“Social network Facebook announced Friday the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external Web sites. It makes the company the latest major Web site to embrace the concept of data portability.”

It appears I’m behind the times in hearing about this, but this is great news for data portability. Hot on the heels on MySpace, Facebook has announced that users will be able to share their online identities with other sites, moving away from its current walled-garden approach Article on News.com, here.

Greg Clark MP recently introduced his Right to Roam (Mobile Phone) Bill in Parliament. The bill would encourage mobile phone companies to allow roaming between UK networks, in the same way that phone signals are seamlessly transferred on the European continent. While phones would preferentially connect to their home network, when the user went out of range the signal would automatically be transferred to one of the other UK networks in range. It would provide much better service for customers, and mean fewer dropped calls on train journeys and the like - it’s an excellent idea

Summary on the Parliament website, here. Transcript of the proposal here.

I saw this last month but didn’t get round to blogging it. Showing what can be achieved when big business considers social issues, YouTube software has been adapted to help analysts from the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) find child pornography. In turn, this will allow solutions to be developed to make it harder to traffic indecent images and exploit children. After recent bad publicity over human rights issues, this may indicate parent company Google’s return to its “do no evil” corporate motto.

Full article on the BBC News website, here.

“Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving survivors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people … The continuing rice sales looked like just another facet of the Burmese regime’s insensitivity to the suffering of its own people as it continues to block international relief to cyclone victims and pressed ahead with the constitutional referendum yesterday.”

The humanitarian crisis in Burma is desperate. However much they may need the help of the outside world, the regime continue to reject aid, condemning tens of thousands of their population to death. Observer article is here.

BBC News reports that Barak Obama has overtaken Hillary Clinton in number of super-delegate endorsements. It’s increasingly certain that Obama will win the US Democratic race, and Clinton would do well to sacrifice her pride for the sake of her party. Her pulling out of the race would allow the Democrats to begin more effective campaigning for this year’s election - and ensure that America avoids another four years of Republican government which, under Bush, has brought little of worth to the United States or the world.

The report on Obama’s super-delegate endorsements is here.

“After listening to Jacqui Smith MP talking about skunk cannabis in Parliament today millions of young people have decided to quit using cannabis and drink 3 litre bottles of white-lightning cider instead.”

The Transform Drug Policy Foundation blog has an amusing post on the futility and impacts of reclassifying cannabis. Despite the caustic humour, the charity does have a sensible message - legalisation and control is better than prohibilition and criminalisation. The government’s bullshit stunt of reclassifying cannabis more severely criminalises millions of people, and is just political posturing designed to please middle England while Brown flounders. The full post is here, and the Foundation’s homepage is here.

Steve Jobs on following his dreams and facing death. A thought-provoking speech from a Stanford University graduation ceremony. On YouTube, here.

Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched On The Modern World
David Bodanis

Rating:

I just finished this last week, and it was a fascinating read. Covering everything from radar to static electricity, autobiography to science, it’s definitely worth picking up a  copy

I’ve written a full review on LibraryThing, here.

Scotland on Sunday have a fascinating article about the plight of Sudanese children who are abandoned by their parents. Until recently they were not considered orphans in Sudan, and 80% of those in the country’s orphanages died of neglect. However, a recent law and fatwa have drastically changed this only a few years, helping Sudanese Muslims resolve their issues about the complex and murky status of adoption in Islam.

Most definitely worth a read. Article here.

“The EU started with the premise of a ‘right to a private life’ and allowed only limited data collection exceptions to that right. Search engines can only hang on to European user data for six months, must generally treat IP addresses as ‘personal information,’ and must comply with the rules even if they are based outside the EU.”

With the US increasingly implementing a policy of voluntary self-regulation by the major search companies, it’s good news that the EU is willing to argue for tougher privacy laws to protect its citizens. The full Ars Technica post is here.

“A few days ago, New York’s State Senate passed a bill making it illegal to recruit someone into a street gang … In the never-ending fight by city officials and legislators to combat gangs, this is one of the latest efforts to outmaneuver gang members.”

