Emily Steel / Digits:
Google Buzz Exemplifies Privacy Problems, FTC Commissioner Says  —  Citing the recent launch of Google's social-networking service, Google Buzz, outgoing Federal Trade Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour said technology companies are setting a dangerous precedent of publicly exposing consumer data …

At Logic class last week we saw how to solve a Sudoku using SAT and for fun I decided to actually try this out using Python. It turned out to be pretty trivial to implement and I thought I’d share the experience.

First of all let’s see how the Sudoku problem was described at class: we have a table with 9 rows and 9 columns;

• 1. Each field [i, j] (where i=1..9 and j=1..9) has at least one value (between 1 and 9).
• 2. Each field [i, j] (where i=1..9 and j=1..9) doesn’t have more than one value.
• 3. There isn’t any repeated value in any row, column or 3×3 group.
• 4. Some of the fields have a predefined value.

Now to implement this in code, first of all I needed a Python module implementing SAT solving. A quick search in Debian’s repositories gave me python-logilab-constraint, which I’ve found to be quite nice to use, even though it could definitely take some speed improvements.

Conditions 1 and 2 aren’t a problem at all, as logilab.constraint can be used quite naturally [0]. We just define a variable for each field (eg., x11 to x99, where the first number is the row and the second number is the column) and the domain in which they operate (integer value from 1 to 9):

The 4th rule is also straightforward, we just need to hardcode the values. If we have a bidimensional list sudoku containing the initial numbers and None in all empty fields, we add each of them as a constraint:

Now only rule 3 remains; here we basically have to set up three more groups of constraints: one for rows, one for columns and one for the 3×3 groups. My initial implementation checked each row/column/group at once; for example, for the first row «x11 != x12 != x13 != … != x19», for the first column «x11 != x21 != … != x91», etc. However, this proved to be extremely slow, and after checking the «Performance considerations» section of Logilab Constraint’s documentation I split up the row and column conditions [1] to lots of smaller conditions, as in: «x11 != x12», «x11 != x13», «x11 != x14», etc. I also moved the constraints for the initial numbers to the top (I had them at the end of the constraints list before), as they are the simplest ones. With those changes resolution time changed from several minutes to some tenths of a second.

And this is it. After all constraints have been added, we just need to run the solver:

The complete code is available via Bazaar at lp:~rainct/+junk/sudoku-sat. Being completely new to the logilab.constraints module, or implementing any such stuff at all, it took me around half an hour to write this, which shows how SAT makes such sort of problems really straightforward.

[0] Using logilab.constraint it’s possible to assign arbitrary Python data to variables (here we just give each an integer, but variables could also take tuples or whatever else). When this problem was presented at class using pure propositional logic it was a bit more cumbersome, as we couldn’t just say “there’s a variable x11 with domain [1..9]“. For instance, rule 1 was «(p111 | p112 | p113 | … | p119) and (p121 | … | p129) …», where “p111″ would be True if field [1,1] is supposed to contain a one, “p112″ is True if it’s supposed to contain a two, etc.
[1] I didn’t bother also splitting up he 3×3 group constraints since the other two changes already gave me enough of a speedup; changing that may squeeze a few msecs more out of it.
P.S.: If you’d like a more formal explanation of this, a search on Google found this paper: A SAT-based Sudoku Solver.

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© Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals, 2010. | Permalink | License | Post tags: logics, python

Google has partnered with Sony, Intel and Logitech to develop a yet-unannounced product called Google TV, according to an article by New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton. Google TV will be based on Android, according to Bilton, and could come in the form of a dedicated set-top box or a software platform that could be deployed on Internet-connected TVs and similar devices, directly competing with solutions from Vudu, DivX and Boxee.

Details about Google TV are still scarce, as Bilton dind’t get any of the companies involved to go on the record. However, it looks like Google TV will be open to third-party app developers in much the same way the company’s Android operating system is today. From the article:

Google TV will apparently be based on Intel’s Atom processor, and the interface will essentially be based on a version of Chrome, which should open the door for web app developers as well as content platforms to get a foothold on the product. In fact, Bilton reports that a prototype set-top box built by Google is capable of playing back content from Hulu.com — a feature that could cause for some tension within the industry, as Hulu’s owners in the past have tried to block similar technology from Boxee.

Speculations about an Android-based TV product most recently surfaced when the Wall Street Journal reported that Google teamed up with DISH to test a new, Android-like software on the satellite provider’s set-top box. It’s unclear, however, if the two products are related.

