A stub is a short article which rounds up little bits of information that I’ve found throughout the week. These may be web or computer related, or they may be more general things. It’s more a personal log than an actual article, reminding me of things that I may’ve forgotten, but some of it may be of help to someone else!
Looks like I’ve falled behind with my posts! The year is certainly starting to become busy! So I’d better catch up on the past two weeks!
This er…fortnight:
- Amazon tries to apply for total control over the .book domain, but rivals and industry groups (unsurprisingly) oppose it…
- The artists that recorded the samples used in Bauuer’s “Harlem Shake” take legal action against the record label for use of the samples without a license. It seems to be the risk you take when you use any sample just plucked from the Internet.
- It certainly made me smile when I saw that a father had hacked the classic NES game “Donkey Kong” to allow his daughter to play as the female character, instead saving Mario from Donkey Kong.
- In my last post I commented on the proposal which was to be decided on by European Parliament. It originally set out to ban many things including porn, in aid of gender equality. I certainly wasn’t surprised to see that they changed the wording and decided not to ban Internet porn…
- I was very interested to hear that Facebook, along with other Silicon Valley companies, have vending machines which dispense IT hardware (such as keyboards and mice). I think it’s a great idea!
- A website which has been described as a “Pirate Bay for 3D printing” has been launched. While this initially sounds interesting, the creator is actually concentrating on uploading designs which would otherwise be paid for or not for the public. I’d prefer a place where any 3D blueprint could be uploaded for print, it’d be great to see what people came up with!
- Wilson Miner wrote a nice little piece which compared video game design to interface design, it really is a brilliant comparison!
- Quite a surprising bit of news also came out as Google announced it would retired its Reader service! It came as a shock to many, as competitors scrambled to pick up the extra users.
- A bit of a change from the norm – Dropbox (rather than Google or Microsoft) acquires Mailbox. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with it.
- SIML looks great, looks like it may actually save time when writing out HTML!
- Depressingly, it was announced that the “First Tablet for Women” would be released. The dumbed down tablet focuses on improving fitness and meeting the demands of a housewife (with a yoga, cooking and shopping list app pre-installed). It really is worse than it even sounds.
- The new San Francisco 49ers’ stadium was announced, and it promises to serve 68,000 users with a 6Mb/s connection. If they can pull that off – it’ll be a very
impressive achievement! - Around the 18th March, a huge DDoS attack was launched at an anti-spam company, it was such a huge attack that it affected the Internet worldwide, including services such as Netflix. To make matters worse it’s still going on at the time of writing and the effects will be lasting for a few weeks after as well. Just staggering!
- Apple was in the news as they submit an application for a patent on a technology which ensures a phone always lands on it’s back, similar to a cat.
- Over-sensitivity started a huge Internet talking point, as Adria Richards, an equality evangelist for a Silicon Valley company, overreacted and made assumptions about comments and jokes made by men behind her at a conference. She then preceded to take photos of the men and get one of them fired. She’s now been fired herself for her immature actions. It’s certainly interesting to read about how the story unfolded.
- An interesting behaviour in browsers was noted, where Javascript may redirect a user to a different page after a link has been clicked. It’s started a debate as to whether it’s an unsafe behaviour to allow, but it’s certainly a good thing to know.
- A very impressive web app from the Google Chrome experiments website turns web pages into levels of a marble game. I’d urge anyone with Chrome on their desktop and phone to give it a try!
- Microsoft claims that it outsold iPhone, and of course it turns out that technicalities have been overlooked…such as counting markets where the iPhone is not even sold.
- This guy has definitely found the right profession, after his app is bought for millions by Yahoo.
- And finally, “Kiss the Jedi bride, you may.” is something you could hear at the next wedding you attend.
