Starbucks Union

This news article say authorities in China "have blocked the search engines of two of the country's most popular web portals as part of their efforts to censor the internet.The search engines at Sina.com and Sohu.com had been shut since noon on Monday.Searches conducted on Tuesday brought up messages saying the sites were undergoing upgrades."As of yesterday noon,all the databases have been in a state of closure because relevant government internet supervision departments were censoring our databases,"a member of customer service staff at Sina.com said."It affects not just Sina,but Sohu as well, so our search engines are not in use,"said the staff member, declining to give her name.She said she was unsure which content was being censored but added that the search service should resume service on Thursday". China blocks search engines

Web Metrics has been growing and maturing as field and now every one wants and needs metrics to define and measure online success. Last week I attended my first informal gathering with fellow web analytsts but had no notion that I would be covering the Next EMetrics Summit in Washington DC, October 16-18, 2006. For all the things mentioned in SmartMobs, the measurement of what actually happens when SmartMobs cooperate using wireless technology is the domain of metrics - which as become more sohisticated.

I have always wanted one of these and I wondered when someone would invent it. Other than USB the shirt is powered by four AA batteries or your car's cigars socket. This ingenious idea is the brain child of Kouzi Ichigaya an ex Sony technician. At present half sleeve shirts for men and women are available with this unique system in Japan. I needed a shirt like that over the weekend when we had 95 degrees in NYC; there are places where you might be and there's no air conditioning, like my studio at BAG where great space exists to paint but it's hot. In the future we won't have to worry about where we are if we have Air Conditioner Clothes.

CNN reports "while Maj. Mike McNamara was in Iraq,his family handled much of his city council campaign for him:They handed out fliers,held a campaign rally and put up signs around town.Meanwhile,he answered voters' questions from Falluja by e-mail.The strategy paid off this week when the Marine reservist won a seat on the Grand Forks City Council". Internet campaign from Iraq wins Dakota election

This smh article says "marketers and the anti-piracy brigade are salivating over the potential of a new worldwide standard for tagging audio-visual content.Launched in Australia last week,ISAN (International Standard Audiovisual Number),the equivalent to the book world's ISBN,applies to TV,feature films,advertisements and computer games.The 92-bit ISAN identifies content and links to a central database in Geneva containing metadata such as title,author,language,full credits,duration and classification.It will be used on packaging and inserted into advertisements using tags or digital watermarks.ISAN international chief executive Patrick Attallah says the new standard,a not-for-profit system designed by industry consensus,will help build applications that track the spread and use of audio-visual content across the world.Along with metering and customer profiling applications,it could also form a platform for new types of interactivity.Computer game producers plan to use the number to track the use of their games over the internet.ISAN will also allow them to see which versions of their software are running.Advertisers may also use the system to track how often their in-game spots are viewed.ISAN tracking will be built into the media player in Windows Vista,the new operating system that Microsoft plans to release next year. Mr Attallah says the player will cross-reference the metadata of audiovisual files,for instance allowing computer owners to prevent their children watching mature-rated videos.The ISAN is already being incorporated in a video watermark used by British broadcasters,who want to monitor the use of their satellite uploads around the world".Further,"all major studios in Hollywood and most in Europe have agreed to create an ISAN for every new feature film or TV episode they create". Digital watermark rolls out

This news article says "one of the most common online frauds,the Nigerian letter scam,varies,but focuses on a theme:an African dictator or business mogul has died leaving an unclaimed fortune.To get their hands on it,all the "mugu",or victim has to do is pay some fees".And,"thousands of Australians fall victim to the scammers every year"."Now,a select group of Australian internet experts has gone undercover,informally recruited by the South Africa Police Service to hunt and hand over the scammers."Scammers are professional liars and conmen,criminals pure and simple,"said one Australian bounty hunter,who asked to be identified only as NN."They prey on anyone who will respond."NN is a member of internet conman baiting site 419eater.com.The site,which gets its name from the section of the Nigerian penal code dealing with fraud, is there to catch scammers in the act.Many of the bounty hunters have been recruited by South Africa Police to "collect information and intelligence" on crooks.They play along with scammers,identifying their location by their internet protocol address or by information they receive as the scam proceeds,and then hand the details to police."We pretend to be different characters,such as elderly retired people,"NN said.In a number of cases,information provided to police by scam baiters has led to convictions.The bounty hunters are vetted by South Africa Police Intelligence before being admitted into a password-protected online community that allows them to share information with police around the world". Bounty hunters track net scams

