kilps

If you're confronted by guys with knives you're going to run away? It's generally safer to give them what they want and be done with it.

I completely agree that it was by no means a perfect source of information, but when you're at a school level and doing seven different subjects it was the most practical and possibly appropriate, as long as one looked beyond just Wikipedia.

Possibly not the best for teaching research skills with books - but it did help with learning to sift through a lot of information, which I'd argue is more useful that having your school assignment 100% correct.

The argument for books as a medium is a fair one to make, but overshadowing this is just what students end up using. When I was in high school a couple of years ago books were almost never used for research purposes (despite a well stocked library) - we grew up using the internet for research, and as far as I can tell didn't suffer too much for it.

Books being used less means that an enormous school library just doesn't make sense for schools with limited resources.

Google really should publicly explain their stance on this - their (and other search engines') role in the internet is just far too important for it to be left to some internal policy.

I would advocate some form of regulation of this type of thing - but the chances of us ending up with something worse than the status quo is probably a bit high.

I really like the idea, but the feature mentioned at the end of the post to allow limiting plans to certain friends is a must have - many of my plans I won't want the whole world to know about.

I don't really buy the argument that either Microsoft or the content creators are 'evil' - yes it is only natural to want to be paid - but that doesn't mean that if it happens it won't be a bad thing.

On your second point - search is by no means as fragmented as this would result in it being. The specialised databases you speak of are just that, currently our expectation is that Google, Bing, et al all index the web we see on a day to day basis. Ideally those databases (if they are already in some form 'public') should be indexable by all search engines - it's the best thing for the consumer, and is pure competition on the technical front.

I'm rather surprised by all the comments here who don't seem to see a problem with fragmented search.

As the article points out, such a strategy means that newcomers to the market have to compete based on initial funding - not technology. And to claim that Google has a 'free ride' is rubbish - for that to happen it would have to be a one sided relationship, but here news being indexed by Google is mutually beneficial - with one partner starting to get a bit greedy.

Trying out a bit of Android development is one of those things I want to try over my holiday (just need to get a device...) - how big a deal is testing an app on different devices at this point? At least amongst Google sanctioned ones?

yes...

Music. I'mm yet to find a good api which let's me query information about artists / songs etc.

And the good local events api someone mentioned would also be great.

No he is saying fix it properly or just don't bother - if this was released tomorrow we'd have 3 different versions of IE to worry about.

Don't forget social networks - I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to host our own profiles along the wordpress/email/xmpp model.

Imagine Facebook and Myspace were just two clients to some form of decentralised social network - then they'd be true competition, no need to go only where your friends are.

For everyone who keeps saying that this is only at peak, that doesn't mean that it isn't important. If you can generate that much wind, then store the energy with pumped storage - you are still getting far more overall renewable energy than you would have otherwise.

Is there any reason why one should not be told that one was secretly monitored after the fact?

If you are guilty, well there we go - if not, then there is a path for review if the powers given to government are abused. And because it's after the fact no investigation gets hurt.

Why couldn't an open system allow for different profiles? E.g. personal, professional and public. Facebook has started to get the right idea with its lists feature - but there needs to be far more control - a completely separate profile, option to target statuses to certain groups etc.

Inevitably the solution will be a decentralised social network which other providers can tap into - core functionality such as profiles (and location?) should be as portable as a wordpress blog: either I get someone else to host it or I host it myself.

I can't say I gave it much time to explore all features - but two comments. 1) Why is the app limited to US users with the time zone options? What about the rest of the world? 2) Extra attendee information would be great - I'm often involved in online registration for sailing competitions and currently use a rather clumsy custom system. Your design is top notch so I was really interested in looking at your app for our use, but we have to record things like boat numbers.

I'm yet to look at it properly, but I'd call it a big mistake if this is not built on top of OpenID - to me that is the natural extension of the concept.

Imagine signing into a site with your OpenID and actions being sent back to your hosted DSNP profile Facebook Connect style.

Nicely done - except it says it won't rain, so I looked outside - no wait it is raining. From other comments looks like Google's fault though - but still: putting that my emphasis on one aspect of the forecast and then getting it wrong ...