Still, given the fact that many indicators point to Google gearing up for a TV platform launch, we’re interested to hear from you: What would you like to see on Google TV? Are there any specific Android apps that you’d think would work really well on the big screen? Anything missing from the Boxee Box that only Google could deliver? Or do you want to keep Google out of your living room altogether? Let us know in the comments!

Related content on GigaOm Pro: With TV Apps, Over-the-Top Video Gets New Backers (subscription required)

Lon S. Cohen is a freelance writer and is @obilon on Twitter. He’s also the Director of Communications at @ALSofGNY. This post was co-authored by Steve Cohen, who is the Founder of Baywood Consulting Group and the former CIO of M&T Bank. He can be contacted at baywoodconsultinggroup@gmail.com.

From felons on Facebook to tips through Twitter, social media is being used more and more by law enforcement agencies, and not just to fight Internet-related crimes. We’re talking about solving crimes that are happening on the street and in your community.

According to Lauri Stevens, founder of LAwS Communications and organizer of the SMILE (Social Media In Law Enforcement) Conference being held in Washington D.C. this April, adoption of social media is still in the “very, very, early stages,” but she sees it making an upward turn. “I expect 2010 will be a monumental year,” she said.

But many police departments that have embraced social media are still trying to figure it out.

“Most agencies … are not significantly proactive with keeping up with content and updates,” said Terry Halsch from CitizenObserver.com, developers of the tip411 system for police agencies. “There are some limitations because of uncertainty of how secure information is, how can it be efficiently maintained, [and] the risks and liabilities of entering the world of social media.”

Below are six different ways law enforcement is utilizing social media and real-time search to enhance tactics, disseminate public information, and ultimately prevent criminal activity.

A police blotter is the record of events at a police station. Traditionally, a desk sergeant kept a register of these events. Nowadays, Twitter feeds, blogs, YouTube, and Facebook Fan Pages are being used by captains and chiefs to put out the digital equivalent of the police blotter in real-time.

Publishing a register of crimes and arrests in an area has been an online activity for a while now, especially through local newspaper websites. But social media is allowing many police officers on the scene to report the publicly available details of a crime for themselves. Reporters are getting their facts directly from a stream of real time-data and blog posts coming from the department.

Individual cops aren’t about to turn into citizen journalists anytime soon, but the police are able, through social media and real-time updates, to provide essential information that the public and news gathering agencies need to know. Journalists today often use the web for their first line of research, and rely on web-based police reports for many of the details they need for a story.

“We don’t just release the police report; we write our own story and post it to our website,” said Mark Economou, the Public Information Manager for the Boca Raton Police Department in Boca Raton, Florida in a post on ConnectedCops.com. “Even more interesting, we are finding the media is just cutting and pasting our stories to their sites, both in television and print.”

The Boca Raton Police Department has developed their own branded web platform that they call Viper. Social media is a very important part of their strategy, and like anyone adopting social media into a plan, they use it to support and enhance the work they already do.

In the vein of an Old West “Wanted” poster, displayed in the most trafficked area of town, modern-day law enforcement agencies are posting descriptions of criminals on today’s most trafficked spots — namely the social web.

With millions of users, extraordinary reach, and the lightning-fast exchange of text, photos, and video, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are ideal for getting the word out about wanted persons with up-to-the-minute updates.

The Boynton Beach Police Department is a good example. On their Facebook Fan Page, the department put up a post with the headline, “Police need help identifying motorcyclist who robbed man at ATM.” In the post there was a photo from the ATM machine of the crime in progress. The department also cross-posted the information to their Twitter page.

In the UK, the Leicestershire Constabulary is one of a number of police departments focusing on being hyper-local and involved with the community through social media. Their website has a section titled “Can you help?” which is formatted like a blog, and contains posts about ongoing criminal investigations, and a “Wanted Poster” and “Missing Persons” area with photos and requests for residents to respond with any leads they might have.

The stories are also fed to a Facebook Page that is very interactive and updated constantly. They also maintain a Twitter profile, a YouTube account, and the department offers the ability to subscribe to their news feed via RSS. It’s an impressive mixture of social media tools that seems to work fluidly and update automatically.

Tips from the community have been a time-honored way that citizens have worked with the public to fight crime.

