MySpace and States Agree on Safety Guidelines

According to the Globe and Mail, and many other sources, MySpace and 49 state Attorney's have agreed on a broad set of guidelines to help protect youth online. "MySpace, ..., agreed to take further steps to ensure safety, including developing an e-mail registry that would allow parents to prohibit their children from creating an online profile for the network, according to the attorneys general." With 110 million global users and much popularity with the younger set, MySpace was a natural target for the states. “This is an industry-wide challenge and we must all work together to create a safer Internet,” MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a statement. Texas was the only holdout state.

No iPhone for Chinese Market

G4's The Feed blog is reporting that talks between Apple and China's largest cellphone provider China Mobile have broken off with no explanation. Apple had been hoping to tap into the 350 million user market but it doesn't look good! Perhaps the revenue sharing model is not as appealing to China Mobile as it was to AT&T?

Gizmodo Punks CES - Reaction Mixed

In this post, Gizmodo comes clean on pranking CES and provide a video as proof. Apparently armed with a TV-B-Gone remote control device, they ran amok turning screens off through out the show. The really interesting thing is the reaction they received in the comments to their post. I'm along with the group who laughed a bit but think they crossed the line in messing with the Motorola presentation. I'm constantly telling my children that a joke is only funny the first time or two, and gets really annoying after that. Interfering with someones presentation is, in my mind, taking things too far! We used to have a saying when I worked in the mining industry... "don't mess with any one's paycheck or their lunch" and in this case some body's paycheck could very well be on the line. To quote SNEAKY from the comments "Have fun getting press passes to another trade show."

I Love Lego Mindstorms!

While I was in Florida I had a chance to visit the Lego Store at Downtown Disney. To my dismay they did not stock the Mindstorms NXT, I'd probably be building robots and not blogging otherwise. I could have spent hours there, but it was busy and we had plenty more to see. Here is a great Mindstorms project that showed up on YouTube:

and here is a picture I shot at the Lego Store:

Canon S5 IS

I've posted some pics from our vacation at Disney World in Orlando to my Flickr site, more to come but just wanted to say that I'm really loving my Canon S5 IS. Many of the shots in the set that I've uploaded where taken during the Safari at Animal Kingdom. If you've ever been on the Safari you'll know that the vehicles never stop... so these shots were taken while in motion! I'm very pleased with the results.

Stealthy Windows Virus Looks For Bank Info

The BBC Is reporting that security experts are worried about a particularly stealthy new virus that seems to be after bank account info. The Mebroot virus as it has been dubbed is a rootkit virus that hides itself deep in the Master Boot Record and later downloads other malicious programs such as key loggers in an attempt to hijack banking information. It is suspected that a Russian hacking group is behind the virus which was detected on about 5,000 machines in December, mostly in Europe. The virus installs itself via booby-trapped websites that use vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Yet again another reason to use Firefox!

College Coaches to Vote on Texting as a Recruiting Tool

College basketball is competitive on many levels, least of which is the recruitment of top ranked high school players. For many coaches trying to recruit, text messaging or texting has become a valuable tool which reaches the young stars in a manner that they are familiar and comfortable with. There is a fine line however and some students have begun to complain that all of the messages are costing them time and money leading the N.C.A.A. to put a ban on the practice for Division I colleges last August. Today during their annual convention, representatives from the N.C.A.A.’s Division I members are expected to revisit the issue after 34 of the 329 colleges asked for an override vote. Some are suggesting that governing body reinstate the practice but put restrictions on the use of texting similar to those imposed on placing phone calls to the recruits. What an interesting dilemma! Sort of like that which we all face when we get those annoying telemarketing calls, only for these kids there are real benefits to staying in touch with certain coaches while others with whom they have no interest still want to be heard. The New York Times has the story here.

British Schools and Colleges Being Advised to Stay Clear of Vista

According to InfoWorld, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), the agency that is responsible for advising educational institutes in their use of IT, British schools and colleges should avoid Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 unless they are rolling out all-new infrastructure. "We have not had sight of any evidence to support the argument that the costs of upgrading to Vista in educational establishments would be offset by appropriate benefit," the agency said in a report (pdf - download). The report also calls on schools to educate teachers, parents and pupils about free alternatives to Microsoft's products, and asked the IT industry to facilitate their use. Geeks rejoice! We're not alone in our thinking anymore...

Writer's Strike Helping Online Video?

Online video sites are seeing huge jumps in traffic from the US this fall and speculation is that the writer's strike is driving the surge. YouTube's numbers are up and new comer, Crackle, has seen it's numbers double since the strike began. "That is greater growth than you would normally see in such a short period and the strike could be a possible factor," Nielsen analyst Alex Burmaster is quoted as saying in this BBC article. Other things to consider are a 9% increase in high-speed connections at home in the US, where 54% of adults report having high-speed. I'm thinking that the Television networks had better take notice, as TV has already fallen out of favour with the younger crowd. I'd estimate that my teens already spend much more time on the PC than they do watching television, while it's generally on it usually is only background noise... their attention is primarily on the computer monitor. A prolonged strike may do irreversible harm to what is suspect are already dwindling ratings within the under 30 demographic.

Intel promises WiMax embedded chips this summer

According to this CBC report, "Intel Corp. announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it will ship computer chips embedded with WiMax receivers beginning this summer." The announcement was met with optimism by broadband provider Rogers, "That's a very favourable sign for WiMax," said David Robinson, vice-president of new business planning for Rogers Wireless. The article goes on to say "the technology is expected to be able to deliver Internet speeds of about 15 megabits per second within three kilometres of a transmitter." This sounds very promising, I hope the Disney folks invest in a few transmitters... my blogging was stymied last week by a bad NIC card and no WiFi, at least at Coronado Springs!