Mojojoju

Mojojoju

Jonathan  //  Graphic/web designer. Social media enthusiast.

 
Jan 17 / 10:09am

apophenia: Facebook's move ain't about changes in privacy norms

When I learned that Mark Zuckerberg effectively argued that 'the age of privacy is over' (read: ReadWriteWeb), I wanted to scream. Actually, I did. And still am. The logic goes something like this:

  • People I knew didn't used to like to be public.
  • Now "everyone" is being public.
  • Ergo, privacy is dead.

This isn't new. This is the exact same logic that made me want to scream a decade ago when folks used David Brin to justify a transparent society. Privacy is dead, get over it. Right? Wrong!

via zephoria.org

Danah Boyd eloquently voices the concerns I have been having over Facebook's recent moves.

Filed under  //  danah boyd   facebook   mark zuckerberg   privacy   socialmedia  

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Jan 9 / 8:11pm

Google Quick Scroll - A Useful Extension

MUNICH, GERMANY - SEPTEMBER 06: In this photo...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I've been trying out some of the new Google Chrome extensions recently, and one of the most useful to me has been the Quick Scroll extension. Here's what Google has to say about it:

Google Quick Scroll is a browser extension that helps you find what you are searching for faster. After you click on a Google search result, Quick Scroll may appear on the bottom-right corner of the page, showing one or more bits of text from the page that are relevant to your query. Clicking on the text will take you to that part of the page. Quick Scroll tries to stay out of your way, and appears only when it is likely to be useful.

Imagine you are searching for a specific phrase on Google. A list of results comes up. The first one looks promising, so you click it. Now where does that phrase appear? You go hunting through the document. After several seconds, you finally find it.

Now imagine you had Google Quick Scroll. You click on that first result, and immediately Google searches through the page and displays an overlay at the bottom right hand corner showing the results for your search term. Click on the overlay text, and the page automagically scrolls to the term you were looking for.

It's one of those ideas that's very simple, but surprisingly handy. 

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Jan 1 / 9:06pm

iPhones as Credit Card Readers?

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - NOVEMBER 28: A man holds...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

One of my favorite Mashable authors, Jenn Van Grove, is out today with a new piece on the potential for iPhones and other smartphones being used for mobile transactions. She writes:

The buzz building around Mophie, the palpable excitement and interest stimulated by Square, and an increasingly competitive mobile payment system market means that 2010 will be the year that consumers will buy and sell from their mobile phones.

I must admit, the idea of mobile payment intrigues me. Chase and other banks now have apps through the App Store. The one thing that concerns me is security, not just with mobile payment, but with browsing on smartphones, period. I spoke to a Best Buy associate the other day (via their @twelpforce Twitter account; very responsive, by the way) who informed me that security on the iPhone and iPod touch is "unconventional." An article in MacWorld from November refers to smartphones as being "very vulnerable" to certain kinds of security attacks.

The authors of the study warn smartphone users to "seek out and identify applications that provide adequate encryption technologies to protect confidential or private information. Applications for doing so exist, but are still rare, the authors note.

Many of the commenters on the Mashable post offer the typical gung-ho responses to news of the increased convenience - "bad ass", "Dude this is way cool. Right when I thought IPhone couldnt get any better."

Others echo some of my concerns, though. One says:

surprised there is no talk about security in this article. As much as I buy online I can't see myself using a ton of those things.

Another states:

i so see the feasability and helpfulness of this invention, but can also see some serious pitfalls such as ppl manipulating the software to store ppls credit card info and therefore committing fraud. not so thrilled about that. so something for the manufacturers to think about when they unveil this product it would be good for them to mention some of the safeguards they have put in place to prevent this type of exploitation...

I don't discount the "wow" factor of being able to log in to my bank account, or even to swipe my credit card, via my smartphone. I just hope we're not throwing our security and privacy under the bus for convenience's sake. 

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Filed under  //  creditcard   iphone   ipod   mashable   mobile   payment   security  

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Dec 22 / 6:44pm

Avatar

Avatar (2009 film)

Image via Wikipedia

Just went to go see Avatar in IMAX 3D. Amazing. I had seen the trailer, but neither that nor the photos on the Web were able to do the picture justice.

I won't give away any of the plot here, for those of you who have not yet seen it, but suffice it to say, the trailer, while seeming to show a lot, actually leaves out quite a bit. And the textures! Burning embers from a fire. The iridescent shimmer of the Na'vi faces (hinted at by the picture at right). Even something as mundane as droplets of water falling on leaves or smoke passing in front of a face is given incredible presence.

I was struck by how much the Na'vi (the nine to ten foot blue inhabitants of the planet Pandora, where the movie is based) were made to resemble Native Americans. Their war whoops, tribal headdresses, the reliance on and respect for the land and animals...and yet there was just enough different about them to make them their own unique construct. They have their own language, for instance (Papyrus); they also fly on huge dragon-like creatures (let me just tell you, the flying scenes in IMAX are incredible).

