The Google Social Graph API

From the site blurb:  “With so many websites to join, users must decide where to invest significant time in adding their same connections over and over. For developers, this means it is difficult to build successful web applications that hinge upon a critical mass of users for content and interaction. With the Social Graph API, developers can now utilize public connections their users have already created in other web services. It makes information about public connections between people easily available and useful.”  Watch the video too - more info here

Real life test of Internet banking security

I have just read with some interest and quiet amusement that UK TV presenter, author and newspaper columnist Jeremy Clarkson has lost money after publishing his bank account details in the UK national press.  Story goes that he was commenting on the loss of 25 million people’s data on two government CDs which had gone missing, here, apparently writing that:

“All you’ll be able to do with them is put money into my account. Not take it out. Honestly, I’ve never known such a palaver about nothing,” he told readers.

So, he published is own account details and how to find his address.

What happened?

Well, someone has since opened a direct debit for £500 from his account and into the account of the charity, Diabetes UK.  Seems the bank can’t tell him who did it due to the Data Protection Act and cannot prevent it happening again.

My quiet amassment is not that it happened to him but that someone followed this through and highlighted what can happen when you are haphazard with personal details and set yourself up for a fall.  Whether this was a direct result of an anonymous reader getting hold of the details or a close friend “playing a joke” the punishment is fitting. 

Good charitable cause, I hope the direct debit stays !!!

Original BBC report.

Technorati tags: Jeremy Clarkson, internet security, daft stunts

Voice of the London Underground sacked for blogging funny fake announcement audio

The woman who reads the London Underground “next stop” announcements has apparently been sacked for keeping a blog in which she would record funny fake announcments, like “Residents of London are reminded that there are other places in Britain outside your stinking shithole of a city, and if you removed your heads from your arses for just a couple of minutes, you may realise that the M25 is not the edge of the Earth”

BOOMP3 has catpured the MP3s here

Her blog can be found here

Technorati tags: Emma Clarke, London Underground, London tube, fake announcements

Wine experts mistake dyed white wine as red wine

I, like the next person perhaps, enjoy a glass of wine and I know what I like and that for me it is very subjective and truely personal choice.  This article however shows that even wine experts are have these constraints when choosing wine, which is perhaps not at all surprising, however so much for objectivity.  Its a piece about wine tasting and perhaps the sceince of the expert opinion, but what seems more interesting are the comments.

Technorati tags: wine tasting, wine, subjectivity of wine

Most ludicrous laws in the UK

Among the most ridiculous laws listed by UKTV Gold were:

It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27%)

It could be regarded an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen’s image upside-down (7%)

Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned (5%)

In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants (4%)

The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen (3.5%)

It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (3%)

It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour (3%)

As posted on the BBC WEB site after a survey was conducted on the cable TV channel UKTV GOLD

Technorati tags: Ludicrous laws, uk laws

Online couple cheated WITH EACH OTHER !!!

www.metro.co.uk is carrying a story about a married couple who ended up dating each other through an online chat room.  “Sweetie” and “Prince of Joy” spent hours telling each other about their marriage troubles.  Apparently the truth emerged when the two turned up for a date and are now getting divorced after each accusing the other of being unfaithful.

“I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be,” Sana, 27, said.
Adnan, 32, said: “I still find it hard to believe that Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years”.

Article

Technorati Tags: internet cheats, online chat

Visual search tool

oSkope is a neat little visual search tool which will allow you to search and organise items from various sources, such as ebay, flickr, youtube etc.  The results are presented in an intuative way and you can arrange them in a number of ways such as a graph, a stack, a pile or as a list.  I like the stack as it feels like you are browsing through photographs of things.  Very nice and worthwhile service.

