Drop.io releases Twitter Support

Drop.io, Inc., the simple private sharing solution, today Drop.io started testing a new set of features to enhance Drop.io’s file sharing experience, making it faster and easier for users to privately share and store pictures, videos, audio, documents, and other digital content with family, friends, colleagues and work groups. In early June 2008, Drop.io introduced support with Scribd, the leading platform for online document publishing, announced today a partnership to offer rich document conversion and viewing within private drop.io ‘drops’.

Headlining the package of new Drop.io features is the integration of Twitter’s social
networking and micro-blogging platform to enable ‘real-time’ sharing of files uploaded to a drop through a user’s personalized Twitter stream.

Continue reading “Drop.io releases Twitter Support” →

Social Networking Conference 2008

I am very happy to announce that this Thursday, I will be speaking at the Social Networking Conference in San Francisco, CA. I will be speaking at 2:30 PM PDT about Social Networks: The Teens Perspective. The likes of Steve Wozniak Co-Founder of Apple, Britt Selvitelle of Twitter, Brandon Duncan of LinkedIn, Rawn Shah of IBM, Javed Chaudry of Motorola, and many more.

I will be speaking behalf of my start-up, Teens in Tech. I will be streaming my keynote on Qik, and will try to stream the conference on Ustream.

Continue reading “Social Networking Conference 2008” →

What iPhone Are You Getting?

The date is getting nearer. July 11th, 2008 is the day we are waiting for. I have waited over 1 year for this day, and it is almost here!

iPhone 3G Launch Widget by Daniel Brusilovsky, on Flickr

I even downloaded a countdown widget for my dashboard with a timer until the iPhone Launch. I think this is one of the coolest widgets someone has ever made!

I recently asked Twitter a question:

Twitter / Daniel Brusilovsky: Twitter Poll: Who is gettin...

I wanted to share some responses to the “tweet,” and then talk about myself.

If you would like to see a full list, please click here.

Personally, I have not fully decided on which version of the iPhone 3G to get, but I would really love to get the 16 GB model in black. I feel that 8 GB is not enough for all the music, video, and all the applications I want to put on my future iPhone. I wish there was a 32 GB version, that was $300.00 USD, but I guess I will have to wait.

I recently spoke with Michael Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of iPhone Alley, and interviewed him via audio chat. Our interview is below:

Michael Johnston Interview from Daniel Brusilovsky on Vimeo

Once I figure out which model I will be getting, I will update this post. So, leave your comments below, and let us know what model of the iPhone 3G you will be getting!

UPDATE: I will be getting the 16 GB Black Apple iPhone on July 11th, 2008.

WhereCamp 2008

Every year, with this year being the fourth in succession, there is Where 2.0 Conference by O’Reily. And every weekend after the conference, there is WhereCamp. Here is an excerpt from O’Reily’s website that describes the Where 2.0 Conference:

Now in its fourth year, the Where 2.0 Conference is where the grassroots and leading edge developers building location aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. In the O’Reilly conference tradition, Where 2.0 presents leading trends rather than chasing them.

At Where 2.0, you’ll find source mapping tools, open standards for data and location web services, and sensors for obtaining location data. We’ll learn how the established geo industry is reacting to the first businesses making money from their grassroots geospatial projects. There’s no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial. Join us at Where 2.0 to debate and discuss what’s viable now, and what’s lurking just below the radar

.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to Where 2.0 Conference, but able to make it to WhereCamp! Originally, I was supposed to head to TiECon in Santa Clara, but didn’t have a ride to there, so I convinced my parents to let me go to the GooglePlex in Mountain View, CA, where WhereCamp 2008 was held. We spent night atthe GooglePlex, where they were handing out tents for those who didn’t have money to spend on lodging. Who knew that I’d be sleeping under the stars on the premises of my favorite search company?

I got there at around 8:00 PM, and met up with two people, Robert Scoble and Rex Pechler.

