The new iPhone app that can instantly translate words live

This blow me away brilliant product, cant wait to try it out.

Even the fonts match on the translated text.

Check here for the full article.

iPad from apple now available from Giant Tesco

Snap up your 1st Gen iPad from Tesco this Christmas !

Please buy as many as you can so they bring out the iPad 2 with at least one camera and a USB port, then I can buy the new model.

Some other retailers are selling cheaper than Tesco and apple, looks like apple want to get rid of all the (current) old stock.

On Tesco Direct Here

Nexus S ? Anybody ?

Samsung's Q1 2011 flagship Gingerbread phone will feature Super AMOLED 2 and a 1.2GHz processor.

SourceTechWeet

Fixed Android News and Weather app

Well i think the problem may have been the server that the app pulls weather and possibly time access data, as the problem was on different os versions and different app versions.
My phone has not updated the app version and no patch to the ANDROID os either.

Anyway thanks to who ever fixed it.

Update on the Android News and Weather App

Seems to be a general fault with the App itself as people are reporting problems on the Desire / Nexus One / Desire HD.

http://planetcypher.blogspot.com/2010/11/android-weather-app-fault.html

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=40fafe6ac5337ef2&hl=en

Make sure you join the thread on the forum if you want to get the buggette fixed.

Android News and Weather App Fault ?

Hmm my news and weather app is faulty is it a nexus one fault or FroYo ?

After selecting the day beak down the time frame starts at the current time but when you drag to the right the time goes backwards an hour ??

Obviously something to do with the time change here in the UK, for day light saving.

Any body else having this problem, are you on FroYo on none HTC hardware ?
tweet back @PlanetCypher

#FireSheep

Here are the details I have found to get firesheep working on a PC.

1. Firefox 3.6.12 im using http://www.oldapps.com/firefox.php?old_firefox=98

2. WinPcaP http://www.winpcap.org/install/default.htm

3. FireSheep http://github.com/codebutler/firesheep/downloads

4. When downloaded fireshhep add on Click tools add-ons then drag xpi file onto the Add-ons page.

5. Reboot FireFox

6. Then the magic step on firefox, View / Sidebar / FireSheep (or Shift Ctrl S)
6a. Click on preferences and under Capture tab click on Interface then select your wifi nic.

7. Start Capture

7a. If you get an error like failed hardware promiscuous mode, then you nic does not support wifi

sniffing (listening to packets).

7b. Get hold of a nic that supports promiscuous mode, goto 6.

Twitter Warning Don't go to Twitter.com youtube clip of the exploit.

Here is a youtube video of the exploit in operation, so you don't have to risk trying it out your self, for all you curious techies.

Angry Birds Android

Finished Angry Birds BETA for Android yesterday, thanks to Paul for help on level 7 ! it took a while to get all 3 stars, cant wait for the full release. or do i go for the Angry Birds HD on the iPad next month ?

Rovio Mobile

appolicious

Is T-Mobile the network to be on now ?

Now T-Mobile and Orange has implemented network roaming between them selves is T-Moble the network to be on if you have a 3G dongle or iPad ?

The answer it would seem is not, disappointingly the networks have only agreed to roam 2G services, this obviously increase the reach for voice users it does nothing to improve 3G services.

I was all ready to jump to T-Mobile but now will be staying put. Defiantly would not go back to Orange due to having a much downgraded service many years ago when France Telecom took the reins.

Is the end of digg just down the track ?

Going on about 90 percent of comments I have seen for the new digg 4 site people are leaving in droves.
Users complaining about server fails (as in the image above) also the blocked spaced out design of the front page, also the thumbs up and down are gone people also dont want or like the social friends aspect of the new design, feeling is that @kevinrose and co have sold out and gone too generic.

I hope digg manage to appease people and maybe add some extra functionality back to digg.

Check it out for your self here but just not all at the same time as digg is suffering from the digg effect and the servers either being hammered or are not up to the job.

Apple show us they are not alown with antenna performance issues

Every smartphone has a cellular antenna. And nearly every smartphone can lose signal strength if you hold it in a certain way. To demonstrate this, we tested iPhone 4 alongside other smartphones.

Understanding attenuation and signal loss.

