Google Street Maps, which has long provided 360 exterior images, has started a pilot project where it provides similar shops inside public buildings such as shops and businesses.  Unlike the Google street view shots, the interior shops are on a strictly voluntary basis.

Leave a Comment

A software update for the Blackberry PlayBook, originally scheduled to be released this month, has been delayed until February 2012.  Blackberry announced that the revision will better enable the company to craft an update to allow Blackberry phones and PlayBooks to work together.  Analysts predict that this will hurt the sale of Blackberry PlayBooks as we enter the Christmas season, the veritable holy grail of retailers everywhere.

Leave a Comment

John McCarthy, creator of the LIP programming language, which went on to become the programming language of choice in  the AI community, and coining the term “artificial intelligence.”  His early work helped shape the direction of AI research basically ever since people began exploring the concept of artificial intelligence.  In 1971, he was awarded the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery for his work with the AI community, and also won the National Medal of Science in 1991.

Leave a Comment

The original idea behind technological patents, which give innovators a limited monopoly over the use of their creations, was to spur technological innovation.  With cell phones, however, patents seem to be having the opposite effect.  As cell phones become more and more advanced, incorporating ever-growing numbers of new features and capabilities–let’s face it, the line between cell phones and computers is growing ever more nonexistent–a huge number of patents, as many as 250,000, according to some estimates, apply to every single phone.  Large corporations such as Microsoft or Apple are also increasingly stockpiling patents, in some cases even buying them from one another.  As companies consolidate and defend their patents, consumers may be the ultimate losers, saddled with increasingly expensive products and left holding phones that are either substandard or no longer sold in their country due to the collective greed of cell phone companies.

Leave a Comment

During the riots that rocketed London earlier this year, two men (Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw) got on Facebook in an attempt to convince other people to join the riots.  Both men were given four-year prison sentences, and despite their attempt to appeal and have their sentences reduced, their jail terms were upheld by the Court.  Users of social media networking sites, take note–what you say online can have real-world consequences.  The online world does not exist in a bubble, where nothing that you say or do has any effect upon your life.

Leave a Comment

SSL technology is used to keep online commercial transactions safe, but, according to its creator, Taher Elgamal, the technology is no more secure that it was prior to the attacks earlier this year.  In September, hackers stole credentials that allowed them to pose as almost any web firm of their choosing, and then used this information to gain access to the Gmail accounts of approximately  300,000 people.  Since the fake credentials were used to snoop on on people who lived in Iran, it is suspected that these attacks were carried out by the Iranian government in order to spy on its citizens.  Similar attacks, however, could be used to steal credit card information from online customers.  Given the scope of this potential problem, the handlers of SSL should try to address this defect as soon as possible.

Leave a Comment

Now that the Blackberry service disaster has ended, Apple is experiencing problems with its new iOS 5 upgrade.  Consumers have complained of delays when adding the upgrade, in some cases having to conduct multiple attempts before their iphones will update properly.  According to Apple representatives, the problems are being caused by the sheer number of requests, and are not due to a security issue or indicative of larger problems with Apple’s servers.

Leave a Comment

Dennis Ritchie Recieving the US National Medal of Technology

Dennis Ritchie, one the the creators of the Unix operating system and the C programming language.  Both have been hugely influential in the development of new technologies.  Unix established many software engineering principles that persist into the present day, helped kick-start the open source movement, and was originally the preferred operating system for the internet.  The C programming language remains one of the most widely-used programming languages is the world.  In 1999, Mr Ritchie was awarded the US National Medal of Technology for his accomplishments.

Leave a Comment

While braille, a language for the blind that involves a series of raised dates, and a flat touch screen can seem to be completely antithetical to one another, a team of researchers in the US has discovered a way to turn a touch-screen as a braille keyboard.   Users simply place eight fingers on the screen, and a keyboard appears.  Shaking the device creates then activates a menu that can be used to access additional features.

Leave a Comment

Parents in Britain can probably rest easier, as four leading web providers–BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin–are offering people the chance to block adult content at the point of subscription.  Assuming that these companies get positive consumer feedback, it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that  they may begin offering similar plans in the US.  There isn’t anything new about parental controls (those have existed basically ever since the internet was first created), but these companies are the first to offer porn-blockers at the point of subscription.  Of course, blocking porn sites is an imprecise art at best, with some sites slipping through while other innocuous  sites are blocked.

Leave a Comment