Fritz the Hacker (English version)

Sending SMS while on the toilet is ok, says Intel

2009-11-09T10:13:00.000+01:00

But what is indecent is sending SMS, or even surfing the web, at the dinner table. True, Americans are of a similar opinion, so it is difficult to determine what the opinions of Europeans will be. Nonetheless, this is a serious survey assigned by Intel to well-known market research company Harris Interactive. And they found the above mentioned. They also found that 80% of Americans believe that “unwritten rules of ethics” do exist.

And also, if you have company, you should not send SMS nor call (69%). Even more people are convinced (87%) that a mobile phone does not belong in church. Practically the contrary is so in airport queues, 64% has nothing against that.

In any case, a survey was necessary in order to find that 75% of respondents do not have anything against mobile phones, laptops or netbooks being used while on the toilet.

Nothing new. The toilet is one place where I use the phone most often. But not for sending SMS. That is most probably the difference between Europe and America.

I’ll hack any Facebook account for USD 100. Maybe.

2009-09-30T11:42:00.000+02:00

The security and anti-virus company Panda Labs has come across a truly odd service. For USD 100, you can hack into any account on the Facebook social networking website. A tempting offer – who wouldn’t want to get the best of some famous person who just happens to have a Facebook account? Or expose your wife’s or husband’s secret admirers (or discover your boss’s secret pleasures).

In reality, however, all you will end up doing is to lighten your wallet by 100 dollars, with no access to any Facebook account. Panda Labs points out that this “fun idea” was probably invented by someone in Moscow, with the real aim being nothing more than to swindle some gullible individuals out of a hundred dollars. Whoever it is, he is benefiting from the fact that people who would like to hack into somebody’s account almost certainly won’t go complaining to the police that someone cheated them out of a hundred dollars.

John Jay Daly, inventor of the opt-out concept, has passed away

2009-09-04T10:48:00.001+02:00

In 1970 the American Congress was considering legislation that would have required companies to obtain the consent of households in order to send them advertising materials. John Daly, chairman of the Direct Marketing Association at the time, devised a controversial plan that allowed consumers to send postcards to a central address to have their names placed on a list of those that did not wish to receive direct-mail advertising.

The battle that ensued over this proposal predicted that similar restrictions would mean the end of direct-mail activity and the end of this industry. But the truth of the situation was different: many people actually wanted to receive the information, and later campaigns could therefore focus on the people who were truly interested in the relevant products.

This concept later became the basis for do-not-call lists for people who do not wish to be “bothered” by calls; it was likewise applied to e-mail.

John Jay Daly died of heart disease on 27 August at the age of 80. The opt-out alternative is not available for this direct-mailing.

They were promised 8 mbps, but their Internet access speed is only 2 mbps. Regulators are annoyed.

2009-08-13T09:07:00.000+02:00

The nine largest Internet providers in England have quite antiquated habits. Each fifth customer has only 2 mbps “highspeed” access, despite having an “8 mbps” connection.

Things aren’t any different here: Czech Telefónica O2 is doing the very same. The recently introduced 8 mbps connection offers only half that speed. And since we’re here in the Czech Republic, there’s not a thing you can do about it. At least British regulatory authorities are monitoring and assessing this trend. It seems the regulators here have other things to worry about.

The world is changing: after digital natives come digital nomads

2009-08-04T10:24:00.000+02:00

I run into them sometimes – in restaurants, cafés, fast food joints, shopping centres. They sit working with a notebook or some other device in places where they can take advantage of an accessible WiFi connection. They don't need an office – they don't have to work at home. They work wherever they feel like working at any given moment. The most courageous find a WiFi connection near the water and enjoy their freedom. These people are known as digital nomads; you can add them to the list of groups in your lexicon, next to digital natives.

When you come across one, try to learn a thing or two. They know all the tricks for using Facebook, Twitter, Skype, email and Web 2.0. You can pick up something useful from these nomads for your staid and settled office life. Or you could just pack it in and become a digital nomad yourself.