At around 10:00, I started talking to the Poly9 folks. I met the CEO and Chief Architect. Then, without me even knowing, a much younger man (but still older than me) comes and sits next to me and Poly9 folks. We started talking about Press and Media Badges, when the CEO of Poly9 asked who he was. He had a Google badge on, so we though he was a Google Employee. The Poly9 CEO (Greg) quickly googled his name, and his blog, On the iPhone, comes up. We all looked at each other, and said in awe, that he was the first to unlock (to allow a phone to operate on a network that’s not the phone’s distributing carrier) the iPhone! George Hotz was sitting next to me and chatting with me for about 20 minutes before we realized who he was. Greg quickly asked him to sit down to talk, George sat down, and we ended up talking for about 8 hours, from 10:30 at night until about 6:30 in the morning. This had to be one of the best nights of my life. We were all asking questions, and of course, Qikking. Here is Rex’s and my stream:

http://qik.com/player.swf?streamname=5c5f2a20a90d44a29d892aa32ed1974d&vid=81087&playback=false&polling=false&user=appleuniverse&userlock=true&islive=&username=anonymous

http://qik.com/player.swf?streamname=141a524a63b8452d83c00b02beae2063&vid=81094&playback=false&polling=false&user=rex&userlock=true&islive=&username=anonymous

This was such an amazing night. For more Qik Videos, please either go to my channel, or Rex’s. To conclude, here’s a photo with George and myself:

Social Networking

This is a guest post by Spencer C. You can find more about Spencer on
his own blog, or you can
follow him on Twitter.

An Online Social Network, in my opinion, is a hosted service that connects individuals or groups of people. There are many pros and cons to the many social networks out there. Below are my opinions and reviews of various types of social networking platforms.

Microblogging

Microblogging-based social networks provide profiles that are designed to be updated very frequently, but without huge detail. One of the ones I use most is Twitter, which is probably the largest microblogging social network. The service lets you update through several different interfaces, including their web site, SMS, one of several instant messaging networks (although AIM is
regrettably not supported), or desktop applications like Twhirl and Snitter. You can keep up with family and friends with a click of a button. There are other “copycat” networks like this, with two examples being Pownce and Jaiku, but they
simply aren’t as popular as Twitter. (Editor’s note: the Editor (and the writer) is a huge Twitterholic – don’t end up with the addiction that he picked up thanks to Twitter!)

Profile-based Networks

This category is, by far and wide, the most popular, including sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Generally, one would put together a profile using the service’s tools, adding various levels of interactivity, and friends look at what other friends post to their friends profiles as well as their own. Typically, the main goals of these services are to help you create new friends, find old friends, and to express yourself online. Let’s take MySpace as an example. They have a search feature for finding old friends and options to find people with interests that are similar to yours. Extras from MySpace include a blogging feature and an instant messaging network.

There is much controversy over MySpace (although there’s much less in respect to other networks), mostly over people giving out too much information, like address, phone numbers, and other personal data. This data may be picked up by sex offenders, who pose a significant risk to users of social networks. If you think that there’s no danger involved with MySpace, and that all of the Dateline NBC stories are fakes and rarely happen. This is NOT so. In July 2007, the company found and deleted 29000 profiles belonging to registered sex offenders! Around 30 thousand profiles were sex offenders! Facebook is much safer in this regard, but there will always be a problem with safety in profile based systems.

Media Based

With networks like Last.fm, the connections lay around the media. People sign up for these services,
provide the service with data, like favorite movies or songs, and the network in turn finds people and groups
with matching interests. These sites help you find both new media (i.e.. new
songs and videos), and meet the people who produce them.

Group Based

These social networks are basically profile based systems that are made for a specific group of people. An example of this is MySpace Music.
They are based on profiles, but also include functionality like a music player
where you can buy an artist’s songs.

(Editor’s note: Sites like Ning allow
you to build your own social networks that focus on a specific niche and provide
services and resources relevant to that niche.)

There are, of course, many networks that I didn’t even mention, since the ones listed above are definitely the most notable. You can check out Wikipedia’s extensive community published list of social networking sites to find one that suits you.