Consulting companies are developing very sophisticated ways for the public and the police to interact online. The tip411 program developed by the CitizenObserver Corporation is marketed to law enforcement as a web-based notification toolset. Citizen participation has always been a big part of fighting crime, and the people at tip411 stress that social media “acts as a ‘force multiplier’ by empowering your community to get involved.”

“Anonymous text tip systems are gaining significant traction because they enable young people to provide information without fear of retribution, i.e. ‘Snitches get Snitches,’” said CitizenObserver’s Terry Halsch.

The program allows tipsters to send information anonymously through a variety of means including “anonymous web chat, text tips and secure social media publishing.” Filtered alerts can then be pushed out through a police department’s central location to other web mediums. Bundled with other offerings, tip411 can then be published with Google Maps to create a clickable, interactive crime “heat map” of sorts where others can click on links directly to add more information and tips based on location. This program is meant to encourage increased interaction between the police and the community through real-time web tools.

“It doesn’t matter to us where the information comes from,” said Detroit’s Chief of Police, Warren Evans, a tip411 user. “We just want the information so we can act on it. I want people to know that they can feel safe using this system to communicate with us directly.”

Social media advocates stress listening as a part of any brand’s online marketing strategy. Listening to the bad guys doing bad things has always been a part of police work. It’s important for police to search the real-time web to target particular keywords and phrases being passed around on social media. Use of social media monitoring has a strategic, tactical and operational application for law enforcement.

Boston Police Department Superintendent John Daly spoke about using Twitter search to monitor chatter around the Boston area in real-time. He’s very sensitive to the implications of engaging in this type of search, as many police departments are.

“We have to be very careful because there’s a Big Brother aspect to this,” Daly said.

He stressed that they were not looking at “everyday messages,” as he put it, but specific tweets that signaled something they should be looking into.

“But when people start saying, ‘What’s that smoke coming from the Hancock Tower?’ or ‘Why is everybody running around Copley Place –- is something going on?’ — if two or three things come in we look at patterns, trends, something maybe we should be paying attention [to]. So it’s sort of an early warning system.”

Myspace, Facebook and Twitter are popular with gang members, and police use this to their advantage. Law enforcement has been able to infiltrate street gangs by posing as fellow gang members online, making connections, and intercepting criminal communications as they happen. Information like photos, videos, and friend links help law enforcement understand the dynamics of gangs when investigating their activities.

“Investigators build phony profiles to ‘friend’ gang members either within YouTube, Facebook or Bebo, and then may migrate that friendship to another platform and gain trust and get their ‘friends’ to share useful information,” said SMILE conference organizer Lauri Stevens.

According to an article in 219magazine, police in Cincinnati used Facebook and MySpace to follow more than 20 members of a local gang, the “Northside Taliband.” The evidence they gathered helped law enforcement connect members to a multitude of crimes, including a possible homicide.

Other agencies have employed these tactics as well. The NYPD is using the Internet to monitor gang activity, as well, and in a story reported in the Daily News, cops said that gangs have been communicating on Twitter. They think that one Twitter exchange between gang members may even have resulted in the shooting of a youth. The police seek out code words and slang used by individual members to follow gang members online who are organizing illegal activities.

“It is another tool … just like old phone records,” a police source said in the article.

As we all know, Twitter has plenty of uses for individuals and companies. Law enforcement also uses the service to communicate with the public.

Stevens told us that she follows at least 700 law enforcement agencies worldwide on Twitter alone. Not all of them are active, but some have found unique ways to incorporate Twitter into their police tactics. “The LAPD used Twitter to monitor crowds during the Michael Jackson funeral,” for example, said Stevens, and the Boston Police have been using Twitter to alert followers of evolving situations in real time.

Sergeant Tim Burrows does media relations for the traffic services unit in the Toronto Police Service. Tim saw his traffic safety messaging hampered by the mainstream media’s editing time lines, so he started using Twitter to talk to the local media about ongoing situations and inform the public. He considers his tweets about traffic safety information a valuable public service.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office took things a step further. When the police wanted to utilize social media they, like many agencies, felt that existing public sites were too unsecured and vulnerable for a system-wide roll out within the department. So inspired by Twitter, the department took things into their own hands.

“CyberVisor was my vision of Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s own controlled Twitter,” said Lynne Martzall, External Affairs Manager, who worked with webmaster Tony Petruzzi to create it.