To criticize customers on Facebook or not, that is the question

2009-07-17T15:54:00.002+02:00

Social networks can be a double-edged sword. Especially when an employee of British Primark writes on Facebook that customers could stand to “lose some f******** weight”. And this wasn’t the only employee of this particular company to use Facebook to comment on customers with an indelicate choice of words. The language was so cheeky that Primark began to investigate – just like Tesco, Virgin Atlantic and Waitrose at the beginning of the year.

Primark is no novice on Facemark – Primark Appreciation Society has over 100 000 members. This isn’t a “company” group, so if you want to see how “fan” communication works, you’ll have a pretty good chance of learning a thing or two. Including the “love and hate” mix you find everywhere else.

The results of Primark’s internal investigation are unknown. What is clear, however, is that while Facebook may be personal, that doesn’t mean it’s a great place to air out one’s workplace frustrations.

What are your employee's up to? They don’t by chance have an account on Facebook, do they?

Apple changed in its opinion on porn, but in the end it turned out otherwise

2009-07-08T17:26:00.000+02:00

Wednesday, 24 June, brought about a revolution in the world of applications for the iPhone. And in the end, even in the world as Apple had recently defined it. The world where no vulgar words exist. And no naughty pictures either. The “Hottest Girls” application, limited to 17 years and over, brought what men hanker after to each iPhone. Naughty pictures.

Nothing is ever that simple, however; a moment later “Hottest Girls” was lost from AppStore and the blogosphere was governed by panic. Was Apple censoring again? Did it really not know what it had permitted? Naughty pictures are simply naughty pictures. And finally the authors themselves withdrew them from AppStore – their servers couldn’t deal with the requests of all the desperate users.

It was all different in the end, however. You will definitely no longer find “Hottest Girls” at AppStore. Apple stands behind the end of the first naughty pictures for iPhone. And as the press release says: “Apple will not distribute an application which contains unsuitable content. The author of this application added unsuitable content directly from the server after the application had been approved and distributed.”

Full stop. There is no revolution taking place. iPhone will remain well-behaved. And if you want to know what “Hottest Girls” looked like, try And then there was porn. They have a screenshot there.

A Twitter tale: there's no #MOUSAVI like #MOUSAVI

2009-06-25T15:10:00.002+02:00

New social networking media can be used for marketing purposes; in fact, maybe it's already even a mandatory business tool, just like email, Internet ads and numerous other marketing methods. Except that just like these, sometimes it's all just a bit too much.

“HabitatUK: #MOUSAVI Join the database for free to win a L1,000 gift card” read one tweet on www.twitter.com. It was placed there by the British furniture seller Habitat. The retailer apparently tried to capitalize by using one of the “trending topics” as a hashtag. These topics can be tracked in real time not only on your Twitter account, but also, for example, at search.twitter.com. The biggest trend at the moment is the events in Iran (which explains the #MOUSAVI).

Habitat managed to exploit the trends to confuse a significant number of people, many of which in fact registered for the company's database. But in the end the incident not only provoked a wave of indignation, it also drew the attention of BBC and AP. Habitat eventually released an apology in which it claimed (almost expectedly) that they weren't in fact responsible for the hashtag – that it was done by someone else. We are familiar with such apologies here in this country – some intern is always responsible for any trouble.

And the moral of the story? Social networks don't forgive cheap tactics…

Twitter is (apparently) doomed to extinction, or perhaps the hype is just fading

2009-06-19T10:40:00.000+02:00

The moment almost all of us have been anxiously awaiting has finally arrived. Twitter (www.twitter.com) has ceased its astronomical growth. While Facebook grew at a rate of 8% in May, Twitter improved by a mere percentage point (Compete.com).

Has Twitter really reached the end of the line? Has it reached the stage where the hype is over, a descending phase prior to stable growth or complete demise? You could try asking the folks at Digital Natives Prague – our foreign guests might know the answer. They might have some other interesting insights as well. Have you already registered at Digital Natives?

