GigaOM

And about 103 million Internet users , according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center. ABout 53 million of those are on broadband. China ranks second to the U.S. in both Internet user numbers and broadband user numbers. That’s just big!

Yahoo has bought, Pixoria, the company behind Konfabulator, the widget application. Widgets are small web-apps that run on your desktop and retrieve information from the Internet. These tiny apps basically use all the web technologies. Pixoria used to make widgets for the Mac, but had to switch gears and go PC after Apple introduced Dashboard in its latest version of Tiger OS. Pixoria has over 1000 third party widgets plus a great platform for people to build Yahoo-enabled mini apps using our APIs) and they are a great new desktop distribution channel for Yahoo. Yahoo will keep the app as a free product, and apparently Yahoo will refunding people who purchased it in the last couple of months). Pixoria was just 3 guys - Arlo Rose, Perry Clarke and Ed Voas. This will clearly be a way for Yahoo to spread its API (OpenYahoo) into various desktop applications. Apparently the deal closed last Tuesday.. I had heard some rumblings.

Om outpost in the South Indian resort town of Goa. Look it up, when you are there. Photo was sent by Duff.

All of you know I have been going through hard drives like nobody’s business. With nearly a terabyte of storage floating around my apartment, I was surprised that I would need more. Anyway I got hold of IOGEAR’s new 320 GB ION TriSelect external drive, which has both USB 2.0 and Firewire ports. The lush brushed aluminum casing matches all Macs, though I was surprised to find that the drive came formatted for Windows computers. What really caught my eye was that instead of the usual yellow, green or red lights, the console had blue lights. A few days ago, I got hold of Netgear’s RangeMax router, and that also has a blue light that flashes all the time. I have seen other devices with the same blue lights. I wonder if this is a hot new trend? Any thoughts?

So by now everyone knows about Google’s Magic Bus, which ferries folks over from the Glen Park BART station to Googleplex. Now there is word that even Yahoo is going to start a shuttle service from San Francisco to its headquarters down in the Valley. I think this is one good idea they should have copied. With more than 500 Yahooligans living in the city, the bus makes absolute sense. There will be some new Yahooligans who might use the bus as well. Heard it on the grapevine that Yahoo is about to announce yet another acquisition. Its small, and its cool, and that’s all I know. The scotch had kicked in before I could find more dirt. Talking about dirt, did you notice in Yahoo’s earnings report - they mentioned that they spent $122 million on acquisitions and other activities. That would be DialPad, Flickr, and TeRespondo. Nearly $72.4 million was paid out in cash. The big question: how much did they really pay for DialPad? Now wouldn’t I like to know!

Now that Apple has decided to switch to Intel chips, I am pretty sure they will be working on a whole new line-up of Powerbooks. I have been wanting to upgrade for a while - that is about six months - but have seen no compelling reason to spend the dollars. I have both 12 and 15 inch versions, but at times I wish they were more brisk and the screen was more crisp. I have a big wishlist for the next Powerbook, and hopefully Apple will give me a reason to spend. So what’s on my wishlist?

1. Powerbook with 13.3 WXGA Screen. 12 inch is too small, 15 inch is too big, and the current screens lack a certain crispness to it.
2. Don’t change the Aluminium casing. Perfection should not be messed around with.
3. Don’t muck around with the keyboard - its perfect and makes you want to write.
4. Keep connectivity options as they are - WiFi and Bluetooth, but add an EDGE/EVDO module as well.
5. Add an audio-port similar to the ones found on cellphones, so we can use the same wired headsets.
6. More battery life - five hours at the very least.
7. Make the power charger smaller by 25%.
8. Keep the weight of the machine below 4 pounds. 3.5 pounds would be ideal.
9. Standard memory included in the device - one gigabyte, and standard storage 100 gigabytes.
10. All this for around $1750. Now that would be awesome.

So now, you folks think Apple will roll out these features?

Mark Evans asks the question, wondering how his insights of death of TV and Hollywood, are rehashed views from the past. Gilder resurfaced at the AlwaysOn conference hoping to pull a Jason Giambi type combeack. (Paul has more, in his post, The Madness of King George.) I agree with Mark, who writes, “he reality, however, is Gilder has already enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame but like many one-time high-flying entrepreneurs, he’s trying to reformat an old message rather than develop a new take on the world.” His 15-minutes are over. My feeling about him - he is a bit of both. (You can read all about him, in Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist!)

Instead of focusing on some real problems, now there is word that Microsoft is trying to patent smilies, or the emoticons. This has Mark Taylor, executive director of the Open Source Consortium in a tizzy. “We now appear to be living in a world where even the most laughable paranoid fantasies about commercially controlling simple social concepts are being outdone in the real world by well-funded armies of lawyers on behalf of some of the most powerful companies on the planet. Emoticons are a form of language, and a precedent allowing patenting of language constructs is very dangerous indeed.” I have a suggestion for Microsoft: you get this patent, if you make every single Microsoft user smile for one full day! via P2PNet