Technorati tags: visual search, oskope, intuative search

QUECHUP social networking

Well, I stumbled apon another social networking site called Quechup which came to me as an invite.  I was talking to the friend that sent it to me and they were telling me that he never actually sent out any “invites” … it turns out that as part of their registration process Quechup will helpfully offer to search your mailbox to find any contacts who are currently on Quechup and add them for you.  However, it also then sends out an invite to all your contacts in such a way that it looks like you personally sent the mail.  Two things strike me about this, firstly that’s just spamming by another means and pretty sneaky.  Secondly, who the HE*L gives out their mailbox password to a random WEB site as part of registration …. have people learned nothing about WEB security !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have not read the Quechup T&C or privacy agreement nor have I tried this myself, but I can’t think of anything which would make me feel safe about giving my mail password over to anyone.

Technorati tags: quechup, web 2.0, social networks

WEB strategy - Twitter under the microscope

This is an interesting article on Twitter, [a WEB service which lets you post items of micro data about yourself to let your friends know what you are doing, as well as keep a track on what your friends are up to].  I have been tweeting on twitter for a while now (does that make me an early adopter????? probably not !!) and I still found this article very interesting.  Although it is aimed at the Web Strategist there are some good summaries and concepts about why & how twitter should be used and where it could all be going.

Technorati tags: twitter, web 2.0, social networks

Everything is bigger in Texas - even the spider WEBs

One enormous spider WEB (650Ft) has been reported in Lake Tawakoni state park in Texas, US.  Apparently the work of millions of tiny spiders (should we be thankful that this was not *one big spider* !!) getting together and possibly starting from a central point and working out.  Social CobWeb has been used to describe this, maybe google will sue 

News link is here

Technorati tags: giant spiders, spider webs, socal cobwebs

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers

The name, the tunes, the attitude …. what more do you need. Presenting: The Red Hot Chilli Pipers

Technorati tags: The Red Hot Chilli Pipers, music, scottish bands

Let your bluetooth device find Facebook friends

Using bluetooth and Facebook technology researchers at Bath University have designed a way to build new friendship networks.  By installing a Facebook app called Cityware users can track real world encounters via their bluetooth devices.  It appears to be part of a wider project backed by Nokia, HP Labs and Vodaphone.

The system works with 4 parts, firstly a Facebook account then Cityware application followed by your bluetooth devices and then the Cityware nodes.  These nodes have only currently been installed in Bath, University College London, the University of California in San Diego, with more nodes going online in Sweden, Hong Kong and Sydney.

These nodes (computers) scan for bluetooth enabled devices and send that data back to the Cityware servers to compare the unique bluetooth IDs against known Facebook accounts.  The next time you access Facebook you will be shown other users that your device detected.

Cityware state that “The node sits in the environment and records everyone’s unique Bluetooth ID. Cityware itself doesn’t know your name, or who you are.”, Dr Kostakos, research associate at the University of Bath.

Dr Kostakos makes some other very interesting comments, “Networks are everywhere - social and digital.  The really nice thing about Bluetooth is that when you are walking down the street, although you are not talking to anyone, your Bluetooth device can be talking to other devices.”

“Most people you bump into or see regularly have made information about themselves available publicly online.  But the Internet is such a big place that it’s difficult to find contextual information about who someone is, where they are etc.”

The tool lets find out if any of the people you bump into is a Cityware user and has a Facebook profile, in which case you can choose to add that person to your friend list.

-

Thinking about this started to give me a headache, I mean having my Bluetooth device allow other people to find me just seemed so un-nerving.  Similarly the thought that really, your locations could be recorded on a server somewhere was also a bit disconcerting.  However, regardless of how we choose to meet a new friend or a familiar stranger is having your bluetooth device do the introdcution any more dangerous than exchanging details the old fasion way?  Probably not and it could be argued that it was in some ways safer.  It will be very interesting to watch this technology develop over time but at the moment my Bluetooth is still OFF. 

The original article can be found on the BBC WEB site here

Technorati tags: cityware, bluetooth, facebook, social networks, social networking

Test Shows 41% Of Facebook Users Expose Themselves To Strangers

However interesting this post is about the ease at which some people will part with personal information in the social networking community of Facebook (and no doubt alternative sites) the title alone is worth a mention 

Nokia and Matsushita to replace mobile phone batteries

Nokia is offering to replace up to 46 million batteries for their mobile phones due to reports of overheating while charging. 

