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Sprint fed customer GPS data to cops over 8 million times

2009 Dec 1, 9:40Wow: 'The fact that federal, state, and local law enforcement can obtain communications "metadata"—URLs of sites visited, e-mail message headers, numbers dialed, GPS locations, etc.—without any real oversight or reporting requirements should be shocking, but it isn't. The courts ruled in 2005 that law enforcement doesn't need to show probable cause to obtain your physical location via the cell phone grid. All of the aforementioned metadata can be accessed with an easy-to-obtain pen register/trap & trace order. But given the volume of requests, it's hard to imagine that the courts are involved in all of these.'PermalinkCommentsprivacy security gps phone cellphone government politics

PSFK » Blog Archive » (Pics) Posterchild Finds New Uses for Old Phone Booths

2009 Nov 29, 1:58Phone booths get makeovers: "For Your Convenience Super-Hero Changing Station", "Coming Soon, improvements and upgrades to this public urination facility", and more.
PermalinkCommentshumor phone-booth cultural-disobediance graffiti new-york photo

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Has Bell Invented a "Telegraph Killer"?

2009 Nov 23, 1:24"This week Bell Labs plans to roll out the Telephone, the first viable Telegraph alternative, but reports indicate they may not be ready."PermalinkCommentsvia:waxy humor telephone telegraph internet

The Old New Thing : Can I talk to that William fellow? He was so helpful

2009 Nov 23, 11:47'Bill Gates is being taken on a guided tour of the product support department's new office building...Bill puts on a headset, sits down, and answers the phone. "Hello, this is Microsoft Product Support, William speaking. How can I help you?"'PermalinkCommentshumor microsoft bill-gates raymond-chen support history

Google adds free turn-by-turn navigation, car dock UI to Android 2.0 (video)

2009 Oct 28, 8:33
PermalinkCommentsgps google android phone cellphone map

Official Google Blog: Use Google Voice with your existing number

2009 Oct 27, 9:47"We're excited to announce that you now have the choice to get Google Voice with your existing mobile number OR with a Google number." You can use their voicemail features with your existing phone number.PermalinkCommentsvia:connolly google voice phone cellphone voicemail blog

There is no WebKit on Mobile

2009 Oct 7, 8:10Quirksmode does a chart comparing the differences in various versions of WebKit: "There’s iPhone WebKit, Android WebKit, S60 WebKit (at least two versions each), Bolt, Iris, Ozone, and Palm Pre, and I don’t doubt that I’ve overlooked a few minor WebKits along the way. All 10 mobile WebKits I’ve identified so far are subtly or wildly different."PermalinkCommentscompatibility web development browser webkit apple google android iphone safari technical via:mattb

You know the name, but just who were the Luddites? - Ars Technica

2009 Oct 5, 8:44Brief history of the Luddites. "Are we all Luddites now? ... If you are reading this essay on your laptop or iPhone, chances are that you aren't an unemployed weaver staring starvation in the face." Also: "The Luddites didn't oppose technology; they opposed the sudden collapse of their industry, which they blamed in part on new weaving machines." So the TV and newspaper associations and Rupert Murdoch are Luddites.PermalinkCommentshistory technology luddite

The Hierarchy Of Digital Distractions | Information Is Beautiful

2009 Sep 8, 7:29The food pyramid of digital distractions.PermalinkCommentshumor visualization information pyramid hierarchy distraction procrastination twitter facebook phone via:waxy

Kid Robot’s QR Code Scavenger Hunt - PSFK

2009 Sep 1, 4:59"...toy and apparel designers Kid Robot (with the help of creative ideas studio We Are Plus) have organized a mobile phone-based scavenger hunt in Manhattan centered around scanning QR codes."PermalinkCommentsqrcode phone scavenger-hunt toy advertising

Timefire: On Reducing the Size of Compressed Javascript (by up to 20%)

2009 Sep 1, 4:39"...what effect does the large-scale structure of the JS output code have on the DEFLATE algorithm of GZIP which is used to serve up compressed script?" Another instance of using knowledge of the specific file type to get gains in compression. Is there a web proxy running all this at which I can point my phone?PermalinkCommentsvia:kris.kowal performance javascript gzip deflate compression web technical

