Chris Sabga

If you're a Yahoo Photos user, you'll soon be moving your precious online family albums elsewhere. That's because Yahoo is officially shutting down its Photos portal in favor of its newer -- and far superior -- photo sharing website, Flickr.com. To ... Yahoo's credit, it won't simply force Flickr on its users. Instead, according to Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, Yahoo will also direct folks to a variety of outside options. PhotoBucket, MySpace, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, and Snapfish are said to be among the choices Yahoo Photos members will be given. "Flickr will get top-billing, of ... (view more)

Have you ever heard of Marratech? Most people in the company's home base of Sweden probably haven't either. But Google has. The search engine giant has just purchased the rights to Marratech's video-conferencing software. Google has acquired just ... the technology itself -- not the entire company. (Source: googleblog.blogspot.com ) For now, the program will just be used internally by Google. That news is sure to disappoint tech-heads looking forward to trying the technology out. However, there may be a glimmer of hope: Marratech's program may eventually be integrated into Google services such as ... (view more)

In 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon made history by participating in the first televised presidential debates. Now, today's presidential candidates are set to make history once again. The Huffington Post -- a political blog run by Arianna ... Huffington -- is teaming up with Yahoo and Slate Magazine to host the first-ever online presidential debates. The debates will take place after Labor Day -- with one for the Republican candidates and another for the Democrats. PBS host Charlie Rose will moderate the proceedings. Prospective voters will be able to submit questions for the candidates, ... (view more)

One of the men responsible for the creation of Wikipedia.org is now trying to turn the tables against the website he helped bring to fruition. Larry Sanger promises that his new venture, Citizendium.org, "aims to improve on [the Wikipedia] model by ... adding 'gentle expert oversight' and requiring contributors to use their real names." (Source: citizendium.org ) "If there's going to be a free encyclopedia, I'd like there to be a better free encyclopedia," Sanger said. "It has bothered me that I helped to get a project started, Wikipedia, that people are misusing in this way, and yet the project ... (view more)

If you've ever tried to do medical research on the Internet, you know what a time-consuming -- and often futile -- task it can be. A simple flu could be misdiagnosed as a life-threatening illness if you click on the wrong site or give in to your own ... paranoia. Well, Mr. Gates may have the solution for you. Microsoft has purchased Medstory.com -- a prominent medical search engine. (Source: yahoo.com ) Right now, the website is still in the beta testing stages. That obviously gives Microsoft the leeway and latitude to shape it into own vision -- whatever that may entail. Obviously, the company ... (view more)

Right now, the cheapest way to watch Blu-Ray movies is with the $500 20 GB model of the PlayStation 3 (the 60 GB model is a hundred dollars more). Standalone players currently cost twice that much. However, PS3s have been hard to find. Plus, older ... consumers who aren't as tech-savvy may not understand exactly how the PS3 works -- or they may be gun-shy about purchasing a video game unit just to play movies. Whatever the case may be, Sony plans to rectify those problems by releasing a cheaper standalone Blu-Ray player this summer. At $599, the new "BDP-S300" Blu-Ray model won't be cheaper than ... (view more)

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia.org is currently a source of major controversy at universities everywhere. Some professors rave about Wikipedia's usefulness, while others have outright banned their students from using it. But love it or hate it, ... Wikipedia's popularity cannot be discounted. It was already among the top ten most popular websites in the world. However, surprisingly enough, there was one country where Wikipedia didn't hold that same distinction -- the United States. In January, that finally changed, with Wikipedia cracking the U.S. top ten in popularity for the first time ever ... (view more)

Somewhere amidst the latest technology revolution, watches became impractical and irrelevant. At least that's the opinion of Allison Elliott, a 27-year-old University of Kentucky employee. Sure, Elliott still wears her grandmother's classic gold ... watch -- but she considers it jewelry more than an actual timepiece. She says she's more apt to get the time from her car, the cable TV box, her computer -- or, yes, her cell phone. Paul Dryden, a 21-year-old senior at Connecticut College, is in the same boat. "To be honest, I can't remember the last time I wore a watch -- I'm guessing early in high ... (view more)

Do a quick search for Google here at Infopackets, and you'll be amazed at all of the different ventures the company is involved in. And, even though the buzz is currently centered on Windows Vista, Google has managed to keep itself strongly in the ... news. The latest: it appears that the search engine giant is looking to branch out into a new frontier -- video game and television advertising. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is looking to purchase Adscape Media, Inc. -- a company that puts advertising into video games. It could be a response to Microsoft's purchase of Massive Inc ... (view more)

Math, Science, English, and Philosophy: those are the types of courses university students expect to be confronted with. Will video games soon be added to that list? Yes, video games. David Williamson Shaffer, an education science professor at the ... University of Wisconsin-Madison, is pushing to have gaming adding to the curriculum. If he succeeds, students could eventually have chemistry and video games on the same class schedule. It's not as farfetched as it sounds. After all, video games *do* have their practical uses: The U.S. military uses games to train its soldiers. Teenage cancer ... (view more)