The opposite of amplification, attenuation happens whenever a signal is obstructed. All antennas — including television, radio, GPS, and cellular antennas — can experience attenuation. And with most antennas, the density and composition of the human hand can cause attenuation to a greater degree than some other materials. On a mobile phone, signal loss typically occurs when your hand attenuates the most sensitive part of the antenna. In the photos and videos below, we demonstrate how different grips cause attenuation on many popular smartphones — including iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.

#iPhone 4 signal fault confirmed.

Consumer Reports.org engineers ran controlled testing on the blighted apple iPhone4.

Confirming what we already know that the new phone seems to have an inherent design floor.

Check the apple store !

I got #Androids #Foyo yesterday and think its a great update; google details ...

Android 2.2 (Foyo) Platform Highlights

The Android 2.2 platform introduces many new and exciting features for users and developers. This document provides a glimpse at some of the new user features and technologies in Android 2.2. For more information about the new developer APIs, see the Android 2.2 version notes.

• New User Features
• New Platform Technologies
• New Developer Services
• New Developer APIs

New User Features

Home

New Home screen tips widget assists new users on how to configure the home screen with shortcuts and widgets and how to make use of multiple home screens. The Phone, applications Launcher, and Browser now have dedicated shortcuts on the Home screen, making it easy to access them from any of the 5 home screen panels.

Exchange support

Improved security with the addition of numeric pin or alpha-numeric password options to unlock device. Exchange administrators can enforce password policy across devices. Remote wipe: Exchange administrators can remotely reset the device to factory defaults to secure data in case device is lost or stolen. Exchange Calendars are now supported in the Calendar application. Auto-discovery: you just need to know your user-name and password to easily set up and sync an Exchange account (available for Exchange 2007 and higher). Global Address Lists look-up is now available in the Email application, enabling users to auto-complete recipient names from the directory.

Camera and Gallery

Gallery allows you to peek into picture stacks using a zoom gesture. Camera onscreen buttons provide easy access to a new UI for controling zoom, flash, white balance, geo-tagging, focus and exposure. Camcorder also provides an easy way to set video size/quality for MMS and YouTube. With the LED flash now enabled for the Camcorder, videos can be shot at night or in low light settings.

Portable hotspot

Certain devices like the Nexus One can be turned into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can be shared with up to 8 devices. You can use your Android-powered phone as a 3G connection for a Windows or Linux laptop by connecting their phone to the computer with a USB cable. The connection is then shared between the two devices.

Multiple keyboard languages

Multi-lingual users can add multiple languages to the keyboard and switch between multiple Latin-based input languages by swiping across the space bar. This changes the keys as well as the auto-suggest dictionary.

Improved performance

Performance of the browser has been enhanced using the V8 engine, which enables faster loading of JavaScript-heavy pages. Dalvik Performance Boost: 2x-5x performance speedup for CPU-heavy code over Android 2.1 with Dalvik JIT. The graph to the right shows the performance speedup from Android 2.1 to Android 2.2 using various benchmark tests. For example, LinPack is now more than 5 times faster. Kernel Memory Management Boost: Improved memory reclaim by up to 20x, which results in faster app switching and smoother performance on memory-constrained devices.

New Platform Technologies

Media framework

• New media framework (Stagefright) that supports local file playback and HTTP progressive streaming
• Continued support for OpenCore in Android 2.2

Bluetooth

• Voice dialing over Bluetooth
• Ability to share contacts with other phones
• Support for Bluetooth enabled car and desk docks
• Improved compatibility matrix with car kits and headsets

2.6.32 kernel upgrade

• HIGHMEM support for RAM >256MB
• SDIO scheduling and BT improvements

New Developer Services

Android Cloud to Device Messaging

Apps can utilize Android Cloud to Device Messaging to enable mobile alert, send to phone, and two-way push sync functionality.

Android Application Error Reports

New bug reporting feature for Android Market apps enables developers to receive crash and freeze reports from their users. The reports will be available when they log into their publisher account.

New Developer APIs

Apps on external storage

Applications can now request installation on the shared external storage (such as an SD card).

Media framework

Provides new APIs for audio focus, routing audio to SCO, and auto-scan of files to media database. Also provides APIs to let applications detect completion of sound loading and auto-pause and auto-resume audio playback.

