Category: Internet
Google adds Mapplets for personalising Google Maps
Google has officially released a new feature add-on for Google Maps that will allow users to personalise maps by layering additional information on top of the basic maps. Mapplets can be used for layering hotel, fuel, and weather information…
IWOOT opens up in Second Life
Gadget retailer iwantoneofthose.com has opened up shop today in Second Life.
The store is housed on the IWOOT island and the firm say it’s the first within the virtual world that lets you buy over the counter with Second Life’s currency Linden Dollars rather than be pushed to an outside website to make the purchase.
As well as buying real products to be posted to customers at home, the shop will also sell virtual versions of popular IWOOT gizmos to be used in the online community. It was launched in 2003 by Linden Lab and has more than seven million registered users living an alternative existence there each day…
Chinese girls having sex because of Internet, says gov't
Zhang Zhengrong oversees the Shanghai hotline for pregnant teenage girls, and says almost half of the 20,000 callers met their beaux over the Internet. Therefore, the Internet is responsible! “Most of the fathers disappeared after learning about the pregnancy, and some of the mothers did not even know the fathers’ names,” the China Daily said. Also, that never happened before the Internet! The “the Internet is to blame” idea seems mostly to have come from that a survey by Zhang’s hospital showed fewer than 8% of parents spoke to their children about sex, and almost 80% of young people learned about sex from the Internet. So if there’s an upswing in the number of Chinese midgets spanking men covered in Thousand Island dressing, we’ll know… they’re reading South Park transcripts over the Internet. [GT]
China blames Internet for rise in teen pregnancies
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Need a course in safecracking? Google it
Rule #1 of committing a crime: do your research first — or have Google handy. Two burglars broke into an indoor amusement center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where, first, they tried to disable a security camera by spraying it with WD-40 (which is apparently a great glass cleaner). They then spent 70 minutes trying to get into three safes, despite the fact that they appeared to have the combinations. Finally, they had a brilliant idea and used an office computer to Google for “how to open a safe” and “how to crack a safe”. They were then able to easily open the safes — and abscond with $12,000. “They’re not professional safe people,” said Colorado Springs police detective Chuck Ackerman. Indeed! [GT]
Colorado crooks use Google search to help crack safe
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Hong Kong blogger faces HK$400,000 fine, 12 months jail, for linking
To protest the overly broad province of the Obscene Articles Tribunal of the Hong Kong Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA), activist Oiwan Lam deliberately linked, in conjunction with writing on the tasteful photography to be found there, the keyword ‘nude’ on Flickr. Result: Lam’s page was classified as a Class II indecent article by the Obscene Articles Tribunal. He faces up to HK$400,000 in fines and 12 months in jail. [GT]
Interview with Oiwan Lam (via Boing Boing)
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Visit glorious Dresden via Google Earth
If you’ve ever wanted to see how the rebuilding work is coming along in poor old blitzed Dresden, now you can – thanks to a free Google Earth representation of the city.
Borders promoting new books by TXT MSG
Cosmopolitan book/cafe chain Borders has announced plans to send sample chapters of new releases to customers’ mobiles, to get literary types into a HOT FRENZY before books are released.
T-Mobile launches Pocket Comedy TV on its mobile TV trial service
T-Mobile has announced that it’s launching Pocket Comedy TV on its trial mobile TV service. The specially designed-for-mobile TV channel from Mobix will feature a range of stand-up and TV comedy, as well as cartoons and viral comedy clips, with comedians including Ricky Gervais, Lee Evans and Jack Dee, and programmes including Father Ted and League of Gentlemen.
Though details are a little sketchy (uh ha ha), the promise is that the channel has been designed specifically with mobile users on small screens in mind – presumably rather than simply being ported from other formats – and the content is updated regularly.
US judges rule warrantless tracking of Internet use OK
This weekend, in a 3-0 ruling, California judges ruled that investigators may monitor URLs and email addresses visited by suspects without need for wiretap authorization. This does not entitle them to snoop the actual content of the pages or emails. Judges ruled that this was equivalent to “pen register” law already in place, which allowed investigators to monitor phone numbers called and addresses visited without actually being privy to the contents of any communication passed within. “[I]t does not find out the contents of the messages or the particular pages on the Web sites the person viewed,” said the ruling. The rationale was that since users already submit those addresses for use by their ISP, they have already forfeited expectation of privacy concerning them, same as if they’d written an address on an envelope and expected the Post Office to read it. [GT]
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Spammers crack open 'captcha' codes, report suggests
A report from security firm BitDefender suggests that spammers may have found a way to automatically break through certain types of graphical “captcha” code.
“Captchas” are used in an attempt to restrict certain online registrations and other interactions to real human beings, rather than automated robots. They’re a fairly controversial method that are supposed to reduce the amount of spam circulating the web, but are difficult or impossible for some humans to read, as well as adding another level of complexity to simple processes.
