links for 2009-07-24

"A gay rights group plans to stage a mass kissing demonstration outside the San Diego Mormon temple as a show of support for a gay couple cited for trespassing in Utah after sharing a kiss on church property." Awesome.

"While the company had its reasons (apparently, the versions it deleted were unauthorized versions) and did give refunds, it didn’t change the fact that it was invading devices and taking back content which those people had (at least to their knowledge) legally bought. And it knows that was wrong, which is good. Companies make mistakes, and we’ll chalk this up to a big, dumb one by Amazon, because they’ve now said as much. But what also troubles me is that while Amazon apologizes for incidents like this, it says nothing about other sketchy moves. But welcome to the 21st century. Not only is Big Brother watching, he’s got a backdoor passcode into your devices — and a kill switch." What he said.

"The Democrats could find themselves in a better position after the August recess or they could find themselves in a worse one — how's that for a bold prediction! But liberals' doom-and-gloom, conservatives' glee, and the media's nearsighted reporting are all equally uncalled for." Slapping some sense into the system.

"Basically the new API is designed to give developers full access to PayPal’s features, allowing them a lot more freedom in building applications which include the ability to accept and distribute payments. PayPal’s President Scott Thompson says that developers will basically be able to do anything they want off of the PayPal platform, emphasizing the “global connectivity” of PayPal (transactions can be conducted in 19 currencies). He says $2000 flows through PayPal’s system every second, 365 days a year. Thompson says that what differentiates this new innovation is the ability to maintain security, while still extending the API far from PayPal."

"People arriving at the new main home page will be greeted by a search box, information on Twitter trends and a panoply of more specific information about how they can use Twitter." Good idea.

"Soon, thousands of orders began flooding the markets as high-frequency software went into high gear. Automatic programs began issuing and canceling tiny orders within milliseconds to determine how much the slower traders were willing to pay. The high-frequency computers quickly determined that some investors’ upper limit was $26.40. The price shot to $26.39, and high-frequency programs began offering to sell hundreds of thousands of shares. The result is that the slower-moving investors paid $1.4 million for about 56,000 shares, or $7,800 more than if they had been able to move as quickly as the high-frequency traders. Multiply such trades across thousands of stocks a day, and the profits are substantial. High-frequency traders generated about $21 billion in profits last year, the Tabb Group, a research firm, estimates."

"We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles." I'm wanting to read the rejection letters.

"Translation: Apple rejected their native iPhone app." What he said.

"The US Senate says it will not be able to vote on a US healthcare reform bill by August, in a setback to President Barack Obama's proposed timetable."

"The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa has gone live. The fibre-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia."

"Meet Tennessee state senator Paul Stanley. He's a solid conservative Republican and married father of two, who according to his website is "a member of Christ United Methodist Church, where he serves as a Sunday school teacher and board member of their day school." In a sworn affidavit, a Tennessee state investigator has said that Stanley admitted to having a "sexual relationship" with a 22-year-old female intern working in his office, and to taking nude pictures of her in "provocative poses" in his apartment."