Yeah, ‘cos that’ll really do the trick. The gangs mug people, shoot people, deal drugs - but of course, they’re going to stop recruiting people now that it’s illegal. From the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog, here.

Haha, this is hilarious! From YouTube, here.

“The United Nations is using the mapping programme Google Earth to highlight the plight of millions of refugees and its humanitarian work to help them … Users can explore the lives of those in exile by clicking on exact locations in the refugee camps to see photos of the facilities, such as health clinics, schools, water taps and sanitation. There are pop-up videos of specific operations and events, such as a visit to a Chad refugee camp by the actor and UN goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie.”

The Guardian reports on this great use of Google’s mapping software here. The UN’s Google Earth outreach programme can be found here.

Seems this story’s a few months old now, but not being American I only just heard about it. New York unveiled 20 state-of-the-art public toilets in January, but reputable website PoopReport.com (I’d like to point out that I’m not a regular reader, but instead found it via a New York Times article) takes issue with many of its features. The lack of a seat, the door which takes 30 seconds to close, the 4-sheet maximum limit on toilet paper, the floor soaking from the self-cleaning mechanism. All in all, it sounds a bit shit

PoopReport article here, via this comment on the NYT website.

“While the new rulers accepted the notions of Western-style multiparty democracy, in their hearts the liberation movements did not contemplate that they could lose power at the ballot box … Zimbabwe is the first country to face this crisis.”

Time takes a fascinating look at why so many African leaders don’t seem keen to relinquish their power. Article here.

I’m in the process of upgrading Wordpress (the software that powers this blog) along with all the plugins and customisations that I use on here. As a result, there may be some glitches or creases I need to iron out over the next day or two. If you do spot anything out of the ordinary, please let me know

First impressions of WP 2.5 for anyone interested - not sure I like the new interface, which feels a bit clumsy compared to the old one. However, the ability to automatically upgrade my plugins is a lifesaver, considering I have about 30 installed which I had to manually update one-by-one up till now.

Guy

Update: OK, so ignore the thing about the interface being clumsy. Firefox was clearly having an off moment, and now that it’s rendering the interface properly it is *sweet*

As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela
Mark Thomas

Rating:

I read quite a lot, and as I like giving my opinions (that’s what this blog’s for, after all) I thought I’d start writing some reviews However, as external websites provide fuller information on the books, the authors, and other readers’ opinions than I’ll ever be able to on here, I’ve decided to put them on LibraryThing. My first review is of Mark Thomas’ investigation into the global arms and torture trade, which made for some fascinating - yet horrifying - reading.

The full review is on LibraryThing, here.

Updated 11 May: Added star rating and categorised as non-fiction.

Facebook’s much-anticipated IM client, Facebook Chat, has launched on a limited pre-beta release. Currently only available to certain networks, the new feature will allow friends to chat directly from within their web browsers. Initial reviews from those who have access seem very positive, and from Facebook’s point of view it’s bound to keep users on the site for longer and thus increase eyeball time on their ads. Having said that, what would be really cool is Jabber integration, to allow users to chat in standalone clients.

TechCrunch report on the limited launch, here.

Time reports on increasing evidence that biofuels may not be the eco-friendly solution to oil dependence that they are made out to be. Not only do they result in land being used to grow fuel rather than food, but the planting of these crops causes large-scale destruction of vegetation. While good land management practices can help alleviate this, it can’t solve all the problems. However, the next question then becomes: if not biofuels, what else? Alternative solutions such as vastly expensive hydrogen power networks are unrealistic in the short- to medium-term, and so we may have to accept that, when weighed up against oil, biofuels are the lesser of two evils.

Time magazine’s report on biofuel concerns is here.

Senior al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been defending the terrorist organisation’s tactics. Nothing new there, it would seem - except that the rebuttals are against those who would normally be supporters but are now increasingly questioning the group’s methods. Answering specific questions posted on al-Qaeda linked websites, it seems that the terrorist network’s leaders may be worried about losing extremist sympathy.

A good analysis is on the Christian Science Monitor site, here.