Well, I'm blathering on. But honestly, you should go see it. I thought it would be pretty good judging from the trailer, but I would have to say it even exceeded my expectations.

UPDATE: BoingBoing has a very good look into ways Avatar could have veered from relative predictability, plot-wise.

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Filed under  //  avatar   imax   james cameron   michelle rodriguez   na'vi   pandora   sam worthington   sigourney weaver   zoe saldana  

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Dec 12 / 5:39pm

Nexus One: The Google Phone Has a Name

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via mashable.com

So it seems that there was a Google Phone in the works after all. First Techcrunch, and now Mashable have confirmed the existence of a phone that will be built by HTC and will be called the Nexus One. Mashable claims the launch date is rumored to be January 2010 (that's less than a month away, wow).

UPDATE (12/31/09): Ben Parr of Mashable reports on videos of the Nexus One in action.

Filed under  //  google phone   gphone   nexus one  

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Oct 26 / 8:38pm

Google Social Search Launches in Labs

Google Social Search is an experimental feature that helps you find relevant public web content from people in your social circle, when you're signed in to your Google Account. For example, search for [ restaurants ], and restaurant reviews by your friends and other contacts may appear more prominently in your results. Join the Social Search experiment at http://www.google.com/experimental

Social Search adds relevant content from your contacts to your results.

When you join the Social Search experiment, Google may bring up results from your friends and other contacts. These special results appear at the bottom of the search results page, in a section labeled "Results from people in your social circle."

via google.com

Today brings news of the experimental launch of Google Social Search within Google Labs. According to Google:

With Social Search, you'll be able to more easily find relevant public content from your social circle, such as the following:

  • Websites, blogs, public profiles, and other content linked from your friends' Google profiles. 
  • Web content, such as status updates, tweets, and reviews, from social services that your friends have listed in their Google profiles. 
  • Relevant articles from your Google Reader subscriptions.

In the video example above, Google suggests that if, for example, I'm trying to decide whether to get an iPhone or a Bla ckBerry, Social Search can help me by providing relevant content from my friends (or friends of friends). After all, this is typically how we make purchases in real life - relying on the judgments of people we trust.

What potential implications for privacy does this feature have? Does Google retain some knowledge of your social graph after the search has been completed? I'm not sure as of yet, but if anyone knows, please feel free to comment.

Filed under  //  experimental   google   labs   network   privacy   search   social   socialsearch  

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Oct 22 / 8:37pm

eCSSTender - CSS3 in IE6?

Media_httpecsstenderorgimglogopng_fhntojahgqtxibo
via ecsstender.org

"Take control of your CSS. Say goodbye to the browser-specific properties and hacks cluttering your files and say hello to lean, mean CSS. With eCSStender, when you write the rules, browsers pay attention."

eCSStender is the brainchild of Aaron Gustafson (one of Jeffrey Zeldman's "HTML5 Superfriends"). It appears to be a Javascript library that allows you to author modern CSS (read: CSS3) and have it work more or less the same in modern browsers - even one that's not so modern (and the bane of web developers) - IE6.

I haven't tried this out in a project myself yet, but I did check out one of the examples - the CSS3 rotation property - in IE6, and it worked like a charm. Has anyone else tried this? Your thoughts, please.

Filed under  //  css   css3   gustafson   ie6   javascript   webstandards   zeldman  

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Oct 20 / 7:53pm

Twitter Expands Lists Beta Testing. A Great New Feature.

Media_httpcache0techcrunchcomwpcontentuploads200910twitlists2630x445png_fviescahdhafane
via techcrunch.com

Thanks to @scobleizer for pointing this article out.

"Twitter has rolled out its new Lists feature to a larger portion of its user base right now. The feature allows you to group users you follow together and then lets you share those for others to also follow."

I'm interested to see how this works. At first blush, it doesn't sound like it would be a whole lot different than what you can do in 3rd party apps like Tweetdeck or Seesmic. Perhaps the ability to subscribe to a person's lists.

Filed under  //  lists   socialnetworking   twitter   twitterlists  

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Oct 20 / 7:38pm

The Mystery Of The CSS Float Property

Media_httpmedia1smashingmagazinecomwpcontentuploads2009102columnlayoutjpg_hdvrbwailaejhsn
via smashingmagazine.com

Once again a (very) thorough review of the CSS float property (and related bugs) by Smashing Magazine. Great read!

Filed under  //  css   float   magazine   property   smashing   smashingmagazine  

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Sep 19 / 1:20pm

Interesting Facts About the Internet and Social Web

via labnol.org

Interesting stats about the internet and social web.

Filed under  //  facts   internet   social   socialweb   web standards  

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