From the WEB site

“This is a product advisory for the Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006. This product advisory does not apply to any other Nokia battery.”

There have apparently been very few cases of reported problems however more info and a product guide can be found here

Technorati tags: battery recall, nokia, safety

Passion-Centric or Object-Oriented community sites

Social networking sites are huge … how obviously is that statement !!!!   but I came across another side to this upsurge of sites which are known as “Passion-Centric” or “Object-Oriented”.  Lets paint the picture: “A San Francisco native who loves the beach, parks, running and dancing, Marco has easily made connections over the Internet, racking up 5,200 on his profile. Not bad for a 4-year-old Miniature Schnauzer.”

Marco is just one of thousands of dogs with a WEB profile on Dogster.com - which is simply an online community featuring pet photos, pet videos, diaries, tips etc etc etc.  Its sister site, catster.com, is the same thing for cat lovers and apparently pets are not the only thing targetted … sneakerplay.com is for, well, sneakers (trainers, runnng shoes .. whatever).

These are places for people with particular passions to share that passion and have a bit of fun … not just swap names, photos or “collect” friends.

I’m sure there are other passions represented …. but you may have to clear your browser cache afterwards !! 

Technorati tags: dogster.com, caster.com, passion-centric

Film trailer for "Be Kind Rewind"

Jack Black and Mos Def are video store clerks who manage to erase a bunch of movies on video tape, so to save the business they have to remake them.  In remaking films like GHOSTBUSTERS and ROBOCOP, they start something of a movement. Michel Gondry’s latest movie looks really, really good !!!!

Watch it here

Technorati tags: Jack black, Mos Def, Michel Gondry, be kind rewind, movies

Has Flickr just been pwned ???

Follow a live .Mac web gallery link to see what iMac galleries are now offering …….. It’s very slick indeed…. Drag your cursor over a gallery to “flip” through its photos, and click anyone to view. Once you’ve entered a gallery, you’ve got several options. Choose a grid, carousel or mosaic layout (the carousel is **impressive**), or simply start a slideshow. You may also change the background’s color and resize any photo. Finally, you can subscribe to an album’s RSS feed, send to a friend or add photos (if you’ve got permission to do so).

I tried this on Firefox 2.0.0.4 on XP and it was very nice … I heard that it looks amazing on iphone (don’t have those in the UK yet) and I am sure it looks better on MAC/Safari … but as for sharing photos then I wish Flickr did that 

Technorati tags: MAC Galleries, ilife, iwork, photos

Scottish exams body and the missing ‘S’

It looks as though the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) , who are responsible for the development, accreditation, assessment and certification of qualifications, other than academic degrees, in Scotland, decided that their Website, where some exam results would be posted, should be a secure HTTPS connection. Excellent, a positive move to help ensure that the security of students’ results would be preserved…. except they apparently made this decision after a number of letters giving a link which excluded the ‘S’ had already been posted to many candidates. So not only were they having to cope with helping some 3000 students remember their own login details but they also had to help with the link challenge as well. There is now a page redirect (can’t say when that went live) but it will be interesting to see who blames who for not reading their own published letters.

The full story is here as are links to other reports of access problems. While this move is to be applauded as a positive use of technology the lessons to be learned seem perhaps rather obvious???

Imagine a computerised election process in Scotland ….. oh, wait … they had that fiasco as well !!!!

Slap in the Facebook

This makes for some very interesting reading on the topic of socal networks.

Technorati tags: Facebook, WEB2.0, Social networks

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

Sometimes it is actually very good to see an article that discusses alternative sides of the environmental debate … But in its simplest terms, this “thought provoking!!?” (bit of fun) basically says eat less, move less and produce less carbon!!?

Well, yes, that is the headline grabbing conclusion, however I think the average person probably understands that *whatever* we do has an affect on the environment and reducing our carbon footprint goes hand in hand with finding ways to off set the carbon we produce. Therefore the message in the article is actually rather interesting and offers a more realistic answer to the problem; its just that in this consumer culture we live in the average person may find it hard to accept: demand less, use less and live a truly sustainable life style.