A quick burst of links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
David Guo’s solicitors get angry >> Bruce On Games
What’s the name of the effect named after that singer whose first name is Barbra?
Kasparov: The Chess Master and the Computer >> New York Review of Books
“What if instead of human versus machine we played as partners? My brainchild saw the light of day in a match in 1998 in León, Spain, and we called it “Advanced Chess.” Each player had a PC at hand running the chess software of his choice during the game. The idea was to create the highest level of chess ever played, a synthesis of the best of man and machine.” Long but interesting about the state of chess and chess computing today.
Cambrige startup produces Rapportive plug-in for Chrome & Firefox
Replaces those ads in Gmail with details about the person who sent it
A typology of (the many different kinds of) crowds >> Nicholas Carr
You say you’ve got a crowd – but for what? Data mining? Networking? Averaging? Nick Carr provides a useful reminder that there’s more than one way to source a crowd
Getting the Most Out of Twitter, No Posting Necessary – NYTimes.com
“Even the most prolific users say Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap in to the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts,” says Claire Cain Miller
Android marketshare growing, iPhone shrinking, says Quantcast
Numbers based on Web consumption in the US….
Portuguese Prime Minister promises fibre for everyone – Samknows Broadband
“Socrates said he wanted Portugal to be an “equal opportunities” provider of high-speed broadband, and make fibre connections available to 100% of the country including the rural areas.”
Technorati API Disappears: No Longer Representing the Technorati >> Programmable Web
These days, if your API disappears, then it’s like you don’t really exist.
Argos exposes customers’ credit-card numbers in emails | Security | News | PC Pro
“The company has been including the customer’s full name, address, credit-card number and three-digit CCV security code in order confirmation emails, which are sent once a customer has placed an order on the Argos website. Although the credit-card details don’t appear in the text of the email itself, they are contained – in plain text – in the HTML code of the order confirmation.” Which may be non-PCCI complaint – which would mean Argos losing its licence to process credit cards…
This Apple-HTC Patent Thing >> Daring Fireball
John Gruber explains just why software patents are broken, and why Apple is behaving strangely in trying to litigate with them: “There’s an argument to be made that software is inherently different than other fields of invention, different in such a way that patents should not apply — or, should apply for a significantly shorter period of time before expiring. You can’t (or at least shouldn’t) be able to patent mathematics, and there are good arguments that programming is a branch of mathematics.”
Opera downloads triple after browser ballot screen debut >> Computerworld
Tripling is interesting.
Source Code Repositories Targeted In Operation Aurora >> McAfee Security Insights Blog
More on Aurora, the Chinese attack that so unsettled Google: “As we continued our investigation, we realized that the SCM [source code modification] installations often aren’t properly secured. Many organizations have tight security around financial systems and other mission critical systems, but leave their intellectual property repositories broadly accessible. The company might have strong perimeter security, but once you’re in the SCM is readily available.”
An Open Letter to Steve Jobs Concerning the HTC Lawsuits >> Wil Shipley’s blog
Shipley has more cause than most to feel annoyed at Apple: the “iBooks” product on the iPad looks astonishingly similar to his Delicious Library. But his point is broader: “If Apple becomes a company that uses its might to quash competition instead of using its brains, it’s going to find the brainiest people will slowly stop working there. You know this, you watched it happen at Microsoft.”
Open source code from Twitter >> Twitter.com
If you’re going to be building a microblogging system, perhaps you’d like to have a look at this code? Even if you’re not, this is the sort of thing you find interesting.
Confessions of a Windows 7 pirate – Ed Bott at ZD Net
“Close encounters with some very nasty malware and some analysis on how the latest showdown between Microsoft and the pirates is likely to play out.”
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Well I expected someone at Etsy to do something with Alice and Wonderland and low and behold they did. The Mad Hatter Jr. is a handmade mod of a 2GB USB flash drive. It even looks creepily close to Johnny Depp’s version in the movie. There is also one of Alice called Lil’ Alice with a cheshire cat. Both flash drives come with a with a grosgrain lanyard (green, brown or red) decorated with a green spade-shaped button and underneath is a SanDisk Cruzer 2GB flash drive. 
Thank you all for participating in the 
