links for 2009-06-19

"Today we’re bringing that ability to the smartphone mobile site. For those devices that support it (currently Android and the iPhone with the new 3.0 software), the Mobile Nearby page will figure out where you are in the world and show you photos that have been taken in the same area." So cool.

"When we released IE6Update, one of our motivations was our claim that most people don’t understand the difference between a browser and the Internet. Admittedly, we didn’t have any statistics to substantiate that assumption, and we were going on direct experience." Google went and got some person on the street data.

"A gradual phase-out of co-proxamol led to 350 fewer suicides and accidental deaths in England and Wales, a study in the British Medical Journal reports."

"Iran's supreme leader is to address the nation for the first time since disputed election results sparked huge protests in the capital, Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who backs the re-election of President Ahmadinejad, is due to speak at Friday prayers."

"Next thing you know, the women will want to make important policy decisions, too…"

"So I think of the pursuit of a world in which everyone is small enough to fail as the pursuit of a golden age that never was. Regulate and supervise, then rescue if necessary; there’s no way to make this automatic." Even Krugman doesn't want to prevent band from being "to big to fail".

"Rumors can be confirmed, as Ballmer stated openly during a speech on the recession to those in attendance at the Executives Club in Chicago, a new Xbox 360 will hit the store shelves in 2010." Awesome.

"Nearly half of teachers questioned for a survey believe the health and safety culture in schools is damaging children's learning." That's interesting.

"That is partly because there are no independent unions or other non-government organisations in China that could organise a national protest movement. China is also spending money on a series of projects, including retraining, to help migrant workers find new jobs. And just in case this does not work, the country's leaders have instructed the security services to watch carefully for any signs of unrest. Mr Liu is down on his luck, but he is still optimistic. This is one reason why there have been no major protests, according to Professor Joseph Cheng from the City University of Hong Kong."

"So with this in mind we’ve decided to issue a limited number of free accounts for any student with an idea that they want to work on. These ideas can be anything from a photoblog or community forum to a web-app or game mod, maybe even the next Twitter." Very cool Eleven2.

"The Constitution guarantees basic rights and freedoms to all people in the United States, not just citizens. The guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law apply to all persons in the U.S., regardless of immigration status." Just a remainder.

"Google responded promptly to the letter, saying in a blog post that they are planning tests to investigate the performance trade-offs involved with always-on HTTPS for Gmail, and that the additional cost of processing HTTPS connections would not keep them from implementing it across the board. EFF would like to applaud Google's efforts to offer better privacy defaults to its Gmail users, and we also urge them to prioritize these trials in order to expedite the widespread public implementation of always-on HTTPS." See even the EFF can be happy with Google every once in awhile.

"In fact, we're currently looking into whether it would make sense to turn on HTTPS as the default for all Gmail users." That would be awesome.

Up to a 9.78% improvement over Netflix's algorithm.