Another day, another Twitter related application launches. This time around it’s TwitTangle, a service that pulls information about your followers from the Twitter API and enables you to put a layer on top by rating and tagging them, and also lets you categorize them in groups. Looks like something Scoble could use.

Like most Twitter apps, TwitTangle requires you to enter your credentials in order to use the service, so that’s up to you. If you do, you’ll find that the look and feel closely resembles that of the Twitter web version, with some added functionality but without the ability to see replies or direct messages. You can filter tweets by period or by tag. Of course, you need to tag all your friends first, so that’s quite a drag if you follow lots of people. Once you’ve taken the time to rate your friends (from ‘Just friends’ to ‘I love them’), you can view a custom timeline that takes your ratings into consideration and shows the updates of your best rated friends first.

Most useful is the Groups feature, which users have long been waiting for Twitter to implement themselves (for the record, they do offer this functionality for the Japanese version), but it’s not nearly enough to justify using TwitTangle daily, particularly because the basic features that make Twitter a good two-way communication channel are not in there. Also, there are no RSS feeds, nor a search function.

Definitely needs some tweaking.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Twitter has finally added a people search function to the website.

It’s surprising that a site this successful managed to get by without this type of functionality, but this belated function now means that you can search for fellow tweets by their real names. Crazy.

First impressions of the search have not been great. Some users have found it to be a tad buggy, throwing up random names rather than the one you actually searched for.

In our tests, it seems that the search is caps sensitive – take off the caps, and as long as the person you are looking for is a Tweet, then you should be able to find them no problem.

You can either search for names in the main search bar or go to the new, dedicated ‘Who Are You Looking For?’ option.

Expanding rapidly

New research conducted by internet marketing company HubSpot has found that between 5,000 and 10,000 people a day are signing up for Twitter daily, so this function will come in handy in the rapidly expanding Twittersphere.

The micro-blogging site hit the news this week when one user Tweeted his account of a plane crash - which he was in.

Canonical, the parent company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux system, wants to implement a new (and vaguely Mac-ish) method of user notification in Ubuntu’s next release.

You can check out a demonstration of the new notifications in action at Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth’s blog post. As noted by Ars, the goal is to provide a more user-friendly experience for anyone jumping onto Linux, and give the desktop’s pings and blips a uniform look and feel, as opposed to the multitude of notification apps and tools that use the free D-Bus protocol in a variety of ways.

That’s potentially a really good thing for dedicated Ubuntu users. But, as Ars Technica points out, it also means generally forcing users into using a 3D compositing system like Compiz, which often means (at least for NVIDIA video cards) enabling non-open-source drivers. As always, things can easily change between now and Ubuntu 9.04 (due out April 2009), but it’s an intriguing discussion going on.

Web site FeedMyTorrents publishes RSS feeds of torrents for popular TV shows. Just subscribe to your favorite show and let your BitTorrent client automatically download new episodes as soon as they’re available.

FeedMyTorrents isn’t the only web site of this kind—perhaps the most notable alternative being tvRSS—but it’s a good deal more simple to understand and use than tvRSS. Where tvRSS has an undeniably larger collection of shows, FeedMyTorrents is strict about a duplication-free feed, meaning you don’t have to tweak the feed or weed out downloads you don’t want. Just pick the show you want to subscribe to, set it up in your BitTorrent client of choice, and you’ll always have the latest and greatest episodes of your favorite shows as soon as they’re available. Thanks Jason!

Sony Style has leaked some specs of the netbook—what I have heard is its flagship announce at the show—ahead of its CES 2009 coming out of the closet party. Its name is Pocket.

The soon to be officially smallest notebook in Sony’s line will have an unspecified 1.33Ghz processor, which is probably an Atom. More interestingly is the razor-sharp 1600×768 pixel screen on an 8-inch LED backlit screen. (Which is almost too many pixels per square inch, despite Sony’s apparent desire for the Pocket to be the most expensive and fancy netbook ever.) It’ll also have the option of either a 60GB HDD or, strangely, a 128GB SSD module. I believe this is the first notebook I’ve seen that can be configured in SSD sizes larger than what’s available in traditional drives. Battery and pricing are filled in as “X’ and “NaN”, still yet to be determined. It’ll come in red, silver-painted plastic (bleh) and black.

Teasers and bits of Sony’s netbook, long rumored and often denied, have been coming in recent weeks, but this is the first leak from their official website. Also, the name is the same as the already forgotten 2004 Vaio Pocket.

The photo is probably a placeholder so we still have more to learn before its coming out party. [Sony Style via Sony Insider, thanks Chris, damn you Sony Style for making me post on Christmas.]

A supposed 2009 Blackberry Roadmap posted on TmoNews Forums suggests that we’ll not only be seeing the Curve 8900 next year, but also a touchscreen Bold and a Storm with a slide-out keyboard.

Forum moderator Godzilla posted the roadmap, which offers minimal details actual specs. It only says that the touchscreen Bold (9900, codename “Pluto”) will maintain the same form factor and keyboard, and that the Storm slider is unconfirmed and targeted towards Europeans. which in addition to the aforementioned phones, also makes reference to HSPA and EV-DO versions of the 8900 (referred to as the 9220 and 8930, respectively), a 3G Kickstart, as well as an EV-DO/HSPA Bold. There was also talk of a refreshed line of Pearls with the new UI. The EV-DO products are due for a release in the first half of 2009, while the potential heavy hitters are slated for a release at the end of 2009. [TmoNews Forums]

Digitimes reports Intel’s pissed that Nvidia’s trying to muscle into the Intel-dominated netbook niche with their new Ion platform that combines the Atom processor with Nvidia’s GeForce 9400m which makes netbooks fully HD capable. Updated.

So, Intel is reiterating to PC makers that the Atom processor only comes bundled with their own chipsets and is refusing to validate Nvidia’s chipset for Atom-based netbooks. Which is obviously a problem for Nvidia, since half of Ion is Intel’s Atom. That said, after Nvidia punted Intel’s chipset out of the new MacBooks, we’re not all that surprised Intel’s putting up a more hardcore defense here—after all, we’re talking a whole new ecosystem Intel wants to have all to itself.

Heart-shaped waffles picture (even though they’re a little burnt) because, uh, heart-shaped waffles sound delicious right about now.

Update: An Intel spokesperson responds that, “Intel does sell both stand alone Atom processors and Atom processors with Intel chipsets. OEMs can select whatever chipset they want.” Which is great, since that’s the way it should be. It’s still probably safe to say that even if Digitimes’ story is exaggerated, Intel ain’t exactly happy with Nvidia poking around in the netbook space though. [Digitimes, Image: adrian_s/Flickr]

Software giant issues an advisory that it is investigating a remote code execution vulnerability affecting its SQL Server line.

Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, has announced plans to develop a new cross-desktop visual notification system. A video mockup released by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth shows that the new notification system is designed to be less intrusive and will support sophisticated visual effects.

Read More…

The US government isn’t any happier with ICANNs plan to open 200-800 gTLDs for sale to the highest bidder. The federal response to the proposal falls just short of recommending ICANN throw its plan out altogether.

Read More…