Camera and Camcorder

New preview API doubles the frame rate from ~10FPS to ~20FPS. Camera now supports portrait orientation, zoom controls, access to exposure data, and a thumbnail utility. A new camcorder profile enables apps to determine device hardware capabilities.

Graphics

New APIs for OpenGL ES 2.0, working with YUV image format, and ETC1 for texture compression.

Data backup

Apps can participate in data backup and restore, to ensure that users maintain their data after performing a factory reset or when switching devices.

Device policy manager

New device policy management APIs allow developers to write "device administrator" applications that can control security features on the device, such as the minimum password strength, data wipe, and so on. Users can select the administrators that are enabled on their devices.

UI framework

New "car mode" and "night mode" controls and configurations allow applications to adjust their UI for these situations. A scale gesture detector API provides improved definition of multi-touch events. Applications can now customize the bottom strip of a TabWidget.

For more information about the new developer APIs, see the Android 2.2 version notes and the API Differences Report.

official ANDROID link

Listen to the #iPhone 4 loose signal when hotspot area is touched.

How a software fix corrects this i don't know.
Thanks to jFoster33702 for sharing this video, as you can see but more importantly hear the communications between the iPhone 4 and the Cell tower completely stops when you touch the bottom left of the antenna array on the phone, take a look -



Notes from jFoster youtube description.
Make sure you LISTEN to this video. Note the progress bar in Safari and how it moves in conjunction with the antennae being touched.

I've been having a horrible time with my iPhone 4. The Apple store even replaced it this morning and the new phone has the same issue (thank you Apple store, you were 0 problems and I believe you're trying!). If you touch the phone on the bottom left (bridging the two antennae) while on a call or the internet, data stops instantly and calls are dropped.

I placed the phone near some desktop speakers so that you could hear the interference typically heard when cell phones transmit data. When I touch the phone, you can actually hear AND see the data stop transmitting. I refreshed a website that I frequent and as it loaded you can see the progress bar pause and start as I touch and release the phone. This isn't a death grip of any kind. I and many others cradle the phone in their left hand while typing with the right - which is going to make this problem occur.

In all fairness, I could not create this problem in Tampa this morning, but at various St. Petersburg, FL locations, it was 100% repeatable - leading me to believe some of the other information coming out that indicates it might have something to do with the towers that you are currently using.

Either way, it seems clear that if you are near a "problem" tower or don't have the STRONGEST signal to begin with, the signal drops/shorts to a point where you can not make a call or receive 3G data when this spot is touched.

So this is two different phones, same exact problem.

Official Letter from Apple Regarding iPhone 4.

Dear iPhone 4 Users,

The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple's history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.

At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?

We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.

Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don't know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T's recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone's bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.

We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.

We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same- the iPhone 4's wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologize for any anxiety we may have caused.

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Apple

via engadget


Will this really fix the problems or not ? will simply displaying the results of the signal strength in a different way actually work ? possibly if the software references the signal bars and then shuts down the data speeds for downloading and cause quality degradation of the voice call, only time will tell.

We await the tests of iPhone 4 signal testers like this one.

So we are holding it wrong are we Steve ?

Apple demonstrates how to hold the new #iPhone, NOT !

Apple #iPhone 4 Drops Signal.

Now we know why apple released their own protective bumper for the iPhone. Its because they forgot anybody was going to be holding the new iPhone 4 to make a call.

Simple really don't know why I did not see this problem earlier.

So basically you have an insulated material say a nice shine glass composite case then you put a metal ring around the edge of the phone and then segregate that ring, then you wire up that ring to the rf antenna of your phone.

Result great signal as the antenna is open to the air and nothing to restrict it.
Now here is the problem, add a human being to the equation, they hold the phone toughing the glass casing and the metal surround, no problem with the glass but when the antenna comes into contact with the skin the signal is effectively earthed out and the reception on the phone drops and in a lot of occasions the signal disappears completely.

Some unfortunate iPhone 4 users have demonstrated the problem by simply resting a metal object across the gap on the bottom left of the phone.

Big problem, remember the problems Steve had demonstrating the phone on wifi at WWDC, may be this earthing problem had an effect there too. ?

So it looks like apple brought out the silly little bumper because they knew about this fault, and lets face it, its an embarrassing fault for apple.

Some fixes are tape or of course the apple bumper.



Check here for a full listing of what Gizmodo found.

