Since it was introduced in late 2008, VoxOx has tried to cut a name for itself in the competitive multi-protocol chat client market by providing users with an aggressive feature set. These include VoIP, a 'personal assistant' for managing incoming calls with more than a simple redirect, and SMS and Web-based callback to cut down on the cost of long-distance, transnational calls. The latest improvement is a universal translator that translates all text-based messages in real time, and with a reasonable amount of accuracy, for both the Windows and Mac versions of the program. It will work with all supported instant messaging services, including Facebook IM, Twitter, and SMS messages.

The VoxOx Universal Translator will work on all supported IM networks, including Facebook IM, as well as Twitter and SMS messages.

Paris is beautiful in Paris 26 Gigapixels.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

If you haven't been to Paris, I have the next best thing for you: Paris 26 Gigapixels.

According to the site, 'Paris 26 Gigapixels is a stitching of 2,346 single photos showing a very high-resolution panoramic view of the French capital.' The site allows users to pan around the beautiful city of Paris to see important spots. Users can also zoom in on different sections to get more detail on particular buildings.

For those folks who want to find important Paris monuments quickly, the site also boasts a list of 20 places around the city. Upon clicking on one of those locations, the site automatically changes the view to the spot. Those 20 locations also feature an 'i' indicator, which, when clicked on, gives some basic information about the respective monument.

Google Buzz reminds me of what they say about the weather in a lot of places I've lived: if you don't like it, wait five minutes.

Those who wrote off Google's social networking tool as an annoying source of clutter should take note of some efforts to reform that aspect of Buzz.

'We've heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy--we feel it too,' the Google Buzz team said in a Buzz on Thursday. Two changes, currently in testing to work with Gmail's 50 supported languages, are coming as a result.

First are settings that control what Buzz notifications are sent to the Gmail in-box with which the service is integrated. Right now, any comment left on your Buzz arrives as a notification sent to your in-box. But with the changes, people will be able to select whether to see comments on their own Buzz posts, comments after they've commented themselves on a Buzz post, and comments on posts on which people have been named in a reply.

Google Buzz reminds me of what they say about the weather in a lot of places I've lived: if you don't like it, wait five minutes.

Those who wrote off Google's social networking tool as an annoying source of should take note of some efforts to reduce the clutter Buzz can inflict.

'We've heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy--we feel it too,' the Google Buzz team said in a Buzz on Thursday. Two changes, currently in testing to work with Gmail's 50 supported languages, are coming as a result.

First are settings that control what Buzz notifications are sent to the Gmail inbox with which the service is integrated. Right now, any comment left on your Buzz arrives as a notification sent to your inbox. But with the changes, people will be able to select whether to see comments on their own Buzz posts, comments after they've commented themselves on a Buzz post, and comments on posts on which people have been named in a reply.

It might not be getting as much coverage as the geolocation wars, but the battle for dominance in online daily-deals sites has been brewing ever since some start-ups decided they wanted a piece of leader Groupon's success. The latest development is that a second-tier player in the space, LivingSocial, announced Thursday that it's raised $25 million in a Series B funding round geared strictly toward growth and expansion.

The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners with participation from Grotech Ventures and Revolution, the firm chaired by former AOL CEO Steve Case. The goal with the funding is to put LivingSocial's local deals in 'dozens' more U.S. cities by the end of 2010.

There's a Stickybit on my laptop, and if you find me at SXSWi, you can hear what it has to say.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)

It'll be stashed somewhere in the promotional 'swag bags' handed to South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) attendees when they check into the conference starting Thursday, squirreled away like a hidden piece of Halloween candy--a matchbox-like pack of Stickybits.

They don't look all too different from the bar codes that you'd see on a magazine or a six-pack of beer. But Stickybits, a new start-up from co-founders Seth Goldstein (most recently the founder of SocialMedia) and Billy Chasen, has been talked up as one of this year's SXSWi runaway hits. It's got just about the perfect formula for a hot trend at the annual digital-media conference: a novel, slightly offbeat convergence of the physical and the digital that could also capture the attention of the marketing world.

All those Android smartphone owners who have been wondering when they can ditch the outmoded Opera Mini 4.2 browser in favor of the latest beta can now unfold their pouts, stop that kicking, and remove their pounding fists from the floor. Opera Mini 5 beta has arrived.

Opera adds Android to its Mini 5 beta lineup.

(Credit: Opera Software)

On Thursday, Opera Software pushed out the Android version of its Mini 5 browser that improves the browser experience for Java phones by leaps and bounds. The beta build is equipped with an updated interface that includes a new , 'speed dial' start screen featuring thumbnails of most-visited sites. The browser also supports tabs, a first for Mini but old hat on Opera Mobile.

A view of Google Reader Play.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

I've happily used RSS readers for years, but I'm not only an information junkie, I'm a professional information junkie. But I'm one of those people who sees the technology as appealing to techno-savvy folks rather than the mainstream. It's much easier to type a Web address than to understand and manage Managing Really Simple Syndication and Atom subscriptions.