Creating Accelerators for Other People's Web Services

2009 Aug 18, 4:19

Before we shipped IE8 there were no Accelerators, so we had some fun making our own for our favorite web services. I've got a small set of tips for creating Accelerators for other people's web services. I was planning on writing this up as an IE blog post, but Jon wrote a post covering a similar area so rather than write a full and coherent blog post I'll just list a few points:

PermalinkCommentstechnical accelerator ie8 ie

80’s Throwback: Choose Your Own Adventure Turns 30! | GeekDad | Wired.com

2009 Aug 11, 8:18Choose Your Own Adv. classics on your cell! "But in 2006, the brand was reborn when Chooseco, LLC relaunched the series with reprints of classic adventures as well as new stories. They have also expanded into new areas ... adventures on the iPhone ..."PermalinkCommentschooseyourownadventure iphone wired book interactive if

Dandella by DIC - Design Year Book

2009 Aug 11, 7:35Lovely Dandella looks like an electric scallion and it "... works with GPS enabled mobile phones to track physical locations. Dandella bends and points toward the targeted location."
PermalinkCommentsdesign technology cool wishlist shopping cellphone gps

Replace your T-Mobile voicemail with Google Voice visual mail | Android Atlas - CNET Blogs

2009 Aug 4, 7:00PermalinkCommentsgoogle google-voice android phone cellphone voicemail hack howto technical

Changing The Ring Time On T-Mobile US Before VoiceMail Kicks In - Thoughts Media Forums

2009 Aug 3, 9:37"If you have T-Mobile USA, you can program the time your phone rings before it rolls to voice mail, but it isn't at all intuitive."PermalinkCommentstmobile cellphone phone voicemail howto

Hand Drawn QR Code for Marc Jacobs - PSFK.com

2009 Jul 1, 6:21"The QR code, used to store and decode small bits of data via printed symbol, received an artistic rendering by SET as part of its campaign for Marc by Marc Jacobs." I like the idea although in this case its not very subtle or different from a regular QR code IMHO. Also, I was surprised that my phone could still read the QR code in this form.PermalinkCommentsqr qrcode marketing art internet mobile technical

Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now reaches 30,000 downloads | Robot Comics

2009 Jun 25, 11:45"Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now is the Creative Commons comics adaptation of six short stories by Boing Boing editor and science-fiction writer Cory Doctorow... The result are eight Creative Commons mobile comics specifically designed for iPhone, iPod touch and Android devices."PermalinkCommentscory-doctorow comic android iphone mobile download book free

Mostly Moved Into New House

2009 Jun 19, 8:07

New House ExteriorThe weekend before the previous, Sarah and I moved our belongings into the new house and spent a lot of time packing and unpacking, and now we're officially living there (interested Facebook friends can find my new address or just ask me). The Saturday of the previous weekend Sarah's family came over for a half house warming and half Sarah's birthday celebration which was fun and served to force us to do more unpacking and forced me to take trips to Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. On Sunday, Sarah and I went out to her favorite restaurant and she opened her gifts that I had to hide to keep her from opening before her birthday. Happy Birthday Sarah!

While at Home Depot I had trouble finding what I was actually looking for, but I did find everything I needed to terminate the Cat5e cables that are wired in the house. Each room has a wall plate with two RJ45 sockets, both sockets wired to Cat5e cable. One of the cables per plate was already hooked up to a standard phone service punchdown board and the other cables per plate were all hanging unterminated next to the punchdown board. So now I've terminated them all with RJ45 connectors and hooked them up to my hub, wireless router, cable modem, etc. I had the same sort of fun setting all that up as I did playing with model train sets as a child. Hopefully no therapy will be required to figure out why that is.

PermalinkCommentspersonal2 train address sarah house new-house birthday

A Brief History of Microsoft's Live Search's New Domain Bing

2009 Jun 1, 11:07
Logo for bing! from 2003 via The Wayback MachineLogo for BING* from 2006 via The Wayback MachineKimberly Saia's flickr photo of the Microsoft bing search logo.
When I heard that Live Search is now Bing one of my initial thoughts was how'd they get that domain name given the unavailability of pronouncable four letter .COM domain names. Well, the names been used in the past. Here now, via the Wayback Machine is a brief, somewhat speculative, and ultimately anticlimactic history of bing.com:

The new name reminds me of the show Friends. Also, I hope they get a new favicon - I don't enjoy the stretched 'b' nor its color scheme.

PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft technical domain history search archive dns bing
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