I liked this one, i was thinking the exact same thing.

The iGlove, using this rubber actually improves sensitivity ! :)
care of drmrw

Apple release new Mac mini, Again ! #apple #mac

Apple released details of the new new Mac mini today, I say new new because they only recently up the spec of the mac mini along with a new mini hdmi port that did not support audio only video.

But if you check apple now you are greeted by a newly designed Mac Mini, its another £100 or so for the new model but has an integrated psu and an hdmi that support audio too !

Wow that was a quick re development apple ! makes me wonder why they even bothered with the interim version, needed to shift some old cases perhaps ?

http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini

Check the apple store !

Three Micro SIM for iPad.

Here we have one of Three's new micro SIM cards as advertised for the iPad.

However there is no mention of the iPad on the documentation or SIM card, so this looks like it
could be used with any 3G product, as the SIM card its self is a multi cut out unit that can be used in its three versions.
What ever happend to the micro SIM card saving money by cutting down on the amount of material used in the SIM card its self and also packaging ? Just media spin again i think.

Currently Three offer a £15 per month 5 GB deal, the new iPad deal gives you double the data allowance for the same £15.

We will be issuing a template as taken from the SIM card cut outs so you can chop up or cut and SIM card to be used in the iPad or future iPhone or and other unit that uses the micro SIM card.
We cant realy condone this activity as if you read the small print of SIM cards it says the SIM card will remain the property of the issuing network, so do this at your own risk.

Update 17/12/2011
After using the template a few times I realised it was not the best way to "modify" a standard SIM card to fit a micro SIM card slot.
I would find I would need to tinker with the SIM after cutting it out to make the fit just right.
I purchased a SIM cutter and now i'm able to punch out a perfectly sized micro SIM card from standard sized SIM card, the one I purchased also included two micro to standard SIM adapters.
here is one from Amazon well worth purchasing, you can now pick what ever SIM card is the best deal on data package regardless of if the network is trying to hold you to ransom just to buy a micro SIM card.

flattr Back ?

Flattr back ? will this work ?

If you flattr me with the button below i will flattr back.

New #iPhone will use Micro SIM cards.

According to this youtube video the Next Gen #iPhone will use the A4 processor (same as the iPad), also looks like will use a Micro SIM (again the same as the iPad).

We now have a flattr account have you ?

Flattr is a micro payment system that enables you to see people appreciate your content.
Weather its a blog, video, pictures, music or anything else actually you are putting out there, its a way of sharing out the cake easily with just a click !

If you like our post why not show the love ? click on my flattr button.

The process for forming a party after a hung parliament. Flow Chart

How To Convert a SIM to a MicroSIM so you can use with your ipad 3G

How To Convert a SIM to a MicroSIM so you can use with your ipad 3G here's how :-

http://bit.ly/9KUSlp

Maybe you could give it a try with one of our Three HSDPA 3G sims ? check out the store.

Our web store

Real 100% Cash Back from Big retailers and utility providers !

I would like to welcome our newest sponsor to Planet Cypher.
Top Cash Back is the UK's Best Cash back web site, giving you real money back from you on-line purchases.

Simply follow the link or click on the banner bellow to get to the site, then open up a free account all you need is you email address ! that simple.

Other Cash back sites pale in comparison, there is NO charge for this service Unlike Quidco who charge you an annual fee to use their service. No so here Top Cash Back just take their costs from the companies directly so they can pass on Maximum saving onto you.

Why not give them a try ? free to set up and use. If you use somebody else already for your cash back that fine, try Top Cash Back and see what you think, I'm sure you will agree you wont look back !
Real Cash Back From Big retailers and Utility Providers !

Royal Navy sent to help thousands of Brits stranded by volcano #ashtag

Two Royal Navy ships have been deployed to help get stranded travellers back to the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said today.

HMS Ark Royal and HMS Ocean will be made available for the relief effort, Mr Brown said, after a meeting of the emergency planning committee Cobra in Whitehall.

full story here

McLaren charter plane to get to Spanish GP #F1 #ashtag

McLaren committed this morning to a charter plane for Wednesday to fly to Spain. We were the first to commit to that and have said that if it is a big enough plane then anyone else can come on board.

