From the category archives:

Tools

Turning Japanese? Google Reader Now Translates Posts Into Any Language

by John Jorgensen on November 11, 2008

Google Reader can now automatically translate feeds into multiple languages, allowing you to keep up to date on content from around the globe.
Translations are done with Google Translate technology and aren’t 100% perfect, but readable.
This started as a Google Reader team member’s personal project, utilizing Google’s policy allowing team members to work on personal projects 20% of the time.

Can anyone recommend some good foreign blogs?

VentureBeat

by Jason Wilk on October 26, 2008

Usernamecheck.com will show you all the sites that your preferred username is available or taken on.
If you plan on joining any of these sites in the future and want to keep your username the same, you’d better hop to it.
We heard around the block that some people are having accuracy problems with he service, so beware.

by Jason Wilk on October 24, 2008

by Jason Wilk on October 23, 2008

Sobees enables web sites and services to work on the desktop.
Their main focus is to allow you to have separate ‘browser’ like windows running on your desktop, with picture, video and search capabilities included.
Also, straight on my desktop I can view activity updates from friends on my social networks, as well as update my own status on Facebook and Twitter.
The best feature being the social updates on the desktop that are updating in real-time. The desktop experience selling point will be far too difficult to gain market share, especially when [apple] [n] on my Firefox gets me a new window and back to my online homepage instantly.