Worse yet, a noted team from Harvard has figured out that only 10% of Twitter users create 90% of its content. Not only does this figure buck the rule of 80:20 that has held true over the long-term, it also indicates the real pickle Twitter finds itself in (apparently). What's more, the statistic is also at odds with typical social networks – in these the upper 10% of users make up only 30% of content.

And, finally, Twitter is facing apocalypse. This news flash comes courtesy of www.twitpocalypse.com, which warns of the moment the number of tweets exceeds 2,147,483,647. This figure (apparently) will, at the very least, cause the collapse of a number of Twitter's applications.

"Web 2.0" is declared the one millionth English word … what do the digital natives have to say about this?

2009-06-11T11:05:00.001+02:00

It is interesting that Web 3.0 is on our doorstep and its predecessor has, according to Global Language Monitor, now become the millionth English word. True, no-one really knows what “Web 2.0” exactly is. Also true is that the Global Language Monitor methods are labelled as nonsense.

That doesn’t matter though, what matters is that "Web 2.0" is a nice, round, binary word. Maybe you will learn more about it at the Digital Natives Prague conference, where you might even meet me. As a true digital native, I will more than likely be given the task of sending tweets on the Twitter wall, which is also "Web 2.0" based. So, don’t forget to register on http://digitalnatives.proximity.cz. Soon!

Unix celebrates its fortieth anniversary, Tetris its twenty-fifth

2009-06-05T15:05:00.001+02:00

Unix is forty years old – that's what I'd call a venerable age, particularly considering the young history of computers. If you're interested in the story of Unix, an overview is available at Computer World. Did you know, for example, that the first Linux appeared in the assembler for the DEC PDP-7 computer?

Those of us old enough to remember this computer used to call it mainframe. And did you know that today's best known and most widespread Unix systems are Linux and Mac OS X?

But that's not at all what I wanted to write about. After all, an even nicer anniversary is upon us. A game named Tetris was born an incredible twenty five years ago. An article in Wired, for example, includes a picture of the game's founder, Alexej Pajitnov, playing the first version of Tetris. And people are still playing Tetris to this day. With 125 million copies sold, the game has finally made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Downloading music is not illegal, says Harvard professor

2009-05-28T17:58:00.002+02:00

You know it – maybe you've even tried it yourself. But in the process you stole thousands of dollars from a recording company by downloading music or a film from the Internet instead of going to the store or the cinema – two places you'd probably never go to in the first place. But that's hardly relevant for a court assessing damages. And maybe you know that offering something for download is also illegal, but think that no one can touch you for just downloading. You might be mistaken, since the Czech BSA states that even downloading "illegal" things is "illegal".

So, maybe the best thing would be to go and have a chat with Charles Nesson, a professor of law at Harvard University. Nesson says that downloading music falls under the principle of fair use. He also believes part of the responsibility for the current mess lies with music industry itself for its inability to adapt to the situation.

I, for one, second that opinion.

The attack of pornographic videos on YouTube; something you might not have known about the popular video sharing website

2009-05-22T10:06:00.001+02:00

On Wednesday the overseers of YouTube found themselves in a bit of a pickle. The "Porn Day" campaign launched against YouTube produced a flood of pornographic (and hence objectionable) videos uploaded to www.youtube.com – where they were then deleted by administrators. American media reported that the websites Ebaum's World and 4Chan stood behind the curious protest.

It was an amusing incident that probably didn't cause too many problems for YouTube. To give you an idea of the volume: twenty full hours of video appear on YouTube every minute. In January, when the rate was still fifteen hours of video per minute, YouTube made an interesting comparison: if Hollywood was to keep up with this pace, it would have to release 86 000 films per week. And since all of this fun has a cost, the preliminary financial results of YouTube are around 470 million dollars – in the red.

And so it's little wonder that the majority of videos on YouTube are lacking viewers.

No disconnections – reason wins out, for now

2009-05-11T14:11:00.000+02:00

The European Parliament has swept aside one of the most revolutionary proposals – “three strikes and you’re out” – in the fight against piracy. Internet providers will only be able to cut off “pirates” on the basis of a court order. Which, of course, is only fair.