Since it was rolled out, CyberVisor has been used to broadcast information about unfolding situations, such as crimes in progress, to put out information after a bank robbery and when the Sheriff’s Office was looking for an escaped convict. For now, the public can’t respond to CyberVisor — it’s broadcast only — but it has still be effective.

In one instance, they alerted followers to someone in South Broward County impersonating an officer. In another, they sent out a missing child alert from a local elementary school with a detailed description of the child’s physical appearance and where the child was last seen.

- The Science of Building Trust With Social Media
- How Companies Are Using Your Social Media Data
- How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement
- 4 Ways the Entertainment Industry is Getting More Social
- How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jodiecoston

Tags: BLOGS, facebook, law enforcement, police, social media, social networks, twitter, youtube

The mayor of Sarasota, Fla., went swimming with the sharks today — yes, literally — in an extreme effort to woo Google and land that sweet fiber network the company plans to dole out to some lucky town. And he’s not alone. Cities across the country have Google fiber fever, pulling off stunts like renaming their city “Google” (formerly Topeka, Kan.) or having the mayor jump into a frozen lake (Duluth, Minn).

My city of Alameda, Calif.? We’re passing a city council resolution!

Heaven knows I want a 1 gigabit-per-second connection, too — so why isn’t my mayor wrestling an octopus (or sharktopus)? Is Sarasota (or Duluth, or Topeka) on to something?

“We don’t have a burgeoning tech and creative industry,” explained Richard Swier (see disclosure below), who is spearheading Sarasota’s attempt to get Google fiber. And without such an industry, he felt his town had to do something “crazy” in order to get on Google’s radar. In addition to the shark tank, Sarasota declared one of its islands “Google Island,” and its I Want Google Fiber in Sarasota page on Facebook claims some 5,300 fans.

Alameda’s more sober approach certainly lacks flair, but that, too, is by design, according to Deputy City Manager Jennifer Ott. She believes the message Google sent out in its call for participation was that the company wanted speed, efficiency and regulatory assistance, which the city council’s resolution, with its task force and one point of contact for the entire project, was specifically designed to do.

Jim Meyer, who founded the non-profit WireAlameda.org, echoed Ott’s all-business approach. “We have a strong application,” he assured me.

Since an active community behind the project was another one of the criteria set by Google, I asked Meyer about our paltry number of Facebook fans and the dearth of big, showy community events. Meyer pointed out that Facebook is a competitor to Google, so the group didn’t want a big presence there, and in terms of big events, WireAlameda is organizing a community chalk-drawing event this weekend. Chalk drawing certainly won’t attract mainstream media attention (unless it’s laser chalk), but it’s not meant to — the point is to showcase townsfolk that come out in order to pitch in.

In the meantime, an unexpected benefit has emerged: The actions of Swier’s group, WireAlameda and others around the country have become a rallying point for towns beaten down by tough economic times. Amidst the constant news of layoffs and general bad times, Google’s gambit is giving people something they haven’t seen in awhile — hope.

**Disclosure: I went to high school with and played 9th grade basketball with Swier. We haven’t talked really at all since high school, but his relentless efforts and recruiting on Facebook clogged up my news feed and provided inspiration for this story.

Image courtesy of Flickr user RRaiderstyle

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The latest stable release of Google Chrome includes automatic translation and improved privacy controls.

BarrioSquare, a FourSquare application for the Nokia N900, left private testing on Monday and is now available at the N900’s App Manager. You may have to enable the Extras-Devel repository. This is great news because now more Nokia N900 users can start using this app. Watch my quick overview of the app.

Checking in on Foursquare everywhere we go

You can also watch this video in HD on Youtube. Subscribe to the channel to preview the latest videos before they get published on the blog.

I like this application on the Nokia N900 because it helps me find the places nearby to check-in, instead of manually looking for them through the mobile Foursquare website. My only complaint so far about BarrioSquare is that lists sometimes scroll too fast. A workaround is to drag your finger diagonally instead of up and and down.

Update: Chris, the guy behind Barriosquare, answered some questions I sent him shortly after the release.

What triggered the decision to finally put BarrioSquare in the Maemo repository?

I figure it was better to get the app out to the general public sooner, rather than later, and given the entire uncertainty of ovi store publishing (dependency issues with python-qt4) I figure might as well just get it out there now that it is in a fully functional state.

Any features to look out for in upcoming releases?

• Ability to search for friends
• Ability to see nearby tips
• Ability to get a “popup” alert whenever friends check into a venue nearby
• Venue (and nearby) specials

What other apps do u have planned for Maemo?

