Only on eBay

Over the years, people have auctioned off their virginity, their foreheads, food with sacrilegious caricatures, Princess Amidala’s underpants… a recently divorced man even put his “life” up for bid. The latest two big bid bonanzas aren’t as radical, but they are for good causes.
The 90-foot tall Original Pacific Wheel at Pacific Park [...]

Tech Quickie . Who’s buying who?

Catching you up on all the latest plans and rumors circulating about the Big Cheeses in the Bay, and how they plan to get even bigger:

Yahoo! to use Google search ads… in advanced talks
Yahoo! to merge with AOL… still in talks
Microsoft to purchase Yahoo!… over Y!’s dead body, sadly
Google to [...]

Google’s version of Yahoo’s Search Assist

You knew it was coming, you might have even seen or used the private tests, you might even argue that it was on G Labs/toolbar prior to Y! launch, but anyways, Google’s public test version of Yahoo’s Search Assist drop-down has finally launched today.
As to be expected, the big G’s autocomplete suggestion drop-down is [...]

MUNCHIES [CA] . Caffé Macs

I’m sure Caffé Macs (Apple’s eatery) was attempting to be set itself apart from all the other Silicon Valley Corporate Cafés by adding an extra “f”, or maybe they did that because that’s what the food deserves. Okay, that was harsh, but clever, no? And wait, isn’t caffé Italian for coffee? Just [...]

MUNCHIES [CA] . eBay Park Café

Oh no! I’m officially a Silicon Valley whore. I’ve worked at Apple, Yahoo!, Adobe, (am still currently a Research Consultant for Google), but eBay made me a juicy offer and a tops title plus pet insurance(!), so I’m there now, helping with the overhaul design bonanza. Woowoo! So far, it’s an [...]

MUNCHIES [CA] . Café Adobe

Holy crap Jack Black works here! A doppelgänger who speaks spanish. It’s like Nacho Libre, cafeteria version. I haven’t ordered from his section, I usually stick to the daily specials like veggie paninis or falafels. Consistency is not their game, with tender wedge fries one day and denture-denting the next. [...]

Found Links 12.14.07

Here’s another round of found links for you. Some of these I’ve been sitting on for a while, and others are fairly new. Enjoy.
Film

New Indiana Jones Poster
The Rape and Revision of Nanjing - article on upcoming films from around the globe concerning the Nanjing massacre. Make sure to read both pages.
Outcast Cinema’s upcoming Japanese [...]

Adobe.com refreshed!

Well, I lasted a year at Yahoo! (I still hope Jerry can turn it all around somehow) but now I’m pretty darn happy at Adobe. The building is sooo slick; there are automated everythings.. even the bathrooms are completely motion-sensored out down to the liquid soap and paper towel dispensers, not to mention the [...]

J-Pulp Culture + Internet Security = Norton Fighter

Awesome awesome short concerning anti-virus protection, with the addition of robots, maid cafes, otakus, zombification, and much more. Need I say, this is my kind of video?
Check out Norton Fighter vs. Botlas below. Special thanks to Trideep for alerting me to this.
Part 1:

Part 2:

And yes, projects are almost over. I should be back with a [...]

Yahoo! News . New Yahoo! news video

I know that post title is ridiculous, but I’m too sleepy to care.
Here’s a video clip that ran on the local CBS channel proclaiming our cool little launch. My boss, Larry Cornett (VP of Search UED) is featured uncharacteristically buttoned-down and pressed. Aww, so cute~!
Also featured is my neighbor in [...]

Yahoo! News . New Yahoo!

Do you Yahoo? You may want to see what we’ve launched last night (click on the image below to try it out yourself). It’s come a long way since the first-ish pass.
I love that a search for “dreamlogic” brings up “wife+chris” on the first Search Assist drop-down panel. The subsequent panel (shown [...]

Calvin Klein and his “logical stuffed transparent box of models”

A couple of days ago, there was some promo for Yahoo! oneSearch linked to Fashion Week 2007. Obviously, I don’t follow fashion, so I immediately thought they meant São Paulo Fashion Week (don’t ask me why I knew that one over the one in New York).
I decided to do a quick search [...]

Yahoo! News . Customers happier with Yahoo! over Google

The Search Engine world is fickle with customer quality assurance and innovation at its pinnacle. Nothing beats being smack in the heart of innovation valley.. you can just feel the creative energy and smell the brains brewing! This proves that the world needs designers!
Is Google Inc. losing its edge?
The search engine [...]

Yahoo! News . You Tube and Stock Quotes get bloated with Y! Expando

Now you can watch a full-sized You Tube video in the SRP (Search Results). Just click on the image in the search results and behold the magic of Expando:

EXPANDO YOU TUBE

EXPANDO STOCK QUOTE (awful timing now that the DOW plummeted.. again)

Yahoo! News . Yahoo SRP goes on a No Numbers Diet

This is the quickest and smallest “big cheese” search page on the web. On previous tests, I worked with the webdevs on a main sprite image (reducing image calls) and the team found a way to further reduce page weight by over 60%~!
I am very excited because we can hopefully achieve lightning [...]

Yahoo! News . Pièce de Assistance

Some new better browsing ideas that launched last night:

Travel Assist Module

Music Artist Assist Module

Search Assistance Layer

Optimism boost: Tom Kelley visited Yahoo! on Monday and I’m still stoked!

If you’ve never heard of IDEO, you’re about to. IDEO is a company which makes other companies perform better. They analyze and restructure strategies and product designs for big name johns like Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft, Apple to design more effective products and/or concepts. For example, their fat squishy toothbrush handle for [...]

Yahoo! News . Search Suggestions

Woohoo~! Yahoo! makes searching that much easier. In case you can’t see it yet, take a gander at this screenshot. It was implemented long ago on Yahoo!’s Alltheweb.com and on the Yahoo! toolbar in March and is now making its debut at Yahoooo~! Search.