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Shorter and simpler .uk domains to launch in 2014
If you didn't think UK domain names could get any shorter, they soon will be. In an announcement today, the UK's domain registry said it will soon launch its simpler .uk domain in a bid to remain cool with businesses and bloggers. While new registrations are encouraged, ten million existing customers (that have registered either a .co.uk or .org.uk address) won't need to rush: they'll have five years to claim a shorter version of their current address. News of the .uk address comes less than a week after ICANN gave London the go-ahead to offer .london addresses to "businesses, organisations and individuals". If all of this UK-related domain news is too much for you to handle, come back in February 2014 -- that's when we'll get a definitive .uk launch date. [Image Credit: friendlydragon, Flickr]
EA unable to gain rights to SSX.com
EA, in an attempt to gain ownership of SSX.com ahead of the series' February relaunch, challenged Abstract Holdings International LTD's claim on the address, saying that the URL was registered in "bad faith." A panel at The National Arbitration Forum, however, has determined that EA's argument was insufficient. "The EA allegations of bad faith in part are based upon the lack of due diligence conducted by retailers of domain names like Respondent," the Forum determined. "EA would seem to require that entities like Respondent conduct an international search for relatively obscure trademarks in order to determine whether a name is a registered mark. The Panel is not willing to go so far." In this case, EA's claim of "bad faith" hinged on the fact that SSX.com briefly contained video game-related advertisements. Since these advertisements are now gone, there's nothing inherently malicious or misleading about the site, negating EA's ability to claim any misuse. For now, SSX.com remains the property of Abstract Holdings, although we imagine several zeroes and a few commas written on EA letterhead would change their minds.
Ask Massively: Declaring a moratorium edition
I am declaring a moratorium as of this edition of Ask Massively. A moratorium on what, you ask? Well, I hadn't actually gotten that far in my planning. I'm going to go ahead and declare this moratorium on Katy Perry, songs about California, episodes of The Office, films in the X-Men franchise, all movies featuring male losers hooking up with trophy women, questions about the site redesign, people in SUVs who feel the need to tailgate someone else, head colds, and Boggle. So all of those things have to stop right now. You heard it here first. Of course, since this week's batch of questions came in before a moratorium was declared, it would be unfair not to answer the site redesign questions that were already submitted. But no more, seriously. It would also be unfair to not answer the other questions that were asked, although they aren't related to anything within the moratorium. So click on past the break for this week's questions, and send your own along to ask@massively.com. Or just leave them in the comment field, no biggie.
GDC 2010: Ngmoco's Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world
On the third day of GDC 2010, Ngmoco's Neil Young took the stage in one of the largest rooms at the conference to talk about what his company had "unlearned" in its time in the App Store. Ngmoco has become a large and polarizing figure in the world of App Store development -- after starting out with a big investment from the iFund, it's moved quickly to become one of the biggest iPhone-only developers, and after starting out with a few premium titles like the very successful Rolando, have recently made waves with its "freemium" business model. Young talked about the company's history so far, and went in-depth on Ngmoco's plan for ruling the App Store and why he believes it's the "most significant shift and opportunity for [game developers] since the birth of this business." We've summarized Young's long address in this post. It was pretty incredible -- not only did Young lay out his idea of a clear plan for building and developing a large portfolio of very profitable App Store titles "at scale" (the company plans to release twenty new freemium products on the iPhone in the near future, as well as six titles on the iPad), but he made it very clear that he fervently believes that freemium and the model he's structured is the future of the video game business.
Mac 101: Get a Google Map from Address Book contact
How many times have you looked at an Address Book contact address, only to realize that you don't know where they're located? What do you do? Most would copy and paste the address into Google Maps, but there is a better way! In a contact's Address Book card, right-clicking on an address and clicking on "Map Of" will launch your default browser and map out the address in Google Maps. If you are using Tiger, you will need to install a plug-in, however, this tip works beautifully in Mac OS X Leopard. Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Mac 101 section.
iPhoneSender sends addresses to the iPhone's Google Maps
Even I can see that this one is a little lazy, but hey, maybe someone out there will be looking for a way to more easily send street addresses to their iPhone without actually typing them in. What? That's you? Well then, pardner, you're in luck-- give iPhoneSender a look.It is a Safari bookmarklet and/or Firefox extension that, when it spots a street address on a web page, will let you right click the address, ask for an email, and then send that address, in convenient Google maps format, directly to your iPhone. It's all of the iPhone's Google maps functionality, without any of the actual address-typing that usually requires.Lazy? Perhaps. But I can see a sliver of a demand there-- what if you're rushing out the door to the pizza place, but didn't remember to print out the directions and don't have enough time to write the address down to punch in later? Like many things in life, you might not realize how necessary this little extension is until you actually have to use it.Thanks, Matt L!
The embarrassing Sony press conference
This has been floating around the internet for a bit, but it still deserves an honorable mention here. Some talented individuals decided to edit the Sony keynote address during E3, and the resulting video is definitely worth a chuckle (regardless if you're a PS3 Fanboy or not). Some of you aren't going to agree with the closing comments (while others might), but just click the above video to check it out."It's Ridge Racer!"
Fill in your Address Book with GoogleFill
In an eerie example of just how much information Google can access and what users can do with it, GoogleFill is a handy plug-in that can fill an Address Book contact's address by using a Google reverse search on their phone number. The latest 1.1 version update brings UniBin goodness along with a smarter lookup process.GoogleFill is donationware and available from Longhound.com.
iWeb update simplifies URLs
The iLife Updates Apple released yesterday fixed a gripe some users (including myself) had with the new URL scheme that iWeb employed. With its original release, an iWeb site's URL was http://web.mac.com/username/iWeb/. Leaving that last /iWeb/ off the URL would result in a 404 error. While this isn't a big deal to some, it's just one extra quirky name to add to a URL. To those unfamiliar with the internets however, .Mac and iWeb could mess up, resulting in that exponentially increasing frustration that usually leads to users simply giving up on the endeavor.After installing the 1.0.1 update last night and making changes to some of my iWeb pages, I was pleased to see the URL in the "announce your site" confirmation window chopped down to simply http://web.mac.com/username. This not only makes the URL a little easier to remember and pass around, it also adds a bit more credibility to the URL, especially over the previous http://homepage.mac.com/username scheme.
