.

[link]

Greatest find of the week. This website will learn from your music tastes. The website is held in conjunction with apple and amazon (not that that should disuade you at all) and delivers the equivalent of 400,000 songs from their database not including world or classical music.

Anyway, it’s a really cool website, allows you to register for free and learns, yes I mean learns, your musical taste, through repetition. For instance, you will create a new radio station within your browser and type in an artist or track that you really like. The channel is created (and you can have up to a hundred of them) and the music streams directly via flash into your browser. This is pretty cool, but what makes the process complete is that it makes a note of what that track actually means. I don’t mean artist, length and other stuff - I mean in genre, beat, tonality, sex of singer and even down to the heaviness of the beats. This information is constantly updated, after every song you listen to. Also you can rate tracks that are played and that’s where the beauty really begins. You can choose to listen to the track, give it a thumbs down (after which it moves on to another calculated track) give it a thumbs up (which is where it makes a note of the content of the track) or choose to skip the track. After 4 or 5 choices of thumbs up or down, you pretty much have a playlist you can listen to all day long.. I mean I made the guys in the office sick of dance music after finding this website within 5 minutes (although I was in heaven!!)

So, very cool free as long as you can put up with adverts (which don’t count for much really after the window is minimised) and you love to listen to music that is tailor made to your senses! Another option is to subscibe, after which all of the adverts will be removed and you can skip and move about as much as you want (another restriction to the free version) Check it out and you so won’t be sorry…

At last an internet radio station tailored to what we want and for free!! Get it while you still can…!!

[link]