Paul Jacobson

Nokia has unveiled its "Internet Tablet" device designated the Nokia 770.  This is not a phone and is instead the tablet device you may have found yourself wishing for when all you wanted to do was park off and check your mail or maybe browse the web while eating breakfast.  It runs using Linux and the Gnome UI and looks very promising.

At the LinuxWorld summit in New York, Nokia today
introduced its first device in a new Internet Tablet category, the
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Based on the Linux operating system, the
device boasts a broad range of Internet related functionality, all
navigated through a high resolution touch screen with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
and Bluetooth 1.2 serving up connectivity.

The main attraction of the device is its widescreen, 65K
colour TFT touch screen with a diagonal size of 4" and resolution of
800 x 480 pixels. This, along with a navigational array flanking the
screen on its left side, provides an interface to the Nokia Internet
Tablet 2005 software which powers the device, developed atop Linux by
the handset maker to power this new category of devices.

It seems a little underpowered though.  Infosync World has published a pretty comprehensive review if you want some more info on this snazzy device.

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MyADSL has reported that Vodacom intends launching a 2Mbps 3G network towards the end of the year.

Pieter Uys, COO of Vodacom, announced that this service, based on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology, will compete favourably on speed and the pricing structure will be competitive. HSDPA is an upgrade of the WCDMA network. Currently tests are under way and the results are encouraging.

A live demonstration of the new HSDPA technology, by Uys and Jannie Van Zyl (of Vodacom 3G), produced impressive results. The current GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and 3G technologies had download times for a medium size file of 220 and 60 seconds respectively. The new HSDPA connection downloaded it in just 17 seconds.

The quality of the connection is also good enough for the simultaneous streaming of five television channels and providing DVD quality TV broadcasting.

With MTN only planning to launch its EDGE network later this year (rumours indicate only in September), I can only why I decided to stick with them, especially considering that Vodacom is already talking about launching the Nokia N91 later in the year.

(via MyADSL)

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I have finally started learning how to do small jobs on some of my sites myself.  Thank goodness for books like HTML 4 for Dummies! 

Anyway, I have read that there are scripts available for all sorts of things on the Web.  I am looking for a script (or whatever works best) that will help me create rotating banner ads like the ones you see on many commercial websites.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?  What I have in mind is some sort of code/script that will draw on banner ads and alternate them on some basis so people who advertise on my sites will have their banners pop up for a few seconds or so at a time.

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Faced with their inability to detect non-metallic weapons, the US Department of Homeland Security is considering implementing a new technology that allows operators to see through clothing and uncover the weapons that would-be terrorists intend smuggling on board commercial flights.  While this seems like a good idea at first, when you consider that this technology, known as backscatter imaging, enables operators to see quite a bit of detail:

Get ready for electronic portals known as backscatters, expected to be tested at a handful of airports this year, that use X-ray imaging technology to allow a screener to scan a body. And yes, the body image is detailed. Let’s not be coy here, ladies and gentlemen:

"Well, you’ll see basically everything," said Bill Scannell, a privacy advocate and technology consultant. "It shows nipples. It shows the clear outline of genitals."

The Homeland Security Department’s justification for the electronic strip searches has a certain logic. In field test after field test, it found that federal airport screeners using metal-detecting magnetometers did a miserable job identifying weapons concealed in carry-on bags or on the bodies of undercover agents.

I’m all for stopping the baddies from blowing me and my friends up but I am not too sure this is the best solution.  How long before these images wind up on the Web?  As a former FAA investigator put it:

"I have a beautiful 29-year-old daughter and a beautiful wife, and I don’t want some screeners to be looking at them through their clothes, plain and simple,"

Just the same, what are the alternatives?

(via CNET News.com)

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Yahoo! is going to be testing new features in its free mail service to allow users to send and share digital photo’s.  This isn’t a surprise coming after the Flickr acquisition in March but the article on CNET News.com doesn’t mention Flickr at all:

Yahoo on Thursday is expected to begin testing improvements to its free e-mail service that let subscribers more easily send and share digital photos.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, which hosts the No. 1 Web-based e-mail service, has created a new beta program designed to scan the photos on a users’ hard drive, and if a user so chooses, drag and drop selections into an e-mail message, without adding cumbersome attachments. Its new service also scours photos in a user’s Yahoo storage locker or over its image database of 1.5 billion pictures.

It sounds like this is intended to compete with a combination of Google’s excellent Picasa and Hello software.  I’d like to see some kind of Flickr functionality added to Yahoo! Photos and an easy way to add the photo’s to Yahoo!’s webmail service.  That has been a bit of a hassle so far, not being able to easily add attachments from Briefcase or Photo’s.

(via CNET News.com)

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