Do you have your own opinions about social networking? Leave a comment and let your voice be heard!

Macworld 2008: Day 1

Macworld 2008 has started, and it couldn’t start better off for me! This following blog post will be no ordinary blog post, I will by time, tell the readers my journey to Macworld 2008: Day 1.

5:00 AM- Wake up. At around 5:15 I eat breakfast, and get all my stuff ready for the days journey to Macworld 2008.
5:30 AM- Leave house to BART Station.
6:00 AM- Arrive at BART Station and board train to San Francisco!
6:50 AM- I arrive in San Francisco, and walk to Moscone Center West.
7:10 AM- Get my Super Pass, and go inside of Moscone West.
7:20-8:45 AM- Wait in line until they let us in the keynote room. At this time, I meet new friends, and talk about the Apple Universe podcast recording that night, and stream some live video on Qik.
9:00-10:30 AM- Steve Jobs Keynote! I get my seat, and take LOTS of pictures, and videos. A blog post coming up about the announcements from the keynote.
10:45 AM- THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY DAY!!

At this time I want to talk about what happened after the keynote was over. I had no where to go, since I was waiting for a friend, and I decide to walk to the stage. What I didn’t know, was that the press were taking a lot of pictures. I didn’t know what they were taking pictures, and knowing that I was small enough, I went through some people to find Steve Jobs in front of me! YES! STEVE JOBS WAS IN FRONT ON ME!! Steve needed to go, so he turned around and turned in my direction. I talk to Steve and SHAKE HIS HAND! I SHOKE STVEVE JOBS HAND!!!!

Steve is a really idol to me, it was a great experience to shake Steve Jobs hand. After that, I meet with some Apple Executives like Jonathan Ive, and some iPhone person, that I don’t remember his name 🙂

Going back to the actual story:

11:00 AM- Meet with iPhoneAlley Founder, and Editor-in-Chief, Michael Johnston. We talk about the keynote, and talk, like us all 🙂
12:00-1:00 PM- I go out to lunch with a really good friend of mine, Eric Willis. Eric is now in San Francisco, and I have him a pass to Macworld 2008. We went out to lunch, and had a good time talking nothing other then Apple!
1:00-1:30 PM- Go to Eric’s office, and relax for a little bit before going back to Macworld 2008.
1:50 PM- Meet with Robert and Patrick Scoble in Moscone Center.
2:00- 4:00 PM- Walk around the expo floor with the Scoble’s and Mike Cohen of MacMegasite.
4:15- 5:45 PM- Set-up for my Apple Universe Episode #100 event at Zeum!
6:00- 8:00 PM- Apple Universe #100 with Robert Scoble, Dave Sifry, Shooby, iJustine and Cali Lewis! There will be a blog post about this event coming up.
8:30 PM- Leave the Zeum, and go home after a very long day.

This was basically my day at Macworld 2008. I am still in disbelief that I shook Steve Jobs hand! Apple Universe #100 was great, and I hope my parents let me go back to Macworld later this week, and if not, I had a great time at Macworld 2008!

Apple Universe #100 should be out soon.

Dream Set-Up

The following question has been presented to me numerous times: If I were to have one million dollars, how would I spend it, and where? Obviously, it must be spent on gear from a company I love; namely, Apple. You may think it’s difficult to spend a million dollars on Apple stuff, but you can get pretty far with Apple products (since Apple doesn’t license OS X to anybody, they can jack up the prices, and make tons of $$$). For purposes of this article, I’ll be outlining four systems, the first of which is the Mac Pro with Apple’s basic configuration:

Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core)
32GB (8 x 4GB) 800MHz DDR2 fully buffered ECC memory
Apple Mac Pro RAID Card
Four (4) x 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA II (3Gb/s) hard disk drives
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 graphics card, 1.5 GB video RAM (Stereo 3D, two dual-link DVI ports)
Two (2) x Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display
Two (2) x Apple 16x SuperDrive
Apple AirPort Extreme card (Wi-Fi)
Quad Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card
Apple wireless Mighty Mouse and Wireless Keyboard
Apple Mac OS X
iWork ’08, Final Cut Express, Aperture 1.5, Logic Express preinstalled
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro

This computer would be used for anything and everything that I do, from podcasting, to blogging, to video editing, to schoolwork. Obviously, it can handle all of those tasks, most even simultaneously, thanks to its massive processing power and memory.