So I was intrigued to see a Google Labs effort called Google Reader Play that in my opinion succeeds, at least partially, in making this technology more approachable. It wraps the reader experience in a full-screen view with a filmstrip of thumbnails across the bottom that are easily navigated by pointing and clicking.

Springpad is a cool little utility to bookmark things you find on the Web and in the real world as well.

When you're on the Web site, it's very easy to create a new free-form note or to-do item. If you're typing in a name of a product or business (like a movie, the model name of a camera, or a restaurant), Springpad will probably identify it as you're typing and create a note with specific items info for the category it fits in. There's also a bookmarklet that makes it fast to save an item from a Web page, providing the site you're on is recognized by the app. I found that products on Amazon pages were picked up appropriately, but when I tried to save a product from CNET reviews pages they were just saved as Web bookmarks, not products.

Google hopes the FTC sees it as a small player in mobile advertising even with AdMob on board.

(Credit: Google)

A familiar face might be causing a snag in Google's planned acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is currently asking Google advertisers and competitors for more information about the potential impact of the deal, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Those companies--which weren't identified--are being asked to sign sworn statements that could potentially be used against Google in a court hearing blocking or altering the deal, according to the report.

Google Maps is set to provide a new option for getting around town: biking directions.

The company plans to unveil what it called 'the most requested addition to Google Maps' during the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. Google Maps users looking for directions between two points will now have the option of selecting 'bicycling' from the current drop-down menu that lets you customize a journey with walking, driving, or public transportation options.

Anyone who has ever tried to bike across San Francisco knows the value of a good bike map in helping to avoid 200-foot hills and city streets that behave more like freeways. Google Maps users have created their own bike maps for cities like New York and Minneapolis, but Google itself hadn't taken that step until now.

Google obtained much of its data from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in putting together the maps, and will have detailed information on bike routes in 150 U.S. cities as of Tuesday night's launch, said Shannon Guymon, Google Maps product manager.

(Credit: Google Apps customers now have a wide variety of third-party applications they can integrate into their individual Google Apps domains.)

Updated at 6:32 p.m. and 7:35 p.m. with additional details.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google is bringing the app store concept to business cloud computing, giving software developers a storefront for Google Apps customers.

The Google Apps Marketplace will allow Google Apps users to purchase third-party applications to run atop the Google Apps suite, said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering for Google. Developers will have to pay a one-time $100 fee to list their applications in the store, and Google will get a 20 percent cut of all applications sold through the store, he said.

With only a few days to go before the annual South by Southwest Interactive, location-based mobile networking service Foursquare has unveiled its plans for the Austin, Texas digital culture festival: 16 new 'badges' that users can unlock by 'checking in' to certain venues, with cryptic names like 'Swimmies,' 'Decathlon,' and 'Survivor.'

The company says users will be able to score temporary tattoos of the badges if they show the digital badge to a member of the Foursquare team at a designated location, meaning that there will likely be many SXSWi-goers with nerdy emblems plastered on their exposed skin.

It's the second year that Foursquare has launched SXSWi-specific badges--last year, too, marked the service's relatively quiet launch. But this year's SXSWi is increasingly looking to be a showdown between Foursquare and close competitor Gowalla, which is based in Austin and has pumped quite a bit of money into event sponsorship and a flashy tiki-themed party on Monday night. It's also started to ink the same types of promotional deals that Foursquare has (with sponsored Gowalla virtual goods instead of Foursquare badges), partnering with the Travel Channel for a 'Food Wars' campaign and with SXSW sponsor Chevy.

"So, uh...nice scarf?

(Credit: Screenshot by Sharon Vaknin/CNET)

Nowadays, online interaction is done within our selective network of friends-- people we carefully choose to share our lives with. A few months ago, this sense of comfort was disturbed when Chatroulette launched, a site that pairs users with random Webcam partners.

Media coverage is highly negative, mostly because of the half-naked men who (unfortunately) discovered the site.

But Chatroulette also attracts teens, inebriated 20-somethings, old people, kids, and generally every curious type. According to the Guardian News, it lures in about 20000 visitors a night, and has even inspired a copycat site called ShufflePeople.

A few years ago it was a big deal to find a place that would let you share 1 gigabyte of files.

Things change, though. Bandwidth keeps growing, and the cost of Web storage keeps shrinking. That's good news for people looking to share increasingly large files, be it an HD video recording or an archive of several files that tops out at over a gig.

There are now a handful of free and paid services that make it easy to host these gigantic files and send them to a friend, family member, or business associate.

The key thing to point out here is the individual file size limit. Many storage services will throw gigabytes at you without any real strings attached except for the fact that you cannot upload files larger than a gig. This really isn't a big deal, that is until that first time you need to do it. Below are a handful of sites, both free and paid, that are up to the task.