The Virtual World Gets Surprisingly Lifelike- December 17, 2003 The Sims Online - an Internet-only world where ordinary folk can take on another persona and interact with other folk virtually -- seems to be exhibiting all the signs of the real world, with a twist. Salon carries an article about a Sims community called Alphaville, and some of its citizens, including an academic called Urizenus (in real life, Michigan philosophy professor Peter Ludlow), a young man (or, possibly, a boy) called Evangeline, allegations of extortion, and the possible existence...http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107164484028967033 The Future Of The Net- December 16, 2003 Newsweek takes a look (via TechDirt) at a future Internet controlled by corporations and governments through Digital Rights Management, secure chips and micropayments. It's an interesting article, and makes me ponder some interesting supplementary questions: Are spammers, for example, the enemy of ordinary Internet folk, or virtual Robin Hoods eluding corporate control of the web We all hate them now, true, but may we look back on them -- at some future point when corporate and governmental...http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107161880966493369 The Year Of The Worm- December 16, 2003 Nothing new in this, but a fascinating summary of this year's viruses, and a sober reminder of how tricky it's all getting: F-Secure's review of 2003 makes for interesting reading. This for example, on how the Slammer worm caused so much network traffic: In theory, there are some 4 billion public IP addresses on the Internet. The Slammer worm was released on January 25, 2003 around 04:31 UTC. By 04:45 it had scanned through all Internet addresses - in less than 15 minutes! This operation can be.http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107158951491365697 More On Google's Masterplan- December 16, 2003 BusinessWeek pick up the theme of Google taking on the world. With the ability to track shipments and airplanes in real time via Google, the search engine keeps eyeballs on its website longer. But "Google is providing this new shipment tracking service even though it doesn't have a partnership with FedEx. Rather, Google engineers have reprogrammed it to query FedEx directly with the information a user enters and provide the hyperlink direct to the customer's information."But, BusinessWeek point.http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107156645814644632 Nokia Sets An Example For RSS- December 16, 2003 Here's a sign of what a company can do with RSS, winning fans, distributing information and building bridges. Technical consultant and blogger Russell Beattie points to a wonderful page by Nokia, containing all of Nokia's documents, announcements and toolkits via a bunch of different RSS feeds. As Russell says, "There's sooooo much to be gleaned from Nokia's site it's incredible." He points to just one document, a presentation Music, video, streaming contents services Demand in Asia Pacific...http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107155808721589778 Zone Labs Snapped Up - Firewalls R Us- December 16, 2003 My favourite firewall, Zone Alarm, is being bought by another firewall maker, Check Point Software Technologies CNet News.com. It looks to me as if there's quite significant consolidation within the security software industry, not just from the point of view of big guys buying the smaller guys, but of companies trying to create products that offer an all-round 'security solution'. Symantec have long peddled this type of idea, but in their 2004 editions have increased the coverage to include...http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107154507356930527 Are Privacy Fears About RFID Tags Just Hype- December 16, 2003 Reports that delegates to the World Summit on the Information Society conference in Geneva were unwittingly wearing RFID tags which could have tracked their movements, attendance at meetings or seminars, visits to the john etc etc has raised some debate about RFID (Radio Frequency ID), privacy, security and the rights of the individual to know what the tag around their neck actually tells people about them. My posting, which didn't actually make any specific comment about the news, prompted...http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107153361182976481 loosewire blog notice -- We're Moving- December 15, 2003 My apologies for moving again, but we're gradually relocating the loosewire blog to new premises. This URL is the best one to use: loosewireblog.com. The new site uses TypePad, which offers greater flexibility for categorising and archiving posts. Let me know what you think about the move. If you're an RSS feed user, please change your feed to this one (right click, copy the address, and paste it into your newsfeed reader. (I'm using Luke Hutteman's excellent SharpReader).Email subscribers will.http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107145946314081460 Getting Dumb With PowerPoint- December 15, 2003 I'm a fan of Edward Tufte, the guru of charts, but I'm still not sure about his view of PowerPoint. The New York Times Magazine has another article on his recent polemic against Microsoft's presentation software. Tufte claimed, as the NYT piece says, that Microsoft's ubiquitous software forces people to mutilate data beyond comprehension, infusing PowerPoint with ''an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.''Not that Microsoft gets it either: NYT quotes Simon Marks,..http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107145895223333256 RFID Secretly Tags The Internet Summit- December 15, 2003 The Washington Times has an interesting piece about the the Internet and technology summit in Switzerland last week. Delegates, it says, were unknowingly bugged with RFID tags, according to researchers who attended the forum. RFID is Radio Frequency ID, which means the tags could have contained and given off all sorts of information, including the wearer's exact location. The badges were handed out to more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other high-level officials from 174 countries,...http://loosewire.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_loosewire_archive.html#107145695225294985 |