“Three strikes and you’re out” was a French idea aimed at solving the piracy problem once and for all. Simply, if you continue to download films and music after the third warning, you would be disconnected from the Internet. But how will such a decision be reached, by whom, and where is the legal framework, for that matter? The drafters of the law weren't so interested in those concerns. The recording industry lobby works well – there’s no doubt about that.

“No restrictions can impact the basic rights and freedoms of the end user without a prior decision by the legal authorities,” the European Parliament’s ruling reiterated. But it was this very sentence that ministers removed from legislation not long ago.

Which has me wondering just how long these rights and freedoms will last.

Twitter dominated by swine flu and “rescuing children”

2009-04-28T10:43:00.002+02:00

Do you know tweetstats.com/trends? It’s one of a number of websites that points out “trends” on www.twiter.com, the micro-blog network. It’s interesting to follow what people are interested in on a global scale – to know what’s hot at the moment. And so it comes as no surprise that one topical subject is swine flu.

A co že je ten druhý trend? #therescue? To zjistíte na http://therescue.invisiblechildren.com/. A pokud jenom trochu "děláte do marketingu", tak neváhejte a zkoumejte, Stojí to za snahu.

The magic of computer-generated translations, part two: Bratislava is Prague and promiscuous is immoral

2009-04-20T08:48:00.001+02:00

It’ll soon be a year since I recalled a classic story – out of sight, out of mind – concerning the pitfalls of computer-generated translation. This humorous bit came to mind again when Google Translate demonstrated a real snag. For example, that Prague shouldn’t be Bratislava, though for computer-generated translations they are one and the same.

The translation of “trip to Bratislava” from Slovak into English comes out as “trip to Prague”. “Bratislava” on its own is in fact translated as “Prague”. But the problems with this word don’t end here. What about “Bratislavian” translated as “Central Bohemian”?

You want another compelling example? How about Je suis de Alex (France) et bien entendu je ne parle que le Français translated into Czech versus the same sentence translated into German? In the first case the French mysteriously becomes English; in the second case the translation happens to be correct. What’s more, a Google Translate bug actually caused Heath Ledger to be confused with Tom Cruise for a period of time (here).

In our final example Swedish promiskuös is translated by Google as “immoral”. Do you think they’re trying to say something?

Twitter: a welcomed opportunity for hackers and marketers alike

2009-04-02T09:14:00.002+02:00

What is the most valuable thing to a hacker trying to get hold of some specific information or gain access to it? As much information about the targeted subject as possible, preferably the kind that allows the mechanisms of social engineering to be set in motion. This process was complicated before the advent of the Internet and required, for example, casing clubs and bars. And then the Internet arrived and everything changed.

Twitter, a microblogging device and social network, is one of the tools that have emerged on the scene. Did you know, for example, that every day over six thousand companies start using Twitter? The majority of these firms do so in order to follow what is being said about them on Twitter; others use it as a marketing device. It’s usually just a small step from company accounts to the accounts of individuals, and since people are by nature trusting and talkative, acquiring useful information becomes quite simple.

And then there’s Twitter Search, which enables you to find something specific in the flood of millions of tweets, and even offers a cute little aid. Trends. Whenever you're in need of a suitable subject for mass social engineering, try "Trends" on Twitter.

Prague isn’t New York, but they do have something exceptional in common

2009-03-16T11:52:00.004+01:00

I know Prague isn’t New York; they are utterly distinct cities with their own specific architecture and mentalities. They differ in just about every imaginable way. And yet they still have something in common: resourceful city public transport maps. This occurred to me when the well-known and imaginative heart-shaped symbol peeped out at me from I heart this subway map (see Milton Glaser and the following illustration).

Prague has a well-designed map as well. Designed by Proximity Prague, this map definitely deserves a place among the very best transportation guides.