Alfie Dennen wrote Smarmobs the following. "There is an interesting phenomenon occuring at moblogUK; bands and musicians using mobile blogging to connect with their fans instantly, and inviting their fans to both comment and interact with their moblogs themselves. It reminds me most of the reason why myspace was so good for so long; bands had a new way of sharing their music directly with fans, interacting intimately with those fans, and inviting them to comment too. Where mobile blogging wins out over and differs from the myspace phenomenon is that it offers an *instant* tool for communicating, and is very intimate; images, video and audio direct from the practice room, the tour bus, the stage. As well as this, fans can then send in their own shots from gigs and concerts to the same shared moblog, creating a shared and interactive mobile blogging space that they *share with the band they love*. I think this phenomenon is set to gow and grow - we have relationships with EMI, Polydor, Mute and Warp records, and they are bringing more bands to moblog every day". Imogen Heap, Maximo Park TempoShark Goldfrapp Nemo International Humanzi) Zoe Keating Sophie Solomon The Automatic The BangBang Club Getamped Temposhark Hope you find this interesting! -- Alfie Dennen Web and mobile www.moblog.co.uk

The latest Net neutrality provisions in a mammoth Senate communications bill stopped short of giving Internet companies and consumer advocacy groups all the assurances they've requested. ZDNet reports. Unveiled formally at a briefing here for reporters on Monday, new provisions in the latest draft of the sweeping Consumer's Choice and Broadband Deployment Act would allow the Federal Communications Commission to police subscribers' complaints of "interference" in their Internet activities and to levy fines on violators. Specifically, the bill would require all Internet service providers to adhere to what the proposal calls an "Internet consumer bill of rights." The nine principles outlined under that heading include: allowing consumers to access and post any lawful content they please; to access and run any Web page, search engine or application that they choose (including voice and video programs); and to connect any legal devices they please to the network.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has started last week to test unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). These small drones, which look like toys, weigh about 5 pounds and are equipped with a GPS device and a camera. They can fly at speeds up to 30 miles per hour for 70 minutes and cost less than 30,000 dollars. Links: Primidi, ZDNet

Arnaud Leene, presented in Innsbruck Austria on June 7 at Microlearning 2006 (program) (subjects and topics) (proceedings 2005) his views on what he calls the MicroWeb. MicroContent is still a fairly new subject. In his presentation Arnaud sketches how MicroContent can be used and is used in practice. Stephen Downes presentation was about E-learning 2.0 Also see the conferences MicroWiki and read Arnaud's Microcontent musings and check for an overview the Technorati tags MicroContent and Microlearning. ...

This Shanghai Daily article says "in trying to sanitize Shanghai's image,the film censors scrutinizing "Mission: Impossible III" missed a phone number for phony documents that China netizens trumpeted".The "one shot the censors initially missed was a scene of protagonist Tom Cruise running past a wall with a poster promoting sale of counterfeit documents,identification papers,college degrees,business papers,drivers' licenses - you name it.It was part of the local color and reality in downtown city streets.The fleeting scene was an embarrassing reminder of the rampant illegal sales of bogus documents for any underachiever or pretender.Media reports said other aspects of the film were embarrassing,the police being inept and slow to respond to emergencies,and the common practice of hanging laundry to dry on poles outside of windows.It was not known whether laundry or police scenes would be cut for not exemplifying cosmopolitan Shanghai.But local media reports about the illegal document bu...

Promo Magazine covers the recent appearance of the worlds largest brain in Times Square, NYC. "Passersby are doing double takes at the world's biggest brain, fashioned as a two-story terrarium atop the Hard Rock Café Marquee in New York City as part of Yahoo's latest promotion. Yahoo unveiled a purple brain in Times Square to promote Yahoo Answers The prop was unveiled yesterday in Times Square for the search engine's Ask the Planet 2006 campaign to promote Yahoo Answers, an online community where consumers ask and answer questions on any topic. The terrarium accommodates 22 "brainiacs," who work within the gigantic purple brain—which is complete with firing synapses and lobes—answering questions from Yahoo Answers users around the world. The brainiacs were picked from an online submission process. Onlookers can stop by highly trafficked Military Island in Times Square, directly across from the brain, to use PCs to ask or answer questions on the Web site. At Yahoo.com, consu...

