Here's a little random link dump of various things I've noticed on the web this week, as well as a link to a conference I'm going to at the end of March.
Microsoft's Origami project has been unveiled. It's called an “Ultra Mobile PC“, which is kind of cool, but looks like it won't be really awesome until the second generation. They have a full version of Windows XP, and they can do everything a normal computer can While they look pretty, battery life for the first generation is only expected to be around 2-3 hours.
The Toronto Hydro Corp is planning on turning Toronto into one giant wireless hotspot. Mirroring major American cities like Philadelphia, New Orleans and San Francisco, Toronto Hydro wants to bring low Cost, broadband wireless access to Canada's largest city. Of course Bell, Rogers, et al are up in arms saying that a municipality shouldn't be getting in on their game.
Wired Magazine has an article on Microsoft's new efforts to stop Phishing and other various tactics. The author's experience in the first paragraph mirrors one of my own.
Working late one night a few months back, I was just about to sign off when I decided to check my email. At the top of my inbox was a message from PayPal, “confirming” a change in my email address. But I hadn't changed the address. In an exhausted panic, I clicked the link to correct an obvious fraud.
For a split second the browser opened not to PayPal but to an unrelated IP address. Then, almost instantaneously, the screen was replaced by what looked exactly like a PayPal window, requesting my password to sign in. This wasn't PayPal; it was a phishing bot. Had I been just a little drowsier, I might have been snagged by the fraud in the very act of trying to stop it.
The exact same thing happened to me about 3 months ago, and I almost totally fell for it. Luckily I always look at the address bar of a page, and I remembered that the particular email account that the email was sent to doesn't have a PayPal account associated with it.
The $39 Experiment is about a guy who sent out 100 letters to 100 companies asking for free stuff. The website has the text of the letters, as well as a list of all the free stuff he's wrangled out of companies.
My EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 review is up on TSN.ca now. Let me just say that not only is the game awesome, but after a little tweaking, my created boxer, Brian Garside, may be one of the greatest heavyweights to ever lace the gloves. Dude is a MONSTER, and he has p0wned all of the n00bs in my department thoroughly. The best part was yesterday when John A was playing against me (computer me, not even me me) and I kept telling my computerized avatar to clinch…and he DID! Awesome.
Finally, at the end of the month I'll be attending the Omniture Summit 2006 in Park City Utah. I'll be learning a ton of stuff about how statistics can make our lives better, and how Omniture can do that. It should be pretty cool, and I think I'll learn a ton. Plus, four days in Utah, how can you go wrong?