Friday, October 04, 2002

Sidekick's browser blows. Anil Dash discovers that the T-Mobile Sidekick's web-browser is pretty arbitrary in which pages it will load and which pages it will throw up its hands at: So I decided I was going to modify my page to conform to your browser's idiocy. I went looking for technical docs on what you do to mangle web pages. None. I went looking for a desktop emulator that I could run to simulate your device on my computer. None. I went looking to see an acknowledgement of the shortcomings of your device, indicating that the situation would be improved. None. Link Discuss (Thanks, Joe!) [Boing Boing Blog] Ruh Row!  This puts a small dent in my Sidekick lust.  I hope this will get worked out over the next few weeks or months. 11:58:47 PM

Data-mine your hard-drive with SixDegrees. SixDegress is a $99 OS X app that data-mines your own hard-drive and tries to build links between people, files and folders. Laura Carpenter at the OS X con was talking it up yesterday and it looks way cool -- I've just downloaded the demo to play with. * Locate files with similar names or file revisions, anywhere on your system. * Show all email threads related to any file or person on your desktop. * View all the files a person has sent you, regardless of where those files are stored on your computer. * Create dynamic, self-updating projects. * Find misfiles or attachments quickly without searching desktop folders. * Navigate and open any message, file or person on your desktop in one click. Link Discuss (Thanks, Laura!) [Boing Boing Blog] This is the sort of thing that makes me want an OS X system.  Too bad the powerbooks just aren't small (read: portable) enough yet.  Until that day comes, I'm sticking with my Lifebook. 11:56:51 PM

Futuristic Alloys Being Introduced into Mobile Devices for Weight, Strength, Durability. Samsung is introducing a cell phone featuring a unique alloy called Liquidmetal from Liquidmetal Technologies. It's got the castability and lightness of plastic, while outstripping the strength and durability of steel and titanium. [allNetDevices Wireless News] The primary success factor of a portable device is that it in fact is portable.  This is primarily why I bought a Palm Pilot a few years ago and stuck my Newton MessagePad in the nostalgia box.  I could stuff the Palm in my shirt or jacket pocket.  The Newton I could not. The primary factors that affect whether or not a device is truely portable are size (see above), weight, and durability.  If it's too big or heavy, it becomes tiresome and annoying to carry with, and ends up being left on the nightstand by default.  If it's too flimsy, it becomes a poor long-term investment.  Who wants to spend US$500 on a new PDA or US$2000 on a new laptop every six months, much less got though the pain of migrating all the data they store. Liquidmetal could address both the weight factor and the durability factor in one stroke. 11:14:28 PM

Garfinkel on Wireless Tags. Simson Garfinkel has an interesting short article in Technology Review about wireless tags. He advocates a sort of consumers' bill... [Freedom To Tinker] Pervasive, privacy invasive wireless technology that you don't even know is there...  until it's too late. 10:56:12 PM

Stray Signals from Wireless Camera Lead to Arrest [LawMeme: Legal Bricolage for a Technological Age] "Two foster parents are being held on $500,000 bond in Illinois after being arrested for beating the 15 year old, mentally disabled boy entrusted to their care. "Signals from the wireless "nanny cam" operating inside their house were picked up by the next door neighbor's home security system. The neighbor taped the abuse, and notified the authorities." While wireless technology is good, it's important to understand the exposure it can bring to your life and privacy. 10:25:38 PM

Law School in a Nutshell, Part II [LawMeme: Legal Bricolage for a Technological Age] "LawMeme's hacker-oriented introduction to reading legal documents and understanding the strange way in which lawyers look at the world." Part I is also available. 10:22:09 PM

The Yale Information Society Project Just found this site (indirectly) through Scripting News.  Lots of interesting stuff here, including LawMeme, which seems to be a Slashdot-esqe blog focusing on law news related to the Internet.  It even has an RSS feed (article title and link only, though).   10:16:52 PM

W3C proposes XML encryption methods. The Web standards group proposes recommendations for encrypting XML data and documents, promising that the technologies will help advance its contribution to Web services. [CNET News.com] I'll be reading the specs in detail later, but my first reaction to this is: What's the point?  It seems like this problem is already solved.  Just transmit over a secure channel, either SSL in the case of HTTP transactions, or as an encrypted attachment in the case of an email.  Maybe I'll understand after I've spent some quality time with the specs. 9:59:36 PM

Boucher Introduces New Bill. brandido writes "The Register is reporting that Rep. Rick Boucher unveiled his ... [Slashdot] Major impacts or not, every step in the right direction is a good one.  Roll, tide, roll! 9:54:07 PM