Top Items:
New York Times:
Technology and Easy Credit Give Identity Thieves an Edge — PHOENIX — In a Scottsdale police station last December, a 23-year-old methamphetamine user showed officers a new way to steal identities. — His arrest had been unremarkable. This metropolitan area, which includes Scottsdale and Phoenix …
Discussion:
Jeff Clavier's Software Only
Matt Richtel / New York Times:
Earn Cellphone Minutes by Watching Ads — With the cost of mobile phone calls already dropping sharply, Virgin Mobile USA plans to announce a way that people can talk for no money at all. They will, however, have to pay with a chunk of their attention. — The program, called SugarMama …
Matt Biddulph / hackdiary:
Alas, Second Life! Web 2.0 in a virtual world — Second Life has been my new hacking obsession ever since I bought a laptop fast enough to run it. I don't spend a lot of time socialising in the gameworld, but I am fascinated by the possibilities for makers of new user interfaces, useful virtual objects and playful toys.
NEWS.com.au:
Sir, I'm afraid it's 'ringxiety' — IT IS a familiar and unnerving sensation: the false belief that you can hear your mobile phone ringing or vibrating. — Now the phenomenon is so widespread it has an official name: "ringxiety". — People have grown emotionally dependent on their mobiles …
Discussion:
Digital Inspiration
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Reuters:
AMD to invest $2.5 billion in German factories — Advanced Micro Devices, the No. 2 maker of microchips for personal computers, said on Monday it will spend an additional $2.5 billion to upgrade and expand its two factories in Germany. — The investment comes as AMD steadily gains market share …
Star C. Foster / Shiny Shiny:
SteriPEN Water Purifier — A few moments ago, I wasn't too worried about my water. Then I read about the SteriPEN, a device for travellers that claims to use UV light to clean driniking water of "bacteria, viruses and protozoa," and now I'm looking at my daily recommended a glasses a day askance.
Eliot Van Buskirk / Wired News:
Music Phones Want to Be Free — For years, people have been speculating about the two possible futures of portable devices. Are they going to continue to be somewhat specialized, or will we end up with one device that does everything? From the music fan's perspective …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
CNET's AllYouCanUpload Is Disruptive — CNET very quietly launched a simple new photo uploading site called AllYouCanUpload last week. At first glance it doesn't appear to be very special or disruptive. But it is. — By launching AllYouCanUpload, CNET just pulled the rug out from under …
Read/WriteWeb:
Worldwide Internet Penetration is just 15% — According to the Miniwatts Marketing Group's Internet Usage and World Population Statistics (last updated March 31, 2006), worldwide Internet penetration is only 15.7%! So much for the World Wide Web... this is indeed sobering stuff for those of us obsessed with 'web 2.0' technology.
Bob Tedeschi / New York Times:
Pay Bills With a Click? More Americans Are Doing It and Banks Are Loving It — FROM the annals of Online Economics 101 comes this shocker: free is good, especially when it comes to paying bills. — Big billers like Verizon Wireless and ConEd learned this bit of wisdom years ago …
Martin Fackler / New York Times:
Cutting Sony, a Corporate Octopus, Back to a Rational Size — WAKO, Japan — When Kumiko Ishioka bought car insurance last year, she chose the company that offered the cheapest rate. It also helped that the company bore the same brand name as that on her life insurance policy, her favorite skin lotion and her television set — Sony.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Sharp's MP-B300: where thin and ugly meet — This 8.9-millimeter thin Sharp-made eyesore goes by the name MP-B300. It ekes-out up to 1GB of on-board memory with the possibility for more via miniSD expansion. Yeah, the included FM-transmitter is kinda cool, allowing the player to pump tunes …
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thinkvitamin.com:
RESPONSIBLE ASYNCHRONOUS SCRIPTING — AJAX and its kin are empowering developers, but with great power comes great responsibility. — Asynchronous or remote scripting has been lurking in the background of web app development for quite some time now. Originally dependent on proprietary technology …
Chris Pirillo:
65 More Windows Vista Mistakes — I just couldn't leave well enough alone. Even after my problems with Outlook 2007, and my original feedback on Windows Vista, I went deeper into Windows Vista's second beta. This time, I didn't concentrate so much on the font issues (so that I couldn't be accused of being such a nitpicker).
Mike / CrunchNotes:
On Conflicts of Interest and TechCrunch — On a recent Gillmor Gang, at around minute 21:30, Jason Calacanis innocently says something like "I heard you could buy a review at TechCrunch". A discussion begins about conflicts of interest, at one point Jason says "just the appearance of impropriety is impropriety."
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Meet New (Random) Friends at Fo.rtuito.us — Fo.rtuito.us is a brand new site, complete with last minute bugs, that is soft launching this week. — When you register at Fo.rtuito.us it randomly introduces you to another member. You have four days to interact with that member via anonymous email to see if you can become friends.
Michael Bazeley / SiliconBeat:
Jangl's new angle on phone calling — We weren't sure about Jangl when we first sat down with founder Michael Cerda last week. But after an hour of dissecting the company and its product, it seems Cerda might be onto something. — Jangl is a new phone service that, initially anyway …