• Google Maps type app using Google Maps flash API, PyQt-Webkit
• Maybe a gowalla app?
• Also building a reusable UI toolkit library to speed up application development

• Watch Out for BarrioSquare – A Foursquare App for Nokia N900
• TuneWiki SMP Now Available for Nokia N900 With Awesome Internet Radio
• Learn Something New with WikiHow for Nokia N900
• App Review: 2G/3G Mode Selection Applet for Nokia N900

»  Can online video really destroy the pay TV business? It’s more complicated than you may think… [MediaBizBloggers.com]

»  Why Jibjab co-founders are adamant that advertising won’t work for them. [NewTeeVee]

»  The letter demanding Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to compensate ad agents if it withdraws from China is probably a fake, says a Google ad sales exec. [Bloomberg]

»  Yelp’s been hit with its third lawsuit within the last few weeks; this time a San Francisco furniture restorer is suing for unfair and unethical conduct in marketing. [TechCrunch]

»  Three things business need to focus on for successful social CRM. [Social Media Today]

»  Can online video really destroy the pay TV business? It’s more complicated than you may think… [MediaBizBloggers.com]

»  Why Jibjab co-founders are adamant that advertising won’t work for them. [NewTeeVee]

»  The letter demanding Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to compensate ad agents if it withdraws from China is probably a fake, says a Google ad sales exec. [Bloomberg]

»  Yelp’s been hit with its third lawsuit within the last few weeks; this time a San Francisco furniture restorer is suing for unfair and unethical conduct in marketing. [TechCrunch]

»  Three things business need to focus on for successful social CRM. [Social Media Today]

It’s been anticipated for a while now; Verizon just officially released information on the specifics of what Verizon Droid owners will have to look forward to in the upcoming Android 2.1 update.

The update will be performed over-the-air and will bump up the Droid to the more current version of the Android mobile operating system. New features will include pinch-to-zoom multitouch support in the browser, Gallery, and Google Maps, the Weather and News widgets made popular on the Nexus One, voice-to-text entry, a new 3D Gallery layout for photos, and even a nice surprise that most people thought wouldn’t make it to the Droid: Live Wallpapers.

You can download the full informational PDF here.

Engadget reports that leaked internal documentation reveals the Android 2.1 update will begin rolling out tomorrow, Thursday March 18, in batches of 250,000 customers at a time. In other words, Droid owners should not have long to wait to start enjoying some of the niceties their Nexus One counterparts have made them jealous over in the past few months.

If you’re a Droid owner, what are you most excited about in Android 2.1?

Tags: android, android 2.1, droid, Google, live wallpaper, nexus one, verizon

Sprint:
Nexus One from Google Coming to Sprint; Availability Date Announced Soon  —  Nexus One(TM) is planned for the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network with twice the network coverage of AT&T and ten times the network coverage of T-Mobile, both by square miles; Expands Sprint's Android(TM) portfolio

Looks like Sprint will be yet another carrier that will carry the Google Nexus One which they hope will be able to take full advantage of Sprint’s 3G Mobile Broadband Network. There is no word on pricing or availability, but do expect some news concerning both to be available pretty soon. Sprint touts that their 3G network has double the coverage of AT&T and 10 times that of T-Mobile when based on square miles. Expect Sprint's Nexus One to be powered by the Android 2.1 operating system. Other hardware specifications remain intact, so why not check out our review of the Nexus One and see whether it rocks your boat or not?

Permalink: Google Nexus One heads for Sprint from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

This is a report from our premium subscription research service The Internet Analyst.  The service is currently in free beta.  To sign up, please submit your name and email address here.

Agencies and publishers throughout yesterday's Mobile Advertising Upfront said they were using location-based marketing to get advertisers to allocate a larger part of their budgets to mobile and in some cases are getting small buys from major brands early on.  Specifically, the campaigns:

• Offer very narrow targeting (which advertisers will always pay a premium for).
• Enable advertisers to collect information from their target audience that is unavailable through other media.
• Help advertisers better understand consumers by analyzing their behavior through location-based analysis.