The New York Times reports today on a Brooklyn entertainer named Ze Frank who used SmartMobs consisting of blog subscribers to work together and write as script for an online video that he would faithfully execute the script no matter how absurb and post the video on his site. ...."With help from a programmer friend, he set up the comedy-writing equivalent of a Wikipedia page — an online site where anyone could write a joke and edit or even delete the jokes of others — and told his viewing public that if they were so brilliant, they could collaborate to write a script for his show. If they did so, Mr. Frank promised, he would faithfully execute it, no matter how absurd, and post the resulting video on his site. ...."All the feedback started Mr. Frank thinking, and he decided to turn his show over to his viewers. He offered them no guidance, and promised to perform their script faithfully, so long as it was under three minutes long, and required no nudity." ....." o...

Endadget has a post about a data storage teddy bear that just happens to scare childern. ......"whoever created this little guy, whose head has to be removed in order to access the internal USB drive, must have watched one too many Tim Burton movies. No word on how much it holds or if there are any plans to make these available for purchase, but with your own bear, a thumb drive, some thread and a closet full of skeletons, you can probably make your own without too much effort". ...

The Sunday Times in Britain has an article in the future "code of ethics" for robots as they become more sophisticated. ..."scientists believe the boundaries for human-robot interaction must be set now — before super-intelligent robots develop beyond our control." ..." And what happens if robots turn out to be sexy? “The question is what authority are we going to delegate to these machines?” It's hard for me to see how the robot vaccume machines of today are going to become the sex robots of tomorrow (I suppose the vaccume machine could evolve yet). There's also the issue of how robots would communicate with each other (as well as with humans) using wireless networks. ..."But far more sophisticated machines are being developed. The National Health Service has used a robot called da Vinci to perform surgery at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. In Japan, human-like robots such as Honda’s Asimo and Sony’s Qrio can walk on two legs. More a...

Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears In that old battle of the wills between young people and their keepers, the young have found a new weapon that could change the balance of power on the cellphone front: a ring tone that many adults cannot hear. Source: Paul Vitello, The New York Times, June 12, 2006 (Free registration, permanent link) Social networks poised to shape Net's future Social networks, mobile video and "Googlism" will continue to transform the Net in years ahead, Piper Jaffray analysts said Monday at the opening of its annual Global Internet Summit. Source: Stefanie Olsen, CNET News.com, June 12, 2006 Netscape to Take On Slashdot Can a Web site get Netscape-dotted? New Netscape portal hopes to give Slashdot and Digg a run for their money. Source: Tom Spring, PCWorld.com, June 15, 2006 Capturing Experiences Anytime, Anywhere The authors study three technologies: LifeBlog soft...

This news article says "tests to determine how much material major web players filter from their search results to appease China's censors showed Yahoo to be the most enthusiastic collaborator,an international media watchdog has reported.The group,Reporters Without Borders ("Reporters Sans Frontieres",or RSF) found Yahoo's Yahoo.cn website censored material more vigorously than Google,Microsoft's beta-version MSN.cn site and even Chinese local baidu.com.Typing search terms such as "Tibet independence" into Yahoo's Chinese search engine produced an error message and temporarily "blocked" the search tool,with users having to wait an hour before even neutral search terms could again be used,RSF said.But Yahoo was not the only group rounded on by the organisation."While Microsoft has just said it does not operate censorship,Reporters Without Borders found that the Chinese version of its search engine displays similar results to those of Google.cn,"it said."Microsoft,like Google,appears not...

iBand is a "wearable bracelet that is capable of exchanging contact & biographical information during a handshake,"this information aesthetics post says."The LED display woven into the device shows personal logos,depending on the amount of hands that have been shaken.When the user returns to an information kiosk,it displays a list of new contacts.The device consists of an array of LED lights,a circuit board,a flat battery under the wrist & an infrared (IR) transceiver positioned near the back of the thumb pointing toward the hand". iband bracelet display...

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Acting Commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) Ronald M. Bergmann last week announced plans to test two competing wireless technologies to create a Citywide Mobile Wireless Network (CMWN) for emergency responders,"govtech.net reports."The wireless technology will enable New York City Police and Fire Department personnel to quickly access and download information including city maps,building plans and federal and state counter-terrorism and crime databases from police vehicles and fire and EMS apparatus.In addition,city agencies employing safety inspectors and maintenance teams in the field will also be able to utilize the wireless network.In the first phase of the project,the two companies selected for the pilot, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Motorola,will install and test their wireless capabilities in Lower Manhattan.After the six-month pilot,the city may select one of the vendors to implement the wire...

"Frequent readers of newspaper Web sites are more likely to make online purchases than other Internet users,according to a study released on Friday by the Newspaper Association of America,"This CNet news article says."Eighty-two percent of so-called "power users",those who visit a newspaper Web site on an average day,have bought products online,compared with 55 percent who are less frequent visitors,the study said". Web news fans are keen online shoppers,study finds...