mobrec

So
Perhaps inspired by the James Bond sniper rifle that can only be fired by Bond, researchers in Finland have created a method for you mobile device (a phone most likely) to 'recognize' you by the way that you walk.

In the method, sensors measure certain features in the person's walk and these are compared to values stored in the memory of the device. If the values differ, the device requests an access code. In trials, the method has achieved a success rate of 90%. VTT is applying for a patent for the solution.

So
In addition to the excellent Google Hacks and the Google Pocket Guide books, Google has put out a brief online cheat sheet with some of the basics.

Also, there is some much more detailed information available on googleguide including a 150 page printable guide.

So
...with a less anonymous character. Enjoy the ride, George.

So
In addition to buying video content from the iTunes Store, Apple has made it fairly easy for you to create videos for the just announced iPods. It requires the latest version of Quicktime 7 Pro (7.0.3). Unfortunately, Quicktime Pro isn't free and will set you back $29.99 USD.

So
Following a big opening weekend in the US for the new Wallace and Gromit movie, the sets (and a great deal of history) was destroyed in a fire at the studio.

So
According to the BBC

Apple is set to unveil a new video iPod at the BBC Television Centre in London on October the 12th

via cubicgarden

So
This Business Week article has a bit more substantive information about what the Flock browser is and what it will do:

The Flock browser, which is expected to be released to the public in test form in about two weeks, does everything a regular browser does, but with several important additions.

For one, it makes blogging a snap by eliminating the need to do arcane coding in order to post, change fonts or add photos. Right click the mouse on a Web page, and a blogging wizard comes up that automatically creates links, citations, and quotes that are ready to insert into a blog. A horizontal bar on the browser also can load photos from the photo-sharing site Flickr, so they can be simply dragged and dropped into the blog post.

Moreover, Flock makes it easy to create online bookmarks for Web sites. Visit a Web site and click a “+” button on one of the browser's toolbars, and that site is saved to a personalized list on the social bookmarks Web site http://del.icio.us./.

Those bookmarks can be tagged with useful descriptions and shared with others. Flock also lets people create watchlists of people whose bookmarks they like and form groups with people who link to particular tags. Flock also keeps a history of every Web page a user visits, so they can be found easily later.

I can't wait to get my hands on this and see how it does with all of the 'stuff' in my own infocloud.

So
If you are familiar with the British TV show from the sixties The Avengers, you might be interested to read the Guardian's article titled Revealed: what the Avengers were really avenging.

Might come in handy on a trivia night (you never know).

So
I recently finished reading Blink, The Tipping Point and Freakonomics. I would highly recommend any/all of these books. One curious tension that comes from having read these recently is that the 'Broken Window' policing strategy that is extolled in The Tipping Point is rigorously discounted as having no effect on crime in Freakonomics. Curious. How did Malcolm Gladwell get this so wrong?

The other theme that hit me was how several of the topics covered in Blink and The Tipping Point start to sound like what gets discounted (and in some cases disproven) as 'conventional wisdom' in by Levitt in Freakonomics. Makes me curious that if Levitt were to write a book examining each of the assertions in Gladwell's works, how many of them would stand up to the economists vetting? No matter the outcome, the result would be an interesting read.

One topic that I would love to see Levitt cover is this: does the increased level of violence in movies and video games desensitise people to violence or does it desensitise people to violence in movies and video games?

So
For whatever reason, the long awaited Nokia 6682 is no longer available on Cingular's web site. The 6682 is now 'available' on Amazon for $99 with a shipping date of '4 to 6 weeks' (!?). Nokia thoughtfully has it available on their website for $599.

What is going on with Cingular and the 6682?

Update 2 October 2005: The 6682 is available once again on the Cingular site for $299; Amazon still has it on a 4 to 6 week delay.