A number of outfits, including Ferrari, McLaren and Lotus, have chartered their own aircraft to take personnel back to Europe.

autosport post more details here

Met Office Volcanic ash map released

Met Office link

3G HSDPA. 12GB

SIM cards on their own at a 38 % discounted price, you can use your own compatible dongle or mobile.
Click for the great deal !

Multitasking for iPhone OS 4.0 but not the iPhone 3G

As reported by engadget apple have announced Multitasking support for iPhone 3GS and later iPod touches.
What about the iPad though ?

Paddington Exchange Update 16:40 31/03/10

BT also said that the Paddington fire and flood had affected no more than 30 exchanges.

Update

BT has clarified the chain of events. As it currently understands the incident, flooding caused an electrical fire. The fire brigade attended and "addressed" the fire, a spokeswoman said. The root cause of the major outage is thought to be the flooding.

Latest correlated information BT Paddington Fire information

Latest information correlated from different sources on BT Paddington Exchange Fire.

IN PROGRESS: National Datastream Outage

We have received the following communication from BT Openreach regarding a National Datastream service outage affecting upto 37,500 circuits.

Description of Outage: Several BBLCs terminating to Reading and Harbour Exchange are down. All datastream customers terminating on rdg-0-dsl, he-1-dsl, and he-2-dsl, are affected by this outage.

Geographic location of affected services: (where possible to define). Due to the nature of our network affected exchanges could be anywhere in the UK

Customers may experience issues with their ADSL connection, the router will be able to sync and obtain a connection , yet traffic will not pass (Web/Email/VoIP services will be unavailable).

Updates when received from BT Openreach will be posted here.

** 12:17 : 437 exchanges have been confirmed as affected by this outage, Customer Services have received a document detailing affected exchanges.

** 12:30 : BT have taken the decision to close North Paddington Exchange due to flooding , LLU services provided by Tiscali at this exchange only are experiencing the same issues as above.

IN PROGRESS: Fire at BT site

We are aware of a fire at a BT site in North Paddington, London and this is likely to affect the routing of calls that would have passed through that node. This will affect all communication providers that route through this node.

We have no reports of this affecting any of our users at present but are closely monitoring the situation and have contingency plans in place.

***Update 11:20***

We have lost connection to one exchange but our voice routes have been rerouted where necessary so no ill effects should be seen by any users. We will however leave this status update ‘at risk’ pending updates.

Gradwell

STD codes effected via BT Customer Services:-

Wed 31/03/2010 at 11am	Ongoing	Problem in the London and surrounding area (20CN and 21CN)
Dialling codes affected: 01132 01142 01159 01162 01179 01189 01204 01206 01209 012135 012174 01223 01224 01225 01227 01229 01233 01235 01236 01241 01243 01244 01248 01252 01254 01255 01268 01273 01274 01276 01277 01278 01279 01284 01293 01297 01303 01304 01306 01322 01327 01329 01332 01341 01343 01344 01354 01372 01376 01382 01403 01407 014124 014188 01423 01424 01428 01443 01452 01460 01474 01480 01487 01488 01489 01491 01494 01495 015123 015152 015172 01526 01548 01580 01603 01604 016140 016163 01621 01622 01626 01628 01634 01635 01638 01642 01676 01678 01690 01702 01707 01708 01727 01733 01736 01747 01749 01752 01772 01786 01787 01788 01789 01792 01794 01795 01803 01825 01842 01865 01869 01892 01902 01903 01908 01909 019141 019143 019148 01920 01923 01924 01925 01926 01932 01945 01953 01983 01992 01993 0203073 0203075 0203112 0203144 0203204 0203205 0203206 0203214 0203219 0203230 0203238 0203275 0207052 0207121 0207159 0207165 0207168 0207209 0207221 0207224 0207225 0207229 0207240 0207258 02072620207266 0207286 0207287 0207289 0207292 0207307 0207317 0207319 0207328 0207353 0207355 0207371 0207372 02073770207384 0207394 0207399 0207402 0207408 0207409 0207419 0207431 0207432 0207433 0207434 0207435 0207436 02074370207439 0207443 0207447 0207449 0207460 0207474 0207478 0207483 0207486 0207487 0207491 0207493 0207494 02074950207499 0207534 0207535 0207537 0207538 0207563 0207569 0207581 0207584 0207586 0207589 0207590 0207591 02076020207603 0207604 0207613 0207616 0207624 0207625 0207629 0207638 0207647 0207681 0207692 0207706 0207722 0207723 0207724 0207725 0207734 0207794 0207813 0207823 0207837 0207851 0207907 0207916 0207935 0207987 0208301 0208309 0208346 0208399 0208400 0208466 0208503 0208563 0208567 0208573 0208596 0208653 0208686 0208699 0208723 0208726 0208735 0208741 0208742 0208747 0208748 0208759 0208803 0208834 0208846 0208892 0208968 0208987 0208993 0208994 0208995 0208996 0238020 0238040 0238042 0238047 0238066 0238077 0238084 0238087 0239229 0239232 0239281 0247660 0292047 Estimated time to resolve: 2hrs We are aware of a temporary problem in the London and surrounding area that may be causing some users difficulties accessing the Internet. Our engineers are working to resolve this problem and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Get a Fonera 2.0n 802.11n 3G WiFi FON Router

