The Camera Phone: A Case of Convergence Run Amok?. Gadget convergence reaches a new level when the camera meets the phone. By Matt Richtel and Katie Hafner. [New York Times: Technology]
9:58:42 AM  #  

BMW Design Chief Sees Art on Wheels; Some Just See Ugly. BMW's first non-German design chief is trying to make the yuppie dream car as idiosyncratic as it once was predictable. And a lot of longtime BMW lovers hate him for it. By Danny Hakim. [New York Times: Technology]
9:58:17 AM  #  

Jon Udell: "For a very long time, I've thought that digital identity is the solution to spam." [Scripting News]
9:43:29 AM  #  

London: RFID Tags for Underground Passes. The plastic cards integrate an antenna coil and a chip that eliminates the need for commuters to insert the cards in a slot. Instead, they can wave it at a range of up to 10 centimeters over a card reader positioned at the top of a gate or bus entry point. The contactless card then "beeps the gates, checks them in and completes the transaction within 100 milliseconds," said Thomas Riener, marketing manager of chip cards at Philips Semiconductors.

The rollout of London's smart card project began this month when the contactless cards were distributed to the staff of London's public transportation systems. Riener called the project "the first volume showcase in Europe" featuring Philips' contactless smart card technology, called MiFare. The technology is already used in volume in the public transportation systems of Moscow, Warsaw, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Ankara and elsewhere, he said.

Philips has already shipped 250 million MiFare chips worldwide, and has shipped "a couple of million devices" to SchlumbergerSema and Giesecke & Devirient, the two companies that received the contract to supply smart cards for London's public transportation system, Riener said... [Smart Mobs]

9:42:01 AM  #  

Unintended Consequences of RFIDs.

In response to a previous post of mine, Phil Wolff has also been thinking about the use of RFIDs in library books:

"My paranoid fantasy...

So we stick RFID tags in every book, starting at the publisher; ISBN Inside(TM). I check out of the library and go about my life.

I'm walking down the street and get scanned. The police are scanning the street for people carrying the Anarchist's Cookbook. Cult members accost me because I'm carrying Judaica. Merchants tailor signage. Republicans stone me. Beggars ask for more money.

These are books inside my knapsack, my pocket, my car; hidden from view.  

If the books I'm carrying are hooked up to my mobile phone profile, you might get just-in-time book salons and lunch meetings. Lovely Smart Mobs stuff.

But privacy doesn't stop at the library doors.

Just something to consider." [a klog apart]

He's got a point, and we definitely do need to take these kinds of issues into consideration. However, even if we don't put RFIDs in books, the publishers will. Who do you trust more to implement them in a way that protects your privacy?  ;-)

[The Shifted Librarian]
9:40:31 AM  #  

A practical guide to finding like minds (or minds you like).

Wall Street Journal: ...Find a Blog.

"Where's Melvil Dewey when we need him? The 19th-century creator of the Dewey decimal system has helped generations navigate libraries. If only he could do the same for one of the 21st century's burgeoning media: Web logs, the diary-like Web sites also known as blogs.

Blogs mostly catalog their creators' musings, with links to related sites, and as such they can be as hard to categorize as the people behind them. They're occasionally ferocious or funny, brilliant or banal -- and they all want your attention. But with more than half a million of these sites out there and new bloggers appearing all the time, how can you find the ones worth the commitment of a daily click?"

This journalist has done a terrific job. Great tips and great links in there - and YULBlog (a site for Montreal bloggers) gets a mention. But he forgot one of the most powerful ways to find weblogs you'll like. Here goes, a Seb's Open Research exclusive. Visit Google and type one or two words describing something or someone specific that really interests you; append the word "blog" or "weblog"; click " Search ".

[Seb's Open Research]
9:39:20 AM  #  

Readers' Advisory for Blogs.

There seems to be a renewed increase in finding new sites of interest based on blogs and RSS. I really wish I had more time to play with all of these right now, but here's what I'm trying to track.

• I haven't had time to really look at it, but Dave Winer introduced RSS Explorer last month.
• Mark Pilgrim has introduced Recommended Reading. Just enter your URL and get a list of sites that might be interesting to you. Read more about it here.
• Phil Wolff is looking at his Blog Back Report and a Blog Neighbourhood Analysis.

I wonder if I'll be able to use these types of tools when we get our blog + RSS software running at four Illinois Library Systems next year. Yes, I'll definitely have to figure out a way to have our own Blogging Ecosystem, etc.

[The Shifted Librarian]
9:38:15 AM  #