Nowadays information comes at us in a flood. Multiple TV stations run news 24-7, Twitter provides an unending stream of two line summaries of the universe, and no matter what topic interests you, there will never be a dearth of relevant blogs bringing out yet more stats and figures.

Sometimes it would be nice of somebody would just stop and take the time to take all this data that our ever expanding infosphere has made available, and turn it into something understandable.

Worry not: relief is in sight!

Designers and data analysts from around the web have been finding ways to fit …

Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, LinkedIn, Flikr, Photobucket, Ning, Xanga, WordPress, …. The list of social media platforms goes on and on.  Some overlap with each other, others have no channels of compatibility, and most of the services that would allow you to synchronize the content of multiple services are annoyingly piecemeal.

Enter Ping.fm.

Ping.fm has compiled a list of 40 blogging sites, social networks, online status recorders, social bookmarking services, and photo sharing sites - each and every one of which can be updated individually or in groups from within the Ping.fm interface.

See a service you don’t yet use?  Ping.fm will …

This week’s vein of Online Ore can be found at http://public.ifbyphone.com/

Ifbyphone specializes in the synthesis of telephone systems and advanced computing, allowing you to bring the advantages of each to the other.  In our own work of web development, the click-to-call solution is especially useful.  With a single link, visitors can initiate a call without first reaching for the phone.  Since these calls begins online, you can integrate them into your standard website analytics to learn which pages are most likely to get someone to dial in (an invaluable tool in website optimization).

How would …

This week’s vein of Online Ore can be found at https://addons.mozilla.org/

Firefox Add-Ons let you customize your experience using the Mozilla Firefox web browser.  From adding toolbars and artistic flourishes, to investigating code, to generating interactive utilities that allow you to keep informed on what’s going on in the wider world, one of the 5000+ Add-Ons designed for Firefox is bound to help.

This breadth of field is wonderful because everyone’s needs are different.  However, if you ever have any questions about which Add-ons to use to fit your requirements, we’d be glad to lend …

This week’s vein of Online Ore can be found at http://google.com/voice

Google Voice is a free online service that allows you to use a single telephone number to connect with every one of your phones (or any portion of them that you choose).  It also has voicemail functions that allow you to create custom messages for known callers and will automatically transcribe incoming voice mail so that it can send a copy to your in-box.

There are, however, limits to what Google Voice can do.  Google Voice will not automatically disconnect from a phone when you …

One week ago a new four-colored dialog box appeared in my Gmail account.  And I don’t mean some clunky square computer dialog box that we’ve all grown accustomed to, I mean an honest to goodness comic book style dialog box.

Clearly this was some new sort of chat functionality, which surprised me, as I already had a GTalk session open.

Apparently Google was launching it’s answer to Facebook and Twitter, and you know what, I couldn’t be bothered.  I already have all the personal social media tools I need.  In fact, I have more social media tools at my disposal than I …

Apple is playing a dangerous game with its new iPad release.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad seems positioned to sell itself as a digital multi-tool: all the apps of an iPhone, same G3 wireless connectivity, additional functionality as an e-reader, multi-touch recognition (allowing true on screen keyboards) and the size and processing speed of a laptop.

However the iPad also has one of the same shortcomings of the iPhone, no Flash.

In a handheld device where all internet access is still something of a novelty visitors who can’t load a page will simply (and correctly) assume that it does not have …

No, this isn’t the 6-Million Dollar Man we’re talking about, but your telephone.

The combined market share of smartphones has been growing, and not even the Great Recession could slow it down.

$6 million is a pittance to this behemoth.  Palm alone grossed approximately $20 million on smart phones last year, and they aren’t even considered the industry leader.

Proof in the Usage

The NPD Group found that smartphones made up 28% of all cell phones purchased in the 2nd Quarter of 2009, up from only 12% at the end of 2007.  On top of that, Gerry Purdy of Frost & Sullivan predicts that …

Mobile devices have become an integral part of how American’s shop.  According to eBay, shoppers used their Blackberries, iPhones, Androids, &c. to purchase 1.5 million items from E-bay, three times what they bought the previous year, with luxury items acting as a favorite to these online, on the go consumers.

A recent Deloitte survey predicted that consumers would turn to mobile devices to help them with their shopping.

According to their results, roughly one in five consumers expected to use a mobile phone as part of their holiday shopping experience.

Of those using …

Augmented reality refers to any technology driven display or device that provides you with information on a scene beyond what you could experience with your five senses.

You can find examples of AR in many televised sporting events.

• In baseball, a pop up display will show you a batter’s statistics.
• In football, the line of scrimmage and first down lines are highlighted to make them easier to view.
• In racing, a moving line or overlaid image of previous footage lets you track the current field against an earlier time.

Imagine What You Could Do If You Could Take That Ability With You

Mobile AR combines several …