Mobile advertising is still a tiny portion of the overall online advertising pie (we estimate about 2% to 3% excluding text messaging).  In addition, location-based branding campaigns are currently niche, custom campaigns that likely do not drive a lot of volume for the overall category. However, large brands are starting to experiment with these kind of campaigns, which is encouraging for mobile publishers.  If this targeting is combined with scale, advertisers would likely make larger buys, growing the overall mobile advertising pie.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• Google Experimenting With Different Monetization Methods For Mobile Product Search
• Mobile Commerce Growing Rapidly This Year, But Still Years From Being Mass-Market

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Blockbuster Brings New Releases to Android, Windows Mobile Phones  —  Blockbuster is bringing its OnDemand service to both Windows Mobile and Google Android phones, starting March 24th with the launch of the T-Mobile HTC HD2 smartphone.  On that device, Blockbuster customers will be able …

Following a court case initiated by the IFPI, in February 2008 a Danish judge ruled that ISP Tele2 had to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The music group had successfully argued that that Tele2 was assisting in mass copyright infringement by providing its subscribers access to the tracker.

Sebastian Gjerding, spokesperson for Piratgruppen, a pro-piracy lobby whose goals include the reformation of copyright law, was outraged by the news.

“The verdict is absurd. It will block access for Danish users to the world’s largest distributor of culture and knowledge – copyrighted or not,” he told TorrentFreak. “It’s true that you can access copyrighted material through The Pirate Bay, as you can with Google or Rapidshare. Should they be blocked as well?”

Very quickly controversy hit the ruling when it was revealed that Kristian Løkkegaard, the only expert witness in the case, was previously employed by the Johan Schlüter Law Firm who worked with the IFPI on anti-piracy cases.

Nevertheless, later in 2008 the Eastern High Court upheld the ruling. Tele2 said they would fight on and in April 2009 a Danish appeals body accepted a petition from Telenor to take the case to the Supreme Court.

“We are pleased that we now have the opportunity to find out whether it is Internet Service Providers’ responsibility to ensure the closure of a website,” said Telenor’s regulatory chief Nicholai Kramer Pfeiffer.

The same question has just been clarified to the north of Denmark in Norway, where the courts gave two clear decisions that there is no legal basis under Norwegian law for ISPs to block The Pirate Bay.

The answer to the Danish question is not far away now, as a date has just been tabled for the Supreme Court hearing. Three hours have been set aside to hear the case on 20 May 2010 starting at 9:00am.

Unusually for this type of hearing both sides will be present in person and the public will be allowed to view proceedings although seating is limited.

A final decision is expected to be handed down around a week later.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

• myTracks for iPhone:
  • This app is available in Apple's AppStore for free as of March 19th.
  • The iPhone can be used as a GPS logger for recording tracks. The tracks can be easily synchronized with the Mac OS X edition of myTracks.
  • The tracks and photos organized on your Mac can be copied to your iPhone. This is your Track Library ToGo.
  • See myTracks's online help for some screenshots of this new app.
• Aperture Plugin: With myTracks 2.2 comes a plug-in for Aperture 2 and 3. With a single click you can open photos from Aperture with myTracks. After geotagging with myTracks the photos will be updated in Aperture. This plug-in works perfectly with the new places feature in Aperture 3.
• Support for Wintec WBT-202
• Graphical redesign of Pool of Photos
• Fractional timezones (such as +5:45h) are now supported.
• Waypoint names can be edited in track point list.
• Minor feature improvements and bug fixes.

Interesting - US search market figures for last month by Nielsen points towards the ascension of Microsoft's Bing with Google's market share figures dropping. With Bing being the default search engine for Internet Explorer and Motorola's range of Android-powered handsets, Microsoft must be doing something right to keep 'em coming back for more. Proportionately speaking, Bing experienced a 14.7% increase compared to Google - which is a totally different story from its traditional path which came at the expense of Yahoo instead. Where do you think will be Bing's saturation point?

Permalink: Bing market share increases from Ubergizmo | RSS Sponsor: Win a Fellowes Microshred Paper Shredder!

Filed under: Microsoft, Browsers

Microsoft's preview release plans for IE9 are a good start, but I want more! originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Contrary to popular belief, web developers do sometimes leave their desks, and when they do, that’s always when clients seem to call or disaster seems to strike.

We’ve highlighted some iPhone apps here that will help you out in those situations, and a few others that will stash several neat tricks up your proverbial sleeve for when you’re away from the office.

Have a look, and if you’re an iPhone-owning web dev, let us know which apps you find useful for your work in the comments below.

