A French Mac web site, Mac4Ever.com, reports that a free Swiss traffic info app, mogoRoad (not available in US App Store), grabs your phone number and sends it to a remote collecting database. Some time soon after users ran the app, they received a telemarketing phone call.
A big deal is being made out of the fact that an app gained access to the user’s phone number “with only a single line of code”. Let’s be clear here. The fact that an app can easily retrieve your phone number is a cause for celebration. What a tremendous platform we work on. Apple puts an incredible amount of power in the hands of its developers who use that power to create great apps. Would you have Apple hamstring the SDK so you could not access the Address Book? Ridiculous.
In my opinion, developers who use their apps for evil should lose their ability to bring their apps to the App Store. That’s the solution. Please stop complaining about this. The iPhone SDK is a remarkable achievement, on a par with the original Mac Toolbox. I love the fact that I can so easily do so much with so little code…
doubleTwist was founded in Oslo by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen. Jon is also known as DVD Jon and is famous for reverse engineering the DVD content scrambling system, making it easy for people to rip copies of DVDs. He also reverse engineered a number of other formats, including Apple’s proprietary QuickTime Advanced Audio Coding format, also known as AAC, the DRM format that prevents you from freely moving your purchased iTunes music from one computer to another. Suffice it to say, doubleTwist and Apple are not best friends.
This past June, doubleTwist made a big stir by putting a large banner ad on the side of the Apple Store in San Francisco, just blocks from Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. During the week of WWDC, the banner ad was removed and then reappeared. It was actually pretty funny and the subject of much discussion at the conference.
doubleTwist has now formally announced a new version of doubleTwist that will play all iTunes content on a number of devices, including Android phones, BlackBerry, Palm Pre, and PSP. As far as I can tell, doubleTwist is and always will be free. Not sure how they will make their money. One of their forums mentions that they will possibly be launching some premium features in the coming months, but no specifics.
Posted by Dave Mark on Sep 30, 2009 in humor, video
Hilarious! What strikes me the most about this video is that this kid clearly practiced this, got his parents to set up the camera, then pulled it off on cue. I want to know this kid!
I took this pic on my recent visit to MIT. There is a large hacking culture at the school, and this poster really lays things out. A must-read for all you up-and-coming hackers out there. Click here for a larger version of the picture…
Posted by Dave Mark on Sep 29, 2009 in photography
Taryn Simon takes photographs of the hidden, the things that you might never see in your life. Typically, these photographs are of restricted areas, and required a tremendous effort to gain permission to capture. Striking stuff…
Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist with a gift for drawing crazy, complex mechanisms that use outlandish means to accomplish simple tasks. Here’s a sketch of his “Simple Flyswatter”:
I’ve always been a fan of his work, as well as of the work he inspired. I can’t even imagine how long it took this RG-wannabee to build the contraption in the video below. But I wish I could have been there to watch it work…
I was driving home from my son’s school, had my camera in hand, when who should drive by but the Google Car. Here’s a pic:
Was an interesting experience getting this guy to stop. He must be used to this by now, people flashing their lights, beeping their horn, etc. He was incredibly nice, a real credit to Google. Wonder how many of these cars there are in the US? 1,000? 10,000? Do they get paid?
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”
– Vince Lombardi
