Jun 14 2012
There is an interesting, and counter-intuitive, argument for obtaining patents described in The Defensive Patent License makes patents less evil for open source.
However, I am not sure if this is so viable in light of the judgement earlier this week described in Apple blocks HTC’s use of Google patents in US lawsuit.
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Jun 11 2012
There was an interesting story in the news today about a man who was sentenced to a two year jail term for possession of child pornography images. See Father jailed over child pornography for further details.
In particular, the article states:
Defence counsel said the case was unusual as 24 of the 27 images were virtual images – no actual children were used to create the images.
I wonder if all 27 images had been “virtual images”, would he still have received a prison sentence? Indeed, would it even be a crime to posses such images?
I am going to be controversial here, but in my opinion the possession of virtual images definitely should not be a crime.
I must admit that I am also uncomfortable with the idea that the possession (or distribution) of any types of images is a crime. It seems illogical to me to say that if you arrange your 1s and 0s in this order it is a crime, but it is perfectly legal to rearrange them in a different order (to produce a different image).
For the sake of clarity, I believe that it definitely should be illegal to produce such images.
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Jun 01 2012
It is Friday afternoon, so I think that a bit of humour would be appropriate ;)
I came across If you do this in an email, I hate you during the week, and I must admit that I can empathise with a lot of these scenarios!
There are also several other very funny cartoons there!
Enjoy the weekend!
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May 24 2012
I read an interesting article today describing how Yahoo basically killed Flickr since taking it over! The article is How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet.
I never liked Flickr due to its old-fashioned interfaces, and its lack of usability. Also, I associate it more with low quality and high volume photo sharing. Everybody whom I know that is serious about photography uses other newer photos sharing web sites!
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May 22 2012
There is another indictment of our failing third level education system described in Digital Marketing Institute says Ireland has ‘unemployable’ marketing graduates.
This time it relates to marketing graduates, and their lack of digital marketing skills.
The institute’s Ian Dodson said that 100% of marketing jobs now involve digital marketing, but that just 10% of third level graduates have those skills.
I think that digital marketing should be a mandatory requirement!
“Unfortunately, third level students are coming out, not just with poor digital literacy in Office applications, but with woeful levels of literacy when it comes to using the more modern tools and technologies, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, to promote and market business,” he added.
I often think that academics in Irish universities become lazy, and simply regurgitate the same material despite it often being many years out of date!
It really makes a farce out of the government promoting Ireland as a knowledge economy :|
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May 18 2012
I came across Mick O’Pedia today! It is like Wikipedia, but it is tailored for Irish people :)
Friday afternoon silliness ;)
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May 14 2012
I read a fascinating article today about a Brazilian clothes shop that is using clothes hangers that display the number of “likes” that the clothes items have received on Facebook. The article is Brazilian store uses hangars that tell customers how many people like the clothes online.
This is one of the most imaginative M2M ideas that I have seen to date! I can definitely see this appealing to the Facebook generation of clothes shoppers!
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May 08 2012
Last week I read that the UK’s courts have declared that access to The Pirate Bay must be blocked in Pirate Bay must be blocked in UK, High Court rules.
It is disappointing that the UK is becoming the most censored country in the EU in terms of Internet access :|
Apr 08 2012
It seems impossible to spend any time online these days without hearing about Pinterest. It certainly seems to be going from strength to strength, and it is now the third most popular social networking site according to Pinterest is third most popular social site after Facebook and Twitter.
I admit that I have not used it yet. I intend to try it, but at the moment I do not really see what the attraction is! Pinterest’s first investor explains this attraction in Pinterest’s First Investor Explains the Secret to the Startup’s Success, but I still do not get it!
This week I came across this very nice infographic in Flowtown Infographic: Why Is Pinterest So Addictive? that explains Pinterest’s addictiveness (click image to see larger version):
Why is Pinterest so Addictive? (Copyright Flowtown)
(There are some other very nice infographics on that website also!)
I think that I should give Pinterest a try!
Apr 05 2012
I came across some interesting Skype ads in Skype slams Facebook and Twitter in ad campaign tonight.
It is interesting that the ads are so focused on Facebook and Twitter!
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