BBC Plans Online World For Children

CBBC WorldThe BBC, through CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, will be launching an online virtual world for children, quite similar to Second Life.

CBBC World, as it will be called, will offer youngsters a safe environment to explore, and provide them with different zones offering CBBC content.

As in Second Life, children will be able to create virtual versions of themselves on-screen, called avatars. Their characters can then move around CBBC World.

They will also be able to take part in games, animations, videos and music, create their own content and send their work to other CBBC World users or upload it to a gallery, where the best will be used on the CBBC TV channel.

It is expected to go live in the summer with a full launch in the autumn to coincide with the CBBC relaunch.

I’m not quite sure how successful this project will be, but it could be good to have a children’s alternative to Second Life, still there has to be a lot of work to ensure the safety of the children using it.

[Source: BBC News]

Apple iPhone Unveiled

iphonehand.jpgApple has used the CES to finally confirm the existence of the iPhone and to release details and specifications.

The full specs are as follows:
Screen size: 3.5 inches
Screen resolution: 320 by 480 at 160 ppi
Input method: Multi-touch
Operating system: OS X
Storage: 4GB or 8GB
GSM: Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
Wireless data: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
Camera: 2.0 megapixels
Battery: Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing, Up to 16 hours Audio playback
Dimensions: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches
Weight: 4.8 ounces / 135 grams

The iPhone is actually a combination of three products

Mobile Phones & Me

For a very long time, I hated mobile phones and didn’t see much use for them, and honestly speaking, I still don’t like them that much to this very day.

I only got my first mobile phone after my first to-be-employer emailed me saying they were trying to call me on my home line to set up a job interview but weren’t able to get a hold of me.

After that, the idea of a mobile phone for me was mainly a device that I could use to contact whoever I wanted, anytime, anywhere I was, but as I’m not much of a babbler, I do that very rarely and only when it’s really important.
But the big downside was that other people could also call me whenever they wanted, wherever I was, at anytime they wanted, even when it’s not important. That I don’t like at all.

So basically, the perfect mobile phone for me would be one that I could use to call people, but that wouldn’t accept calls. A one way thingie.

But the problem is that in all of those calls that I don’t want, there are some that are either urgent or from people that I’d actually like to hear from.

In a perfect mobile phone there should be a feature to take decisions on whether to accept the call or not depending on who the person is, what the subject of the call will be about, and a number of other factors.

As that requires a lot of artifical intelligence from the phone, maybe it could be done simpler and there could be some way for me to configure the times when I’m not willing to accept calls (evenings, weekends), who I’m willing to accept calls from at the different times of the day (close family almost always, friends only after work, work colleagues only in work times, some people never, …etc).

As for all the other features that manufacturers throw on phones today, they’re really secondary, what I think they should work on is offering more flexibility in using a mobile phone and configuring it as the communication tool that it is and will always be.

Making A Living From World of Warcraft Gold Trade

Wow…
This is incredible…

“… an astounding half million Chinese now make a living – about $100 a month – from the acquisition and sale of WoW (World of Warcraft) gold to US and EU gamers. Why is this is the future of work online? Consider the numbers, youth, and low wages of the gold farmers, and the growing interest in outsourcing tasks online.

[…]

… these gold farms indicate that the game platform has the potential to engage more people in Internet-driven economy. The gaming workers in China don

Ikbis – Video & Photo Sharing

ikbisIkbis, the new service by the creative guys over at toot has gone live.
After a really cool viral marketing campaign featuring “The Largest Yellow Button On The Web” and the humorous animations behind it, the service went online this morning.

Ikbis, which means “Press” or “Click” in Arabic, is a cool online video and photo sharing service, sort of an Arabic cousin of YouTube and Flickr.

The design is very nice, simplistic and clean; I really like the logo, the colours used and the way it’s organized. Then again, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the toot designers.

The interface comes in two languages, English and Arabic, and is pretty simple and straightforward, which is always good in a web service; you upload your photos or videos, label them, describe them, tag them, organize them into albums, choose who can view them or not…etc; on the other hand you can navigate through the videos and photos uploaded by other users, leave comments and add users as your contacts.
In short, it’s a fully rounded sharing service with all the bells and whistles you could need.
RSS feeds of each user’s video and photo stream are available too.

The service is still in beta and might be a bit rough around the edges when it comes to certain small features or their usability, but I’m very sure these are things that the ikbis team are ironing out as I speak.

I certainly recommend you check out the service and play around with it, it’s a very good effort that I’m sure will continue to grow.

Finally, I’d like to congratulate my friends over at toot for this new baby and wish them all the best of luck and success with it.

Java Open Sourced with GPL

After years of requests and debates, Sun Microsystems is going ahead and releasing Java source code under a GPL license.

It plans to put the code for the programming software under the version 2 of the General Public License (GPLv2), which governs Linux and many other open-source products.

The Sun-hosted Java.net Web site will provide access to Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) software for mobile phones and Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) software for desktop applications.

Sun already has open-sourced its server-side Java Platform Enterprise Edition software in a project called GlassFish. But it is now making that same software available under the GPLv2, rather than the Sun-conceived Community Development and Distribution License (CDDL).

The nature of the GPL is that additions to software available under the GPL must also use the license. However, Sun is employing the so-called “classpath exception,” a license addition that allows the company to place limits on the software that the GPL covers.
This should help protect the work of programmers and companies that build their applications on top of Java.

This move by Sun is an attempt to build a stronger community, gain more developer followers and to avoid the problems of packaging Java with Linux distributions because of concerns over license alignment.

I’ve personally been one of the supporters of Java becoming open source for a long time, and I think the best way to keep it growing and always innovative is by opening it to the huge community of Java developers. So I think it’s great that they’ve done this at last.

[Source: CNet News]

8 Habits For Developing More Secure Code

Michael Howard, senior Security Program Manager at Microsoft, writes a list of habits any developer must have in order to get a final, secure and efficent product. The list goes as follows:

Habit #1: Take Responsibility
Habit #2: Never Trust Data
Habit #3: Model Threats against Your Code
Habit #4: Stay One Step Ahead
Habit #5: Fuzz!
Habit #6: Don’t Write Insecure Code
Habit #7: Recognize the Strategic Asymmetry
Habit #8: Use the Best Tools You Can

Details for every habit can be found here: 8 Simple Rules For Developing More Secure Code.

I couldn’t agree more…

[Source: MSDN]
[Via: Tom]

Microsoft Releases Free Accounting Software

Microsoft has released a new product by the name of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, which is a free accounting product for small businesses.

According to Microsoft:

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007, financial management software is designed for millions of starting businesses and home based businesses that currently use pen & paper or spreadsheets to run their business. It provides a single place to manage the company

The Ten Common Myths of IT

Ten common rationalizations people in the Information Technology world turn to whenever their authority or professionalism is challenged.

They have been around as long as the modern computer and they transcend all cultural and industrial boundaries. What’s worse, they have proven to be quite effective.

1. Our problems are unique
2. We never seem to have enough time to do things right
3. You are stifling our creativity
4. System design is an art form
5. Technology will solve our problems
6. A DBMS is a prerequisite for data base
7. There is an infinite amount of data in an organization
8. Our company runs on data
9. Users own the data
10. Users don’t know what they want

[Source: TheTechZone]