This one has been in my edit queue for around a week, so I thought I'd throw it out into the wild, pxn8.com (via UNEASYsilence) is an AJAX-heavy online photo editing suite. I've played with it, and I've got to admit to being impressed...
Close on the heels of the initial rumours, we now have confirmation of the new 3D Google Earth-like application for Java-enabled mobile phones, called Wayfinder Earth.
With Australia joining the growing list of countries to have a mandatory in all by name national ID card, soon to be followed by our own green and pleasant land, I stumbled across a comment on Slashdot the more or less sums up my feelings on the ID card debate.
I moved from Australia to the US in 1978, in that year in both countries it was extremely unlikely that a law enforcement officer would approach you for no particular reason and ask for identification. However this very much was not the case in Eastern Europe (where I was born) and presumably the redder portions of South East Asia as well. Also at the time you did not need written permission to live, work, or just be at any certain place. So the "paper's please" thing became a jibe from the armchair anticommunists as sort of a short form of our country is so much better than yours. Indeed my own father, a staunch Anti-Communist, took us for a car trip both around Australia and across the United States in a prolonged state of rapture caused by the fact that we could go all these places and see all these things and not only not present papers to anyone of authority but not go through inspections or checkpoints (even at state lines!).I have no such experiences with repressive regimes, but I'm a good enough student of history to know that I don't want to have any experience with one in the future, and I'd very much hoped the phrase, "Papers please?", would in today's world be just that. History...
Fast forward to 2006 and world is different place. Terrorism has replaced Communism and the many of those same armchair anticommunists are now demanding the very things that they derided during the cold war in communist countries. It's a bizarre thing that I cannot travel around the US without identification, Can I refuse to show a policeman identification anymore? (I don't think so, but it's been awhile since I've been back to the US). I can not walk down most US streets with a simple beer in my hand... But I can take train from where I live now to the place where I was born and I can pass the abandoned check point which I passed as a child in a box in the trunk of a car... drinking what ever I want and showing my passport once as I pass over the border into Czech Republic.
I don't need papers in the place my parents ran from, but I need them in the place they ran to... - Bhima Pandava
Nicholas Carr has posted an interesting take on the AdSense hundred dollar minimum payment rule. He argues, persuasively, that Google is using the money from the uncountable number of "small" AdSense publishers as a float.
They aren't alone in this of course, the Yahoo Publisher Network also has a hundred dollar minimum pay out, although other programmes such as Amazon Associates or TradeDoubler have a lower thresholds, at least for direct deposits.
However none of these other programmes do targeted text adverts. If you want targeted text adverts, and you live outside the continental United States, then your only option for now is Google's AdSense. I'd guess that's what they'd call a market opportunity...
Update: It looks like Nicholas Carr has been reading the AdSense terms & conditions again, and has posted a follow-up article to his discussion of the Google float. He's concerned about section 6 (viii) which prohibits the publisher from;
(viii) act in any way that violates any Program Policies posted on the Google Web Site, as may be revised from time to time, or any other agreement between You and Google (including without limitation the Google AdWords program terms), or engage in any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google's reputation or goodwill. You acknowledge that any attempted participation or violation of any of the foregoing is a material breach of this Agreement and that we may pursue any and all applicable legal and equitable remedies against You, including an immediate suspension of Your account or termination of this Agreement, and the pursuit of all available civil or criminal remedies. - Google AdSense terms & conditionsNow I'm not a lawyer, I'm not even an American citizen so my grasp of US law is some what vague, but I'm not really sure I agree with Nick's interpretation. He argues that is is basically a gag order on publishers, denying them the right to criticise Google in press. To me it doesn't read that way, but I guess it really hinges on what the word "action" means in US law? Anyone?
AppleMatters posted an interesting article a few days back which argues that Windows Vista will be the last operating system Microsoft ever produces. It's been sitting at the back of my mind ever since, and I think they have it right, but for the wrong reasons.
Russell Beattie had it right,
If someone's using a PC to demo the next big thing, then it's not the next big thing... - Russell BeattieThe future is in mobile computing, ubiquitous computing and location based services. If you're building something that even requires a desktop machine to access you're not looking very far ahead.