Concentric Sky offers a range of code “cheat sheets” ideal for when your mind just goes blank and you’re away from your usual reference material. Priced at $0.99 each, there are apps available for CSS, mySQL, JavaScript, php, RegEx, jQuery and HTML — the last three of which let you write and test code inside the app. Searchable, and clearly laid out, the info in the apps is available offline, unlike other options that link out to external references. Whether you want to brush up on the bus, or need to code on-the-go, these will be a useful weapon in your web design arsenal. Another great alternative is jQuery 1.4.

Cost: $0.99 each

A little bit like Adobe’s Kuler on your handset, Color Stream is an app that will help you narrow down the correct color, or palette of colors, for a project. The Lite version of the app is available for free, and lets you create a palette of five colors side-by-side using a slider bar in either RGB or CMYK modes. You can then identify your chosen shades by their hexadecimal values for use on the web. This is handy enough, but the paid-for option (priced at $2.99) offers even more functionality, such as the ability to save palettes, use the built-in color schemes, or even match colors perfectly by creating a palette based on elements from an image or photo.

Cost: Lite version is free, full version is $2.99

If you need to be able to securely log-in to a server away from your desk, then this app — which emulates desktop FTP clients on your mobile — might well be the answer. As well as offering the ability to edit text on the fly and make those changes live quickly, there’s the option to view common file types, download them to your iPhone, e-mail them, and upload videos and correctly-sized pics from your mobile device too. Meanwhile, cleverly getting around the iPhone’s multi-tasking issues, there’s a built-in web browser so you can see changes without leaving the app, allowing for speedy work — which as far as we know, no client has ever complained about.

If you don’t need access to your FTP server, don’t forget about Dropbox for the iPhone, which will let you view your Dropbox folder while on the go.

Cost: $6.99

For an on-the-go, at-a-glance look at you site’s stats, either for your own consumption, or to keep a customer satisfied, Ego is a one-stop-shop for such data. This app does not go into extreme detail, but it will summarize data from Ember, Feedburner, Google Analytics, Mint (with an additional download), Squarespace, Twitter and Vimeo. Data such as how many Twitter followers an account has racked up, feed subscription totals, and visitor numbers are all at your fingertips in an easy-to-use app that saves you logging into to a plethora of individual services. The developer, Garrett Murray, says Ego offers a flexible framework for adding support for other services, and welcomes suggestions on adding other stat-tracking options.

Cost: $1.99

In addition to offering a full-screen browser (as opposed to the iPhone’s Safari window), this app allows you to make notes on, or copy and paste text from, web pages. Whether you’re browsing around for inspiration or assessing a site for changes/improvements, being able to easily annotate the web with a mobile app is simply brilliant. Other functionality includes the ability to upload .txt .doc .pdf .ppt .xls .rtf .jpg files, bookmark sites, and share uploaded documents over Wi-Fi to any web-enabled computer.

Cost: $1.99

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Tags: apps, code, html, iphone apps, Mobile 2.0, web design, web developer, Web Development, web development series

From Search Engine Land: An outgoing FTC commissioner has slammed Google over the way it launched Google Buzz last month, calling the episode a case of “irresponsible conduct.”

According to PC World, FTC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour also said Google and other online companies may face tougher penalties if they don’t do a better job of protecting consumer privacy.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• New Google Employee Says He Wants To Kill The iPhone
• HTC Shipping Nexus One To Verizon
• Googler's Screed About The Evils Of Apple's iPhone Is Part Of A "Coordinated Messaging" Plan

Make it four: Google's Nexus One coming to Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

@Xavier qui écrit "Il faudra encore qu'on m'explique pourquoi firefox utilise theora uniquement, alors que le choix du codec revient clairement au système, pas au browser."

Ca se discute. La vraie raison pour laquelle Mozilla préfère Theora à H.264, c'est que H.264 est propriétaire, bardé de brevets et soumis à royalties. (Contrairement aux standards du Web, dont la gratuité et la liberté ont permis l'explosion du Web et son utilisation très large).

Donc Mozilla ne veut pas de H.264 sur le Web. Ca serait très dommageable pour le Web.

Après, la question de l'intégration du codec dans le navigateur ou l'OS n'est qu'un détail d'implémentation, qui n'a d'intérêt qu'une fois qu'on a réglé la question de principe.

Pour référence, voir aussi http://standblog.org/blog/post/2010... , où j'explique longuement tout cela... (PS : l'achat de On2 par Google a été finalisé. Il y a de la lumière au bout du tunnel !).