Adam Singer has a new blog, The Future Buzz:
"The Future Buzz is an on-going project of a 25 year-old marketing professional working at an independently owned firm. The purpose of this site is to bring a fresh perspective to the world of marketing/public relations and their complex relationship with blogs, social networks, and the Internet as a whole."
I ended up spending this year's Thanksgiving Day at home and all alone. My other half went upstate to do some shopping, see her family and friends. I decided not to go. So, no turkey for me this year, instead I drained my credit card over at Beatport and ended up listening to some great music all day long.
Sad isn't it?
Update: TechCrunch is now reporting that the iPhone doesn’t send an IMEI (the phone’s unique identifier) back to base but only personally unaware data.
9to5Mac.com is reporting that Apple (AAPL) is tracking certain iPhone users data including IMEI number, IP address and stock quote preferences (amongst other things) through a hidden string in some of the built-in iPhone applications.
"From this information, Apple could build a profile on users. Where they travel, where they spend their free time, where they work, where they invest their money, what they browse, etc etc. Obviously most users would like to be able to control who has access to this information. If they connect this data with the credit card that you used to purchase the iPhone (remember, you can't use cash anymore), they could build an even bigger profile on you."
Hey Apple, what's going on!? It looks like both Scoble and Winer are onto something...
- An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists. Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt). [Telegraph]
- For years, Starbucks has been able to throw up new stores, sometimes placing them across the street from each other.. Now, that breathless growth is showing serious stress. [WSJ, subscription required]
- Crazy Blind Date will set you up on quick dates with total strangers at public places like bars and coffee shops. You're not allowed to see their picture or even communicate. The service currently operates in NYC, SF, Austin and Boston.
- Eight tips on social skills that have been told over and over: Time-tested advice, advice that has survived and been rediscovered over the centuries often has good deal of practical value. [The Positivity Blog]
Wow, Reuters has a hilarious interview with Sacha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Borat. Life in Kazakhstan is very good, well.. at least according to Borat:
"I already in Kazakhstan, living very happilys with my new wife. This morning, I was awoke by my clock-radio (electronic LED), after which I remove my wife from her cage and she make me delicious breakfast of western cereal 'Frosties', which I have with delicious fresh milk from her chests..."
And If you are wondering who does he favor for President in the United States, it's definitely not Hillary Clinton:
"I cannot believe that it possible a woman can become Premier of US and A - in Kazakhstan, we say that to give a woman power, is like to give a monkey a gun - very dangerous. We do not give monkeys guns any more in Kazakhstan ever since the Astana Zoo massacre of 2003 when Torkin the orang-utan shoot 17 schoolchildrens. I personal would like the basketball player, Barak Obamas to be Premier."
You can read the rest of the interview here.
Oh boy, what a story here! Reports surfaced that the FBI tried to use records from San Francisco, CA grocery stores to spot terrorists. As ridiculous as it sounds, such stupid moves clearly show how desperate the US officials, in this case the FBI, is to disrupt domestic terrorism plots:
"Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists. The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area."
However, the project apparently didn't last very long:
"It [the project] was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal."
The entire article is a hilarious read from start to finish, so make sure to check it out here.
[Via BoingBoing]
- Dave Winer: I've given Leopard a chance, but it's pretty clear, this is not a good operating system release... Now it seems my friend was right, I'm using Windows again, and I'm not happy about it. [Scripting News]
- Big media companies' efforts to extend copyright are hurting creators' abilities to find audiences for their work, argues cyber-rights activist Cory Doctorow. [InformationWeek]
- A toddler born with eight limbs and believed by some to be the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess Vishnu, is set to undergo a 40-hour operation to remove half of her limbs. Lakshmi Tatma was born joined to a 'parasitic twin' and will go under the knife at the hands of 30 surgeons to remove two of her useless arms and legs. [DailyMail]
- Australian scientists have found how to switch hunger on and off using a molecule that targets the brain - a discovery which could stop weight loss in terminally ill patients or produce weight loss in the morbidly obese. [Reuters]
Not so much going on right now. I've been feeling kinda lazy and unproductive past few days - maybe because of the weather. I don't know and I don't care.
- Google today officially announced the Open Handset Alliance to create an open platform (to be called Android) for a Linux phone that can run mobile Google apps and others. [TechCrunch]
- The consensus today is that globally fluent graduates are essential to American competitiveness, making study abroad a must-have credential. But are American students ready — and willing — to experience the real world? [NY Times]
- The 15 Dumbest Apple Predictions Of All Time [Wired]
- PetroChina became the world's first company worth more than $1 trillion on Monday, surging past Exxon Mobil as the Chinese oil producer's shares nearly tripled in their first day of trading in China. [Huffington Post/AP]
- A virtual stripper named 'Melissa' that promises to progressively remove items of clothing for viewers who solve online CAPTCHAs is actually part of a scheme by spammers to crack web site registration traps meant to keep them out. [Read/WriteWeb]
- Last night, the New York Times quietly launched a new service called Blogrunner on the technology section of its main site. Blogrunner was one of many Techmeme copycat sites, until the NYT bought it last year. [TechCrunch]
- The new gPC is available now at Wal-Mart for US $200, including a keyboard and mouse. This Linux-powered computer has a 1.5 GHz Via processor, 512 MB of RAM and an 80 Gb hard drive. A monitor costs extra, and the Microsoft Tax is missing entirely. [NYTimes]
- Quote of the Week: "What does he [George W. Bush] have to show for his presidency? He is the President of the United States already talking about his library — what is he going to have in the library? A tax cut for the wealthiest people in the country at the expense of the middle class and a war without end that is a total failure?" — Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
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