Yesterday Apple released the new 17 inch Intel MacBook Pro onto an unsuspecting public, I did in fact notice the Apple store going down around 8am in the morning my time and like many I wondered why...
But I didn't blog the appearance of the new Intel MacBook when the store came back online. Why? Well, the new laptop is a pretty much uninspiring update, presumably why Apple chose not to announce it in yet another "special event". After all, you can only go to that well so many times before it runs dry.
However I'm still waiting for the somethings that's "much cooler" than a replacement for the 17 and 12 inch Powerbooks. I'm pretty much sold on the thought of a zero boot time 12 (or 13?) inch Powerbook replacement with instant on flash memory, in fact I'm going to be disappointed if a replacement 12 inch turns up and it's still shipping with a hard drive.
So why am I posting this? Well a colleague of mine noticed yesterday that the 17 inch actually costs less than the 15 inch in the same configuration, and it looks like other people have started to notice as well. What does this mean? Probably a price drop for the 15 inch, so if you're in the market for a shiny new 15 inch MacBook Pro, don't buy quite yet...
Robert Cringely gives his take on Apple's Boot Camp (via Slashdot), arguing that the reason behind the release is that Apple will not only offer dual-booting with Windows Vista, but the ability to run Windows applications running natively, without a copy of Windows at all...
... I also believe that Apple will offer in OS X 10.5 the ability to run native Windows XP applications with no copy of XP installed on the machine at all. This will be accomplished not by using compatibility middleware like Wine, but rather by Apple implementing the Windows API directly in OS X 10.5. - Robert CringelyPerhaps so, after all Apple has had access to the full API documentation via a cross-licensing deal since the late 90's. With this as a starting point, and the long planned move to Intel up their sleeve, perhaps this isn't as crazy as it sounds...
The new Skype WiFi phone (via The Register) from NetGear looks interesting. If VOIP is ever really going to take off in the mass market, then this is the sort of gadget that needs to be produced. People look at you strangely stuck with a headset and a laptop in your average coffee shop, but this is just another phone. Not only doesn't it look weird, everyone will automatically know how to use it. Software phones scare the average consumer, so something like this is exactly what's needed...
After the publication of some recent research in the British Medical Journal detailing work on a comprehensive longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute that my wife found the other day, I think I may have to carry out some follow-up work here in Exeter. Unless anyone can tell me where all the teaspoons, a large bag of several hundred plastic ones, from the senior common room have disappeared to? Anyone..?
Scientists have now proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that men are distracted by looking at beautiful women. Apparently just looking at a pretty girl is enough to throw our decision making skills into disarray.
If a man is being asked to choose between something being presented by an attractive woman and an ugly men, they might not be as dispassionate as they could be... - Dr George FieldmanThey got money for this study? Really? You could have gone down any local pub and asked just about anyone in there, and they could of told you this for free...
You don't see this level of bad parking (via digg) every day...
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| CREDIT: Associated Press and Yahoo News |
One of the big unanswered questions is how we're going to interface with the ubiquitous computing devices that are going to start appearing over the next few years, or have in fact already started to appear. All that computing power that will be surrounding us, or already is, and no really way of accessing the information except via a "traditional" computer interface. The real problem is that the abilities of the underlying technology grow much faster than innovations in user interfaces come along.
Gesture based computing is one possible answer to the user interface question raised by ubiquitous computing, and I was therefore really interested to see Minority Cube (via digg and MAKE: Blog). This is gesture based computing out in the wild, if you can do this with Flash, to control a cube on a screen, why not something a bit more distributed?
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| CREDIT: MAKE: Blog |
Minority Cube allows you to control the rotation of the cube on the screen by moving your hand (or yourself) in front of your webcam. It understands up, down, left, right and screw (a motion a bit like if you're trying to screw a light bulb into your webcam's lens)... - Mario Klingemann
I'm currently sitting in the departure lounge of Tucson International Airport, en-route to Heathrow via LAX. Time to go home...
Jan Setje-Eilers reports that he now has Solaris booting on an Intel iMac (via TUAW). Interestingly it was done using Boot Camp rather than trying to bringing Solaris up in native EFI mode, which I thought it was capable of..?
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| CREDIT: Jan Setje-Eilers |
