- ODB to iPhone Converter — hardware to connect to your car’s onboard computer and display it on an iPhone app. (via Imran Ali)
- Multitasking Brains (Wired) — interesting pair of studies: old brains have trouble recovering from distractions; hardcore multitaskers have trouble focusing. (via Stormy Peters)
- Social Privacy — Danah Boyd draft paper on teens’ attitudes to online privacy. Interesting take on privacy as about power: This incident does not reveal that teens don’t understand privacy, but rather that they lack the agency to assert social norms and expect that others will respect them. (via Maha Shaikh)
- Cool but Obscure Unix Tools — there were some new tricks for this old dog (iftop, socat). (via Andy Baio)
"iPhone" entries
Developer Week in Review: HP fires up the TouchPad production line one more time
HP's unique take on marketing, James Gosling leaves Google, and Apple continues its tavern distribution program.
The TouchPad’s $99 price point proves enticing for consumers and — oddly — HP itself, James Gosling leaves Google, and a possible iPhone 5 leak bears a distinct resemblance to the iPhone 4 leak.
How Free Software Contributed to the Success of Steve Jobs and Apple
In the great Second Coming, when Jobs returned to Apple 1996, he drove the adoption of the open source BSD as Apple's new operating system. This enabled some of the Mac's most popular features.
ePayments Week: The rise of location-triggered offers
Very local deals, iPhone users ready to spend, and Androids attract crapware
Placecast offers merchants a geofence to corral customers. Also, UK researcher YouGov says iPhone users are more willing to buy with their phones, and telecoms bury Androids with crapware.
Ruminations on the legacy of Steve Jobs
PC, mobile, music, film, post-pc: Steve Jobs played an important part in disrupting them all.
Apple, under Steve Jobs, has always had an unrelenting zeal to bring the consumer — and humanity — back to the center of the ring. Here, Mark Sigal argues that it’s this pursuit of humanity that may actually be Jobs’ greatest innovation.
ePayments Week: Is "0000" your passcode?
Bad passcodes, in-app payments for all, mainstreaming mCommerce.
In the latest ePayments Week: 10 iPhone passcodes make up 15% of all those in use. Also, Google In-App spreads its wings beyond the Chrome store, Isis signs deals with major credit cards, and execs expect mCommerce to be mainstream in 4 years.
ePayments Week: Is “0000” your passcode?
Bad passcodes, in-app payments for all, mainstreaming mCommerce.
In the latest ePayments Week: 10 iPhone passcodes make up 15% of all those in use. Also, Google In-App spreads its wings beyond the Chrome store, Isis signs deals with major credit cards, and execs expect mCommerce to be mainstream in 4 years.
Disastrous implications of new Apple patent for blocking cellphone video
Apple has patented new technology to disable cellphone video based on external signals from public venues. Now imagine if that same technology were deployed by repressive regimes.
Developer Week in Review: Oracle sends Hudson on its way
Can Hudson and Jenkins get together now? Washington checks in on location. And why are you so stressed?
Oracle casts another piece of Sun from their portfolio, Apple and Google defend themselves from big-brother accusations made by, um, Big Brother, and it turns out you probably have a pretty sweet job, after all.
Four short links: 10 May 2011
Car Monitoring with iPhone, Multitasking, Privacy, and Cool Unix Tools
Four short links: 9 May 2011
iPhone Anonymity, Fabbed Souvenirs, Perl+Go=Campher, and Javascript Slides
- UDID DeAnonymization — a developer exposed an API that connected UDID to other information such as Facebook ID. The API has been closed, but it remains true that your iPhone has a primary key and darn near every app developer has a database linking your UDID to other details about you. Apple requires this to not be public, but every private database is a bad architecture choice or security slipup away from being a public database.
- Be Your Own Souvenir — Kinect + 3D printer = print a tiny figurine of yourself. Kinect has solved a very real part of the input problem that 3D fabbing had. (via BoingBoing)
- Campher — Perl embedded in Go, by Brad Fitzpatrick.
- Slides from JS Conf 2011 — more than thirty talks, from greats like David Flanagan, Thomas Fuchs, and Tom Hughes-Croucher. (via Isaac Z Schlueter)