To help speed up the process of tagging your photos with the new pop-over map, there’s a new recommendation system that will suggest landmark locations or neighborhoods, based on where you’ve dragged your shot. If the system has any potentially overlapping areas, they’ll be listed as suggestions that you can simply click on to re-map your shot. I found this to work well with things like parks or general neighborhoods, but for businesses you’re out of luck.

On Friday, photo host Flickr introduced a slight tweak to the way users are able to geotag their photos.

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CNET Networks)

You can now geo-tag photos right on top of any photo you're looking at. It'll also recommend places nearby in case you're trying to remember where you shot the picture.

Clicking on the “add to your map” option on the right side of any photo now pops up a mini Yahoo Map with an address finder. Previously, users were required to go into Flickr’s somewhat complicated Organizr tool and add geotags en masse. If it’s your first time using the Flickr map to geotag your photos, you’ll still need to hit the Organizr, but only to change the initial privacy settings.

I’ve already used the system on a handful of photos, and it’s far more efficient for one-off shots than using the Organizr tool. However, if you’re planning to geotag three or more shots, it might be worth it to stick with the Organizr if only for its batch-editing capabilities.

Microsoft also is working on improvements to keyword and content analysis that would help companies put their ads next to more relevant content. Other technology would block ads from being displayed next to objectionable or sensitive content such as porn or weapons.

This is a screenshot for Microsoft's adCenter Contextual Ads for Video service that is being developed in its adCenter Labs.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s got other plans for changing the game. The company launched a bid to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion last week. So far, Yahoo doesn’t appear to be biting and things could get messy if Microsoft refuses to take “no” for an answer, which is likely.

Tarek Najm, technical fellow at Microsoft, said in a statement that the technologies “can change the game of online advertising.”

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Another technology under development uses a computer vision algorithm to calculate where to put an ad in a video that would intrude the least on the viewing experience, as well as technology that inserts contextual ads in video where appropriate.

Microsoft showed off technology to journalists on Tuesday for enabling out-of-home ads and speech recognition-based contextual video ads, and blocking ads from popping up next to porn.

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Microsoft)

A merger would help Microsoft better compete against Google in the search and online ad market. It’s unclear whether Microsoft would go with its own adCenter online ad platform or with Yahoo’s Panama platform if the merger were to go through. Microsoft launched adCenter in 2006, and Yahoo launched its overhauled online ad system last year. So far, neither of the systems seems to be giving Google much grief.

The technology is being developed in Microsoft’s adCenter Labs and is not on the market yet.

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Maingear)

This last idea is similar to the one above, but a little more space age. Based on the render, the support material seems to be some kind of finished metal. Again, we wonder about internal access, but it looks like there’s a seam on the back edge, like you might be able to pull out the whole motherboard tray. But then how do you connect the IDE and SATA drive cables?

All we have are external shots, so we have no idea what’s going on inside. The exterior of this first one is pretty straightforward though. We like the slot-loading front panel optical drives, as well as what looks like the glossy black face. And as HP did with BlackBird 002 and Voodoo will do with its new Omen, the elevated chassis leaves room for underbody airflow. We’ll go ahead and call that a trend now.

You know how a vendor will “leak” product info ahead of time to drum up interest in a conspiratorial kind of way? We have a feeling that’s what’s going on with these Maingear desktop concepts that conveniently found their way to our in-box this morning. We’ll bite though, because they’re so weird-looking (and heck, if Dell can do it, why not Maingear?). From what we gather, Maingear is trying to narrow down a design for Q1 2009.

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Maingear)

This next idea embraces its elevation even more. The body of the case seems to float inside that outer band. The vertical frontside slots and inputs are interesting, although we’ve come to love top-side USB inputs recently. We’re also intrigued by the fat beer-bottle silhouette. Maybe the bottom needs to be wider because Nvidia’s next-gen 3D cards will be twice as tall? With that band in the way, we presume Maingear has come up with a way to get inside other than the traditional removable side panel. Seems like a lot of brushed aluminum.

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Maingear)

According to the company, Google Cost Optimizer synchronizes with its clients’ AdWords accounts in real time and responds to bid, keyword, and campaign changes without a hitch. By doing so, the tool lets Magnify360’s clients gain return-on-investment information in real time on metrics such as cost per click, revenue per click, conversation rate, and overall return on investment.

“In order for businesses to survive this recession, marketing must be more efficient,” said Olivier Chaine, chief executive and founder of Magnify360. “We built Google Cost Optimizer so that our search-marketing clients can quickly and easily optimize every single penny.”

The company claims that more iterations of the tool will be available this quarter for other advertising services, including those of Yahoo, Microsoft, and ValueClick, but for now, it’s focusing its attention on AdWords integration.

Magnify360’s Google Cost Optimizer focuses on real-time updates to differentiate itself in the market, but with so many search ad specialists already working to optimize companies’ AdWords integration, it may be tough for it to gain a foothold in the space.