To add even more spending to my imaginary budget, I will want a laptop, for podcasting and editing on the go. Again, for purposes of this article, I would have both the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models, with mostly identical specs:

2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
4GB (2 x 2GB) 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM –
200GB 7200 rpm Serial ATA Drive
Apple 8x SuperDrive
15-inch (or 17-inch) glossy widescreen display
an additional Apple 20-inch Cinema Display
iWork ’08 preinstalled
Accessory Kit
AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro

Most of you know that I love to stream live video with a great UStream.tv service. To more easily run my video camera, I added a smaller machine, a Mac Mini, dedicated to streaming. This computer includes:

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2GB (2 x 1GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
120GB Serial ATA drive
Apple 8x SuperDrive
Apple Wireless Keyboard & wireless Mighty Mouse
Apple 23-inch Cinema HD Display
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac mini
Accessory kit

(Editor’s note: In reality, if one were to buy a Mac mini just for streaming, it would be more practical to stash the computer in a corner or closet and use VNC to control it from a main computer.)

Another idea to go with the extra computer is to have a separate internet connection for the Mac mini, in order to alleviate my existing connection of the high-bandwidth load from video streams.

A 24-inch iMac, used as a family computer, will finish off the computers. This machine is also maxed out:

2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor
4GB (2 x 2GB) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
750GB Serial ATA Drive
Apple 8x SuperDrive
24-inch glossy widescreen LCD
ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory
AirPort Extreme
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
iWork ’08 preinstalled
Apple wireless Mighty Mouse and wireless keyboard
AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac
Accessory kit

As you can tell, such a large number of computers, mostly maxed out models, costs a ton of money. But wait, the [proposed] spending doesn’t stop there. Since I’m a podcaster, I’ll need a heavy-duty mixer, like Mackie’s beautiful and versatile Onyx 1620. Some basic features:

16 channels
Eight ONYX microphone preamps, with individually switched phantom power available for each mic channel
4-band Perkins EQ on each channel strip
Four Aux sends per channel (with pre- / post- fader switches)
Four stereo line-level inputs
Talkback section (able to use an internal or external mic)
Multi-country “Planet-Earth” power supply
24-bit / 96Khz FireWire computer interface option (sends all 16 channels into the computer, plus the main stereo mix and an output stream)

(Editor’s note: The Mackie Onyx 1620 has been popularized by Leo Laporte as a podcaster’s ideal mixer, thanks to the FireWire option card).

A couple of accessories go with the mixer, like a Heil PR-40 microphone, and a pair of AKG K 240 Studio headphones.

It’s quite apparent that very few people have the kind of money for such a massive collection of Apple computers, which is why this post is only addressing a theoretical question. Perhaps I’ll make it far enough in my future career (I’m only a student now!) to actually be able to afford all of this stuff, even though by then I still probably won’t need most of it. Here’s to the future of the Apple Universe studio!

Press Release: Apple Introduces New Mac Pro

Apple on January 8th, 2008 introduced the new Mac Pro with eight processor cores and a new system architecture that delivers up to twice the performance of its predecessor. The new Mac Pro combines two of Intel’s new 45 nanometer Quad-Core Xeon processors running up to 3.2 GHz, powerful new graphics and up to 4TB of internal storage to offer the ideal system for creative professionals, 3D digital content creators and scientists. The new Mac Pro can support up to 32 GB. The standard 8-core configuration starts at just $2,799.

