February 2008
The New York Times Company announced the beta launch of ShifD, an application that provides users the capability to seamlessly shift content between their computers and mobile devices. ShifD eliminates the need to separately save certain information to both a computer and a mobile device. Users can update information from any Web browser, by text message from a mobile phone, through a mobile Web browser or by using the downloadable application on Adobe(R) AIR(TM). Information added through any of the various methods is saved to the user's ShifD account and automatically updated on all devices.
For the beta launch users can add and save content through ShifD in three categories:
"ShifD is an experiment in giving users the power to bring their content with them by easily shifting it among all of their Web-enabled devices," said Michael Zimbalist, vice president, research and development operations, The New York Times Company. "We see a future for device-independent media, with convergence around the user experience and not any particular delivery platform. Developing services that allow users to access content wherever they are and on whichever device they choose is an important part of our strategy."
ShifD was conceived by Nick Bilton, design integration editor and user interface specialist for The New York Times, and Michael Young, creative technologist, research and development for The New York Times Company, at the 2007 Yahoo! BBC Hack Day London competition. The application won the competition's award for Best Overall Hack.
To sign up for the beta launch visit: http://ShifD.com. ShifD will work on most mobile phones and blackberries in the United States.
Adobe AIR is a new cross-operating system application runtime that extends rich Internet applications to the desktop, which is compatible with both Macintosh and Windows computers.
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