Seeing red
How effectively can social networking and the Internet be utilized to solve problems? That was what the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) set out to discover in the DARPA Network Challenge. Specifically, the competition explored the roles that the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team building and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.
The challenge was to locate 8-foot high moored red weather balloons located at ten fixed locations anywhere in the continental United States. The ten balloons were placed in readily accessible locations, visible from nearby roadways. The balloons were on display during daylight hours for one day only — Dec. 5. Teams had until December 14 to provide DARPA with the correct latitude and longitude of all ten weather balloons to collect the $40,000 prize.
So how long did it take to locate all the balloons? Shockingly, the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the $40,000 prize by identifying all ten locations less than nine hours after the balloons were first revealed! Clearly, social networking can be harnessed as a powerful problem solving tool.
Cheaper card payments
On Dec. 1, Square (https://squareup.com), a mobile phone payment system founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, launched its private beta through a tweet. Square will give anyone the ability to accept payment cards without having to go through a costly credit card processing service. Instead, Square will enable mobile phones, laptops or desktop computers to accept payment cards and users will swipe them with the help of a small dongle that will plug into the computer’s or phone’s audio jack. The company plans to expand the beta service massively over the next year.
Square’s innovative approach will allow anybody to setup a virtual merchant account instantly and three card networks are already on board – American Express, MasterCard and Visa. Square will be a major threat to credit card processors, those services which handle transactions through card swiping machines and take a portion of every transaction, plus charge a monthly fee. The company will be cheaper than traditional card processors and will offer innovative Internet based services as well, so it hopes to attract businesses that have never accepted credit cards, as well as large retail operations.
3D FIFA World Cup
Sony Corporation and FIFA have announced plans to produce up to 25 of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa matches using Sony’s 3D professional cameras. From 2010, Sony will be incorporating 3D compatibility into a wide range of consumer products such LCD TVs, Blu-ray Disc recorders and players, VAIO and PlayStation 3, to provide a multitude of ways in which 3D content — from 3D movies to stereoscopic 3D games — can be enjoyed in the home.
“The transition to 3D is under way, and, we, at Sony, intend to be leaders in every aspect. Our sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup allows us to leverage our cutting-edge 3D technology and premier products with dazzling content to produce a unique and totally compelling viewing experience. 3D viewers around the world will feel as though they are inside the stadiums in South Africa, watching the games in person,” said Sir Howard Stringer, chairman, CEO and president of Sony Corporation.
There will be global Sony 3D promotional events associated with the World Cup and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment plans to produce and distribute an official 3D World Cup film on Blu-ray Disc.
Riskiest Web domains
Cameroon (.cm) has overthrown Hong Kong (.hk) as the Web’s riskiest domain, according to McAfee’s third annual Mapping the Mal Web report. At the opposite end, Japan (.jp) is the safest country domain, landing in the top five safest domains for the second year in a row. The most heavily trafficked Web domain in the world, commercial (.com), jumped from the ninth to second most dangerous domain, while government (.gov) is the safest non-country domain.
Cameroon vaulted to the number one spot this year with 36.7 percent of the .cm domain posing a security risk, but did not even make the list last year. Because the domain .cm is a common typo for .com, many cybercriminals set up fake typo-squatting sites that lead to malicious downloads, spyware, adware and other potentially unwanted programs. In addition to Cameroon (.cm), the People’s Republic of China (.cn), Western Samoa (.ws), the Philippines (.ph) and the former Soviet Union (.su) are the top five most dangerous national domains.