The Washington, D.C., court of appeals also agreed with the lower court’s award of $89.6 million in damages to be paid to TiVo by EchoStar, which recently changed its name to Dish Network.

Dish plans to appeal the award for damages, the company said Thursday.

The court’s decision “will have no effect on our current or future customers because EchoStar’s engineers have developed and deployed next-generation DVR software to our customers’ DVRs,” Dish said in an official statement. The software update went out to customers “several months ago,” according to Dish spokeswoman Kathie Gonzalez.

TiVo said it is “extremely pleased” with the outcome.

“Today’s ruling is confirmation of the value of TiVo’s IP portfolio, which is in addition to the other benefits TiVo has to offer. TiVo can now continue to focus on its goal to drive greater distribution in both its stand-alone and mass distribution efforts,” TiVo said in an official statement.

Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo initially sued EchoStar back in 2004 for selling its Dish Network DVR, which, like TiVo’s DVR, allows TV watchers to record one channel and watch another simultaneously.

Programmers behind the PostgreSQL project released the new version 8.3 of the open-source database software Monday, saying they’ve boosted improved performance 5 percent to 30 percent and added several useful features.

One of the performance improvements comes from a technology called heap-optimized tables, which reduces the amount of effort a computer must expend updating the frequently changed elements of the database. Other improvements reduce the penalty of taking periodic snapshots of the database and an speed some transactions though an “asynchronous commit” ability, the organization said.

Other features include “synchronized scan,” which makes data mining less taxing on servers’ input-output communication abilities; the ability to analyze XML data using SQL database queries; the ability to build the PostgreSQL software itself using Microsoft’ Visual C++ programming tool for more stability and performance on Windows; a less taxing system for logging; and a built-in text-search tool.

Sun Microsystems has been a major PostgreSQL sponsor, bundling the software with its Solaris operating system, but more recently, Sun decided to pay $1 billion for MySQL, the company behind another open-source database.

Sun’s top software executive offered warm words for PostgreSQL.

“PostgreSQL 8.3 is an impressive new release, and we encourage customers around the world to explore it,” Rich Green, Sun’s executive vice president of software, said in a statement.

The most recent version of the software, 8.2, was released in December 2006, said Josh Berkus, a Sun employee who works on the PostgreSQL project.

Update 8:50 a.m. PST February 5: When asked what its current database priority is, Sun wouldn’t be pinned down. “Open source is about choice,” Ian Murdock, vice president of Sun’s connected developer group, said in a statement. “Sun supports various databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Java DB, and supports the broadest range of technology to maximize flexibility for its customers.”

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET News.com)

On Monday, eBay announced and demonstrated its new Auctions app at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users can log in to their accounts to buy and sell items wherever they are. The app integrates with Webkit, allowing people to write out full descriptions just like they would in
Safari, which has been formatted to match the finger-friendly screen. Users can also browse and sort through auction photos the same way they’re used to doing with native albums.

While eBay has recently been taking steps to improve its Web 2.0 initiatives with social widgets and a really slick looking Adobe Air app, the company hadn’t done much to optimize its site for Apple as many others have. There has a been a version of the site that’s optimized for mobile phones since mid-2006, but it’s not nearly as eye friendly as the new native app. Developer iRibbit produced its own iPhone optimized version of the site that was certified by eBay (see ZDNet coverage), but the native app has the potential to store more information while offline as well as take advantage of the iPhone’s hardware like the built-in digital camera for taking pictures of items without using a separate device and photo-hosting service.

The app will be free with the launch of the App Store, available “early next month.”

Update: To help with notifications–like if you get outbid, Apple is providing a centralized notification service. It lets developers push badges, alert sounds (which can be customized), and textual alerts that look like SMS messages. None of these is a background process that runs on your phone, which Apple says will keep battery drain at a minimum.

Continuing WWDC live keynote coverage here.

The shareholder approval ratings for Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Roy Bostock plunged Tuesday after Yahoo released new results that corrected a vote transmission error.

• Vyomesh Joshi, 7.1 percent, no change

Shareholders unhappy with board members withheld their votes in the Friday election. In Yahoo’s official voting tally released Friday, 14.6 percent of votes for Yang and 20.5 percent for Bostock were withheld.

• Eric Hippeau, 9.3 percent, no change

But in the corrected results, Yang’s withhold percentage rose to 33.7 percent and Bostock’s to 39.6 percent, Yahoo said.

• Gary L. Wilson, 27.7 percent, up from 18.2 percent

• Jerry Yang, 33.7 percent, up from 14.6 percent.

Arthur Kern, Ronald Burkle, and Gary Wilson also saw a big jump in the percentage of votes withheld. Here’s how the withhold-vote percentages changed for the various board members from Friday’s tally to the Tuesday’s revised results:

With those deals dead, for now at least, Yahoo’s shares have sunk back down. The company’s stock closed at $19.82 on Tuesday and dropped a few cents in after-hours trading.

Update 2:09 p.m. PDT: Quantitatively, the change means nothing: “These errors did not affect the outcome of the election of directors,” Yahoo said.