The standard 8-core Mac Pro, with a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors with dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses
2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM memory, expandable up to 32GB
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm
16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
two PCI Express 2.0 slots and two PCI Express slots
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
the Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse

My personal opinion on this new Mac Pro is that it’s unbelievable. When you think about Apple, you see that they really do push everything outside the box, and the keep on making things better and better. I have been playing around with the configurations, and I fully maxed out the Apple Mac Pro. Here is the configuration that I made from the new Mac Pro:

Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-core) processors
32GB (8 x 4GB)
Mac Pro RAID Card
4 TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5GB (Stereo 3D, two dual-link DVI)
2 Apple Cinema HD Display (30″ flat panel)
Two 16x SuperDrives
AirPort Extreme card (Wi-Fi)
Quad Channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express Card
Apple USB Modem
Apple wireless Mighty Mouse/Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) + Mac OS X
iWork ’08 preinstalled
Final Cut Express preinstalled
Logic Express preinstalled
AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) – Auto-enroll

This is the most maxed out computer I have ever configured! I hope to go to the Apple Store and play with the new Mac Pros!

Tell me what think in the comments below, or drop a line at appleuniversepodcast@gmail.com

NOTE: You can find more information on the new Mac Pro at Apple’s Web site. For the information provided in this post, please visit the Apple Press Release Page.

2008: The year of…..

The year of 2008 is already here. In this blog post, I’d like to discuss what I think will really emerge in 2008, and also talk about the companies that I really feel will emerge in 2008.

As we all now, 2007 was a great year for social networking and for all the new companies that emerged in the Silicon Valley. As we all know, Facebook came as probably the best social network in its class. Not only did Facebook grow, but the whole social communication network evolved. We all have a Twitter, Pownce or Jaiku account. These networks paved the way for everything else….

Moving on, the point that I’d like to emphasize here is that video is going to massively erupt sometime soon. The real question is when?

I have been pondering about this thought for a while, and I feel that 2008 is the year of the visual revolution. For streaming live video, Qik broadcasts from cellular phones in real time, with Ustream.TV and Justin.tv streaming from the desktop (among others). Kyte.tv and other related services let you upload short video clips from your phone. These services are simply amazing. They really push technology to the limits, but to me, its not enough.

Video can be pushed harder. There are phones are that are being produced that have a better camera then my Kodak, a dedicated digital camera. It’s impossible to expect what we will see as 2008 progresses.

I would like to quickly shout out to a couple amazing people. Robert Scoble: You have inspired me to do things that I would never thought of doing. Your video show is amazing, and I love everyone who you have featured on it. Also, I’d like to thank Bhaskar Roy of Qik for making such an amazing client in Qik. Qik is so amazing, I don’t know what I would do it without it.

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone for making 2007 such a great year!

Thank you so much,
Daniel Brusilovsky

MacWorld 2008 Predictions

MacWorld 2008 is just around the corner, and thousands of people are hoping for some great things from Apple. In this blog post I will talk about what I would like to happen from Apple coming up at the MacWorld 2008 Conference and Expo.Personally, I’d like to see a slimmer 12-inch MacBook, with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a hard drive holding up to 250GB. It would also be nice if Apple would come to the show with a new line of cheaper, brighter and better Cinema Displays that would include a built-in iSight camera. The Cinema Displays haven’t been updated in over 2 years, and I think it is time Apple refreshed those products.

A fellow blogger, Wesley Yendrys, wrote a great post today about what he would like to see at MacWorld 2008:

I’m hoping for an iPhone release date in Canada, either at MacWorld, or some other time between Q1 and Q2 of 2008. May is when my parents are going to allow me to have an phone, and so, I want to be able to buy an iPhone straight away, rather than waiting for Apple to release one in 2012, when the iPhone has gone through 10 generations. Although, I don’t think we’ll see an iPhone Canada release date, it’s just wishful thinking.As far as software goes, this would be around the time where iLife and iWork ‘08 would be released, but we got that last August. I do think however, we might see some iTunes updates. Maybe even iTunes 8.

There’s the scoop on what I’d like to see at MacWorld 2008. Please remember that Apple Universe will be recording LIVE during MacWorld at the Zeum from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. Please RSVP at Upcoming.