Category: Web 2.0
Nuke your enemies with a mashup
I hate Gary Cutlack. I don’t actually hate him, but for the purposes of this article, let’s assume I do. Let’s assume I wanted to drop a nuclear bomb on his head, as in the picture to the right. How would I go about doing that?
I could enter into shady negotiations with North Korea or a breakaway Russian republic, but it’s much quicker and easier to just use this Google Maps mashup instead. Simply search for your target, pick a bomb, and you can see exactly how far away people will be affected by the thermal effects of the explosion.
Interestingly, if someone nuked Covent Garden, the inhabitants of Regents Park would be fine. Well, fine until the fallout began, anyway. An asteroid strike, on the other hand, would annihilate everything down to the Sahara. Ouch.
Who would you nuke and why? Let us know in the comments.
(via io9)
MPs call for regulations for Twitter over child safety concerns
Well, perhaps that standfirst is a little over-dramatic but, just as the original incarnations of Napster and YouTube were utterly ruined, the same might be about to happen to Twitter. The internet police are coming…
Amazon makes a terabyte of public data available on its servers
Amazon’s got quite a bit of spare server capacity. In its goal to become the world’s top online retailer, it bought so many servers that it’s now also running a cloud computing business on the side that’s actually rather cheap.
Last night, Amazon announced on its Amazon Web Services blog that it would be making a terabyte of public data available to its cloud computing users, for them to do whatever they like with.
The data includes stats from the US bureau of transportation , an *entire* dump of Wikipedia, the DBPedia knowledgebase (which includes info on 2.6 million people, places, films, albums and companies) and all publicly available DNA sequences, including the entire human genome.
There’s also a bunch of other stuff, and it’s all being made available at lightning-fast speed in machine-readable databases to Amazon’s cloud computing customers. It’ll take a while for the internet to really get to grips with this stuff and use it, but anything that’s about freeing up data and information is wholly supported around here. Three cheers for Amazon.
What would you do with the data? Work out why your trains are always late? Work out how many degrees of link separation a random Wikipedia article has to another? Use the human genome to create a clone army and take over the world? Share your ideas in the comments, and make me your second-in-command as world leader.
Amazon Blog (via ReadWriteWeb)
Thousands of MySpace sex offender "refugees" booted off Facebook
Since last May, Facebook has removed 5,500 registered sex offenders from its social network, many of whom are claimed to be ‘refugees’ from MySpace who themselves have booted 90,000 sex offenders in the last couple of years.
Last year, the Attorney General of the USA forced both sites to implement considerably more stringent safeguards – preventing older users searching profiles of sub-18-year-olds, and finding better ways of age verification.
Facebook relies on using people’s real names, and that helps, but the amount of people I know on Facebook who aren’t using their exact real names makes that reliance rather concerning. There’ll always be sex offenders on the sites, I suppose, and what’s most needed is a bit of common sense, and education, in kids of the dangers.
(via AP and TechCrunch)
Daily Mail Online headline: How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer
Do the Daily Mail and it’s online counterpart write these stories to create outrage or to write sensationalist nonsense? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because it must work both ways. On the one hand, these kinds of stories sell papers/attract traffic and on the other hand it brings them publicity. Well, I’m sitting here writing about it, aren’t I?
So, today’s pile of old toot is about the possible link between social networking and cancer. Oh really. Now, I feel rather sorry for psychologist Dr Aric Sigman who mainly talks about how using Facebook and MySpace causes a decrease in face to face social interaction and how that might lead to socio-psychological issues.
To give the doctor an incredibly generous benefit of the doubt, it might…
Seety: gazumping Google Street View for London
Google’s been taking its sweet time over the release of Street View for the UK, and as happens when you take too long over something, another company’s gone and done it instead. Well, not the whole of the UK, just central London, but that’s good enough for me.
Visiting Seety.co.uk, you get a Google Map of central London, and you just click to open up a Street-View esque image of the area, which you can then navigate around with arrows. All faces are blurred, and some of the smaller roads haven’t quite been indexed, but the majority of central London is present and correct.
It stretches most of the way up Holloway Road to the north, and not very far south – just down to Elephant and Castle. Out east it stretches approximately to Bow and Limehouse, and west, you don’t make it much further than Shepherd’s Bush. It needs a bit of extension, then, but what’s present is very impressive, especially given the higgledy-piggledy layout of London’s streets compared to American cities.
It’s unfortunate, though, that as soon as Google brings out its own Street View product, which can’t be far off, then this will become mostly obsolete. Still, in the meantime, enjoy looking around London, and if you find anything interesting, send us the screenshot!
Facebook rolls back terms of service change
Following massive user outcry over the changes to Facebook’s terms of service yesterday, the company is rolling back the alteration for the time being. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the update-to-the-update in a blog post on the Facebook website:
“A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.”
Facebook began by polling users over the changes, with 56 percent opposing, 6 percent supporting, and 38 percent clicking “I don’t know”, according to Mashable. Zuckerberg has now reverted the changes, and is inviting users to a group called Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities to discuss how to take things forward. At the time of writing, 12,000 members have taken him up on the offer, but expect that to rise rapidly as the news spreads today.
(via Mashable)
Facebook changes terms of service, outcry ensues
A couple of weeks ago, Facebook changed its terms of service so that users won’t be able to delete their data if they leave the site. The blogosphere immediately erupted with criticism and it prompted a blog post from Mark Zuckerberg himself on who owns the data.
Facebook had been criticized for allowing a situation where someone could take a photo of you, upload it to the site, and then neither of you would be able to stop Facebook from using it for whatever purposes they like. You essentially waive all rights to the data.
Zuckerberg’s response to concerns is basically ‘chill out – we’re not going to take the piss here’. He doesn’t apologize, or even offer to soften the language – just asks users to trust the company. But how can users trust a company slowly eroding their rights?
Sure, odds are that Facebook isn’t going to suddenly abuse millions of people’s personal info, but if that’s the case, then why not retain the original language? Facebook has a history of communicating changes badly, and this is just another in a long line of screwups that include the profile redesign and the “Beacon” fiasco.
eBay Nutcase of the Week: The alleged last bag of Woolworths Pic 'N' Mix can be yours
If you missed out on the thrilling, frenzied, staff-assaulting, dignity-sapping, blatant and aggressive looting of the once-proud Woolworths brand over Christmas and the New Year, there’s still time to get yourself a bit of Woolies history.
Enterprising store manager Ed Adams, of the Petts Wood branch in Orpington, London, decided to nick/liberate the last remaining scraps from his branch’s Pic ‘N’ Mix display counter – an 800g selection of “delicious nostalgia” he’s now put up for sale on eBay…
Speak Swedish? Speak English? Want to help The Pirate Bay live-blog its imminent copyright trial via Twitter?
Then step right up! The Pirate Bay, the mega piracy portal which always goes to great lengths to point out it doesn’t actually host the files it catalogues, is going to court very soon – charged with, well, you can probably guess. Letting the world watch Quantum of Solace without having to go to the cinema or HMV.
A live audio feed of the Bay’s trial will be made available online, but the problem is it’s all being conducted in Sweden. In Swedish. And with the best will in the world, Swedish could never be described as the language of the internet. We’d imagine it’s only the third most popular language even in Sweden…