Cheap price for a brad new router.

Click Here for ebay link

Gnutella: Pioneering P2P Protocol Turns Ten.

Happy Birthday to a Bittorrent Predecessor Gnutella.

Ten years ago this week, online music pioneer Justin Frankel released a little application dubbed Gnutella that enabled file sharing through a distributed P2P network. Frankel, whose previous claim to fame was programming the then hugely-popular Winamp MP3 player software, supposedly named the client after his favorite hazelnut cream spread, and the first version published online was really more of a proof of concept than anything else.

Still, Gnutella hit a nerve. Napster had been sued three months before, and many file sharers were rightfully fearing that the music industry would eventually prevail in court and force Napster to switch off its servers. With Gnutella, no such switch existed, as the client was allowing direct P2P connections without the help of any centralized server. Add to it the fact that Gnutella, unlike Napster, allowed users to swap videos and software as well as MP3s, and you begin to see why many immediately viewed Gnutella as the next step in P2P file sharing.

A step, one should add, that made Frankel’s employer AOL more than a little nervous. It only took the Internet giant a day to force Frankel and his colleagues to take down Gnutella – but even that was too long, as countless sites quickly started to first mirror, then build upon Frankel’s official Gnutella client. There’s always been a little bit of mystery surrounding the exact happenings of those days, but some people have been musing that a person with a surprising amount of insider knowledge showed up in one of the first IRC chat rooms dedicated to Gnutella soon after AOL pulled the plug, only to provide some very detailed information about the inner workings of the client’s P2P protocol.

Speaking of IRC: Early versions of the software didn’t really have any way for users to connect, save for entering another user’s IP address, which is why IRC quickly became an integral part of the early days of Gnutella. It was also in those IRC chat rooms that the myth of Gnutella as a seemingly invincible P2P protocol was born, and the fact that AOL tried but couldn’t contain the software seemed to fit right into that picture. Gnutella was one of the very first P2P apps I ever wrote about, so I lurked in those chat rooms as well, where people were cheering the fact that someone finally found a file sharing solution that couldn’t be shut down. I still remember one IRC user saying: “We’ve started a damn cult again!”

Only Gnutella wasn’t really ready to be a cult. The network routed search requests from peer to peer, leading to an exponential growth of traffic as its network became bigger. Napster programmer Jordan Ritter described the problem early on in a paper titled “Why Gnutella Can’t Scale. No, Really,” and Frankel himself, who has hardly ever gone on the record about Gnutella, once stated that he was fully aware of “how poorly it would scale” when he released the client.

Still, Gnutella captured the imagination of many, one of them being Mark Gorton, founder of the New York-based Lime Group. Gorton was at the time pursuing a vision of automating businesses through structured data, and Gnutella, as something that could, for example, distribute real estate listings wrapped in XML, seemed to fit that image quite nicely. Early versions of the Gnutella client of Gorton’s LimeWire venture were still written with this vision in mind, hoping to build a P2P network that could eventually be used to do all kinds of things with which we’re now familiar on the web, thanks to web services.