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Yahoo)

Since February, Yahoo’s share price rose from $19.18 to the $30 range when Microsoft attempted to acquire first Yahoo then later just its search assets.

• Roy J. Bostock, 39.6 percent, up from 20.5 percent

A transmission error by Broadridge Financial Services affected the withhold tally, lopping off any withhold votes beyond 100 million in some particular circumstances. Broadridge transmitted to Yahoo results from Capital Research Global Investors, which owns 6.2 percent of Yahoo stock at last count, and its sister group Capital World Investors, which owns 9.85 percent of Yahoo shares.

• Robert Kotick, 7.6 percent, no change

• Arthur Kern, 31.7 percent, up from 22.1 percent

Update 2:23 p.m.: It’s not hard to figure out why shareholders might be upset with the company, which is in the midst of a turnaround effort that began in 2007 and will last through 2008.

But qualitatively, it’s a different story, because withhold votes do send a message even if the board was still re-elected. The disapproval has dropped down to the range of last year’s meeting, a few days after which former Chief Executive Terry Semel lost his job.

• Ronald Burkle, 37.9 percent, up from 18.8 percent

First, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Bottom line:
There are thousands of companies with cool technology, but only a small percentage of them will end up providing good returns to shareholders. If you don’t know how to pick them, odds are you’ll end up losing. After all, an IPO only takes an underwriter and enough suckers to buy the stock. Don’t be one of them.

Strangely, the company wasn’t trying to hide anything when it went public. Its S-1 prospectus said, “We do not know whether or when we will be able to generate significant product revenue or become profitable.”

Sounds good, right?

Second, if it’s coming in under the radar screen, there’s probably a good reason for that.

The big question, of course, is what can investors do to avoid disasters like these? Well, three things come to mind.

Updated March 22, 2008. Edits explained at the end of the post. - ST

Modification: Deleted paragraph 15. It listed a number of companies that, in my opinion, also fit the bill. However, that ruffled some feathers, specifically because my metrics were subjective. As we know from investing 101, past performance is not a guarantee of future results. As such, stock performance to date certainly does not tell the entire story of a company’s potential. Consistent operating growth and a solid balance sheet should eventually be reflected in share price, one would hope.

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Mathstar)

Third, successful investors don’t take huge risks unless there’s a very good reason to do so, and a sales pitch by a Midwestern investment bank about a company with no revenue certainly doesn’t qualify as a good reason.

I was reading a news item about the resignation of Mathstar’s chief financial officer. I was surprised to see a publicly traded semiconductor company I’d never heard of, so I checked it out.

Mathstar indeed went public in October 2005, raising $12 million by selling 2 million shares at $6 a pop. The offering’s underwriter was Feltl & Co., a securities broker based in Minnesota.

Turns out that Mathstar is like a number of companies I’ve come across over the years: they come in under the radar screen and, as such, investors think they’ve found something special.

Sure, these companies are special, but not in a good way.

I thought this kind of thing went out with the Internet bubble, but I guess I was wrong. There are apparently still plenty of suckers left out there.

Mathstar markets itself as a development-stage fabless semiconductor company. Its products are called field-programmable object arrays, or FPOAs, and are targeted at high-performance, data-intensive applications like defense, security, medical imaging, and video.

Today, Mathstar’s share price is down more than 90 percent since its IPO. The institutional investors that bought into the public offering aren’t just suckers, they’re incompetent suckers. I say that because they’re not playing with their own money; their funds invest other people’s money. Sad but true.

Then why is the stock trading at about half a buck with a whopping market cap of $23 million? Good question.

According to my research, the company’s market cap may be $23 million too much. In 2007, the company had record revenue of–get this–$558,000. You read it right. But the annual net loss was a hefty $20 million. The company has burned through more than $100 million of investment capital, to date.

Don’t get me wrong: pre-revenue IPOs still happen, especially in the biotech industry. In that instance, investors know they’re taking a big risk for big upside rewards. In the case of Mathstar, however, investors got the risk without the big potential upside.

This is just an example of a phenomenon we see from time to time: a company manages to go public when there’s no logical reason for institutional investors to buy into it. These companies typically raise a few million bucks and then, in agonizing slow-motion, fizzle out of existence.

The company essentially used the public markets in place of what should have been a round or two of venture funding. It makes you wonder why they didn’t go the private route. Maybe they tried and couldn’t. Something to think about.

The campaign is also featuring Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. What, Canada doesn’t have any joke-worthy targets of its own?

“At Virgin Mobile,” the ad goes on to say, “you’re more than just a number. When you call us we’ll treat you like a person, not a client. Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”

Virgin Mobile Canada knows how frustrated people can get with the lack of personalized service these days. Faster than Eliot Spitzer could say, “Um, oops,” the company came out with a print ad that features the newly former New York governor, aka Client #9, musing as follows under a thought bubble: “I’m tired of being treated like a number…”

One man's prostitution scandal, apparently, is another man's marketing angle.

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Virgin Mobile Canada)