Plus RIM wants NFC, Nokia's fears, AT&T cuts the tethered, life in the Apple Store and more
A burst of 15 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Radiation: not a comic, but facts >> xkcd
Cementing xkcd's status as the place where you get facts as well as geek humour. Did you know that a mammogram gives you almost exactly the same radiation dose as the worst you could have received as one of the Fukushima 50 nuclear workers - and that both are below the normal yearly background dose?
Fix Tumblr >> Red Sweater Blog
"Tumblr has a problem. Since late 2010 and for all of 2011 they have been suffering enough downtime and flakiness that a growing chorus of users is lambasting the service. Without judging whether that's fair or justified, let's accept that what used to be a widely lauded service is becoming a widely criticized one. "But how big of a problem is it if, as Steven Frank suggested in his tweet, the service continues to grow its membership by leaps and bounds? My theory is Tumblr's continued success in signing up new customers is both thanks to and at the expense of their influential early adopters. .. If this keeps up, the influential "power-bloggers" will quit Tumblr and move on to more reliable services. Tumblr will be left with millions of users, who I'm sure are perfectly nice people, but who don't exert as great an influence in the web world."
Or as Yogi Berra put it: "nobody goes there anymore. It's too popular."
iOS 4.3 users report subpar battery performance >> 9 to 5 Mac
"iOS 4.3 brought enhanced AirPlay, a speedier Safari, iTunes Home Sharing, and more to iOS device users, but it appears that iOS 4.3 has brought another thing, a seemingly negative one: subpar battery life. A number of readers have written in to less us know that since upgrading to iOS 4.3 their battery life has been "drastically" worse. One report to us claims random battery life drops in 15-20% increments."
Comments suggest that corrupted data may be the cause, and that a complete phone reset may fix it. And some comments say "no effect".
Hashable CEO Michael Yavonditte Responds to 'Hashable Is Worthless' >> Betabeat
"Betabeat has only just launched, and already our "hash cred" is plummeting."
Its cred however is soaring after it printed an annoyed email from the CEO of a FourSquarealike.
"A new website, Betabeat launched with the stated intention to provide a more skeptical look at the New York tech scene. Like many journalistic outlets, we run opinion pieces as well as reported stories."
We like.
Toronto doctors try Microsoft's Kinect in OR >> The Globe and Mail
"Doctors at a Toronto hospital are banking on video game technology to save time and prevent contamination in the operating room. "A team at Sunnybrook Hospital has started using the Xbox Kinect, a hands-free gaming console equipped with a motion sensor, to virtually manipulate key medical images during surgery. "The doctors use hand gestures to zoom in and out of the images or freeze a particular shot without leaving the operating table."
Now that is smart. Will a Kinect API make it into Windows 8?
Nuclear test ban agency has valuable radiation monitoring data from Japan nuclear accident -- but can't share them >> Nature
"An international agency set up to monitor for nuclear tests is collecting extensive data on the levels of radionuclides in the air in and around Japan and the Asia-Pacific and transmitting this daily to its member states. The data would be of enormous public interest as it would provide a far fuller picture of the extent and spread of any current or future radioactive release from the major Japanese nuclear accident now under way. But none of these data are being released to the public, Nature has learned."
Porn Sites Trick Advertisers >> WSJ.com
"Dozens of big-name marketers and Internet companies have fallen victim to a scam orchestrated by a series of pornography sites.
"In a new type of online-advertising fraud, these porn sites are trying to generate revenue by setting up junk pages and faking Web traffic. The porn sites include names such as hqtubevideos.com and pornoxo.com. It's unclear who owns the sites or how many visitors they have.
"When a user visits one of these porn sites, the Web page launches dozens of pages that are hidden from the computer user. These hidden sites are filled with paid links to legitimate websites. Unbeknownst to the user, software built into the porn sites forces the user's computer to click on these links, sometimes hundreds of times, sending a flood of computer-generated traffic to legitimate websites."
Sneaky, as much as anything because the sites the clicks come from don't identify as porn sites.
RIM, Carriers Fight Over Digital Wallet >> WSJ.com
"BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. is locking horns with wireless carriers over control of mobile-payment data, in an example of the battles erupting as smartphones evolve into electronic wallets. The dispute centers on where key data related to mobile payments will reside on the next generation of smartphones, slated to come out later this year. Now, such information is stored in the magnetic strip on a credit or debit card. RIM and other handset makers are poised to make phones that will store this data, known in industry parlance as "credentials," in the devices themselves. In a transaction, the customer would wave the phone near a special electronic reader at a store's checkout."
The Google Nexus S has NFC built in. It's a technology that's just on the edge of its time.
Nokia S20 Filing >> Securities & Exchange Commission
Nokia is obliged to divulge this annual report setting out risks and problems. Still interesting: RIM is mentioned once in the thousands of words. (Apple: 42x. Android: 17x. Google: 11x. Microsoft: 101x. Symbian: 85x.)
And hands up who knew that Nokia made mobile devices in Fleet, Hampshire?
AT&T aggressively moving against unauthorized tethering >> TUAW
"AT&T is ruining a lot of people's days with a customer mailshot explaining that its "records show that you use [tethering] but are not subscribed to our tethering plan." iOS, of course, will disable the built-in tethering facility if you do not have an appropriate carrier plan."
This makes less than no sense. Data is data. Why does it matter which device is getting it?
UK IP Review: Google, Content Owners Disagree On 'Fair Use' >> paidContent:UK
"The search engine has told Hargreaves' review that "rigid but unclear" UK law has had a "chilling effect" on innovation. It calls for a full, US-style Fair Use copyright provision and for liberalisation of an EU list of 22 permitted re-uses of copyrighted material. But broadcasters and others are arguing against such extensions."
How the iPhone, NFC and Mac App Store Will Enable Remote Computing >> Cult of Mac
"According to a source close to the company, Apple is busy testing several prototype iPhones with near field communications (NFC). Unfortunately, the source has no knowledge of when Apple will actually introduce the technology in the iPhone. It could be the next model, due this summer, or next year's, they said."
Less thrilling: log into another computer using an NFC-equipped iPhone. Dull.
Confessions of an Apple Store Employee >> Popular Mechanics
"We get a lot of drug dealers who try to buy iPhones with fake IDs. You can tell them instantly just by how shady they act, and they know you know, but you obviously can't start accusing them of being drug dealers?they are customers, after all. But when they try to check out, they'll use what are obviously fake IDs or fake credit cards, and it often turns out they're using a dead person's Social Security number or something. And when you call them out on that - then, they run."
It's not quite Confessions of a Porn Store Clerk (which remains our favourite in-store diary) but then, what is?
Why Fukushima Daiichi won't be another Chernobyl >> New Scientist
"The worst nuclear accident in history was the Chernobyl explosion of 1986 in what is now Ukraine. Nuclear experts have repeatedly stated that the Japanese situation cannot get as bad as Chernobyl. New Scientist explains why."
Apple must stop iPad 2 scalpers NOW >> Betanews
Joe Wilcox tries to figure out how you stop people buying the iPad who don't want it for themselves. However, out of the five suggestions he offers, only one (online orders and in-store pickup) might be enforceable - and even then tough.
The iPad 2 is already worldwide, just not officially.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/mar/21/technology-links-newsbucket
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