LimeWire’s engineers joined a growing group of developers loosely connected through web sites like the long-defunct Gnutella.wego.com (whose admin Gene Kan tragically committed suicide in 2002) and mailing lists like the one for the Gnutella Developer Forum, and one of the first issues to be tackled was scalability. The introduction of a two-tiered system of ordinary clients and so-called Ultrapeers helped grow both the network as a whole and each user’s search horizon. The idea was also later adopted by the developers of KaZaA, whose own take on this two-tiered approach still lives on in Skype’s P2P network.

Technical improvements like these helped Gnutella to grow, but the competition was quick to catch up. Bram Cohen unveiled a first version of BitTorrent only two years after Frankel had published Gnutella, and BitTorrent quickly became the file sharing client of choice for sharing videos online. Part of BitTorrent’s quick rise to fame was its modular simplicity: Cohen had outsourced much of the search and indexing of files to torrent web sites, only handling the actual distribution of data within the client. Gnutella on the other hand was meant to work without any web server. That made it much more invincible, but also much less accessible to users who migrated from apps and clients to a world of web services.

Another issue that has plagued Gnutella from the beginning is not technical, but legal. The protocol was supposed to outsmart trigger-happy lawyers, but the mere fact that there wasn’t a central switch to turn off the Gnutella network didn’t stop rights holders from going after people and companies associated with it. Lawsuits and legal threats forced Morpheus, Xolox, Bearshare and a number of other companies and developers to throw the towel.

LimeWire got sued by the music industry as well in 2006, but that hasn’t stopped the company from continuing with the development and monetization of its client. LimeWire’s client also utilizes BitTorrent these days, but LimeWire’s VP of Product Management Jason Herskowitz told me during a phone conversation that Gnutella has “worked really well” for the company, and that its engineers are looking into ways to make Gnutella once again more attractive to developers by exposing some of its functionality through web services. “There is still a long future ahead for Gnutella,” he predicted.

Not everyone agrees with that outlook. Adam Fisk, who was hired by LimeWire as one of its first developers in the summer of 2000, but left the company in 2004 to eventually start his own P2P venture dubbed Littleshot, believes that some core assumptions of the Gnutella protocol are outdated. “I don’t think that distributed P2P search makes any sense,” he told me, explaining that the very server-less search functionality that made Gnutella superior to Napster also ended up being its biggest burden, and that it would be much easier to have servers handle search and just use P2P to deliver data – a recipe that has already helped BitTorrent succeed.

Sure, LimeWire and some other Gnutella clients could still stick around for a long time, Fisk admitted, but he was skeptical that we would ever see any significant new project based on Gnutella. “That would be shocking,” he said.

Mirror

Silverlight Fail !

Just tried to watch a video clip with @Stephen Fry on the .net web site, for some reason they have chosen silvershite to serve the video and not HTML5 or vimeo or even youtube.

Looks like Microsoft doesnt support their own products, (Win7 x64).

Microsoft Silverlight cannot be used in browsers running in 64 bit mode.

This Web browser or operating system may not be compatible with Silverlight. Please review the system requirements and, if you wish to proceed, choose the link for your operating system.

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx?reason=64bit&v=3.0

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Will get Android 2.1

Techtree.com India News Consumer Electronics Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Will get Android 2.1

Linus Torvalds buys a Nexus One and loves it !

Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being "mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights" even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems.

Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google's Nexus One a couple of days ago.

Torvalds has owned a number of phones before, including Google's G1 device and 'one of the early China-only Motorola Linux phones', but it took for Google to add multi-touch capabilities to the Nexus One before he finally broke down and bought one from the company's web store.

And he's loving it:

But I have to admit, the Nexus One is a winner. I wasn't enthusiastic about buying a phone on the internet sight unseen, but the day it was reported that it finally had the pinch-to-zoom thing enabled, I decided to take the plunge. I've wanted to have a GPS unit for my car anyway, and I thought that google navigation might finally make a phone useful.And it does. What a difference! I no longer feel like I'm dragging a phone with me "just in case" I would need to get in touch with somebody ¿ now I'm having a useful (and admittedly pretty good-looking) gadget instead. The fact that you can use it as a phone too is kind of secondary.

While Google hasn't disclosed how many phones it's sold so far, the company is believed to have sold closer to 100,000 than 1 million devices. But at least one of them made one of the most famous software engineers in the world one happy camper.

Robin Wauters

TechCrunch.com
Sunday, February 7, 2010; 3:04 AM

Link

Got My New Nexus One Today !