Don't hang up - the president is on the line

2009-03-10T11:46:00.000+01:00

A new service called TrapCall is now available in the USA for AT&T and T-Mobile customers. The service allows users to identify in-coming calls, even if this information has in fact been blocked by the callers. In addition, through the identification of the caller, it can also provide related information such as name and address. What’s interesting is that the service takes advantage of errors in the system for blocking caller identification. The service works by transferring the call to a “toll-free line," which then sends it right back with the number of the caller.

TelTech, the company offering the new service, has already made a name for itself in American telecommunications with a previous service: Spoofcard makes it possible for the user to display any number on Caller ID. In its time, the service has attracted a great amount of interest from government authorities and has naturally found criminal applications. But you can be sure that it will also find a good number of helpful and practical uses.

With Facebook Forever, or, The History of Human Error

2009-03-02T15:26:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago, Facebook encountered more public embarrassment. A change in their terms of service (TOS) for users gave Facebook the right to handle - in an unlimited fashion - anything you put onto Facebook, even after removing your account. And Facebook wanted to handle your property without any restrictions, for good and furthermore wanted to transfer this “license” to whomever else (which it could before, for that matter).

For clarity, this is what the previous provisions of the terms entailed:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

And the newly submitted user terms lacked this very paragraph. A whirlwind of negative reaction by users, on blogs and in the media soon followed and Facebook was eventually forced to return to the original terms. As it goes with Facebook, they again took a path that was damaging to their image. And now they’re trying to fix the problem by discussing the appearance of the terms with users. And for the time being, Facebook also assumes that users could vote on the new terms.

A lesson to learn (particularly for marketing people): if you’re going to want to use Facebook for anything important, containing copyright – particularly the copyright of your clients – remember the above. It can easily happen that Facebook could use your, or your client’s, copyright for their own purposes. And another lesson: the world of social media and the Internet works otherwise than a world of the past that is controlled in a directive manner. Learn from crisis development.

Brands aren’t dying: Woolworths to rise from the ashes as an online store

2009-02-19T09:42:00.000+01:00

The century-old tradition of the brand shouldn’t be forgotten and squandered. British Woolworths went bankrupt last month and in the end was purchased by Shop Direct, one of the largest retailers in Great Britain. According to Shop Direct management, the Woolworths brand is part of British heritage and will be put back on its feet.

In January, Woolworths closed more than 800 stores and cut 27 000 jobs after failing to find a buyer once the company entered the protective period last November. At the same time, the end of the century-old retail chain was due to fairly standard reasons and the influence of the current economic crisis was minimal. Woolworths hadn't been performing well for a number of years, mainly as the result of heavy competition from supermarkets and Internet stores. And consumer efforts to save money would bring the retailer to its knees before long all the same.

The new online version of Woolworths is set to be launched in the summer.

Facebook Engagement Ads, or, Will Facebook be Able to Cash in on its Users?

2009-02-11T11:49:00.000+01:00

Facebook is one of the largest (and certainly the fastest-growing) social networks (150 million users worldwide, over 200 000 in the Czech Republic). This is also the social network the leaders of the European Union warn against. And as is the case with other social networks, Facebook continues to look for ways to cash in on its users. Following the catastrophic failure of Beacon (it went really too far in betraying users' privacy), not even Facebook Polls worked.

And perhaps a little unenlightened from the past, Facebook optimistically came out in Davos (no kidding, at THAT economic forum) with the announcement (Networking site cashes in on friends) of a new way of capitalizing on users – Facebook Engagement Ads.

Engagement Ads are, as the name suggests, ads that involve the connection of users. Facebook began to test them last year in September; plans called for them to be put into operation as early as last November. In principle, these are ads that appear after a homepage is opened and then try to induce users to connect and interact. And if the user reacts, the ad should share these reactions with “friends”.

The new Engagement Ads should allow advertisers to use them primarily for posing questions and gaining responses (in real time) – something of a cross between marketing research and advertising. Savvy advertisers – theoretically – could create their own focus group on Facebook, literally in real time.

It’s an interesting idea, but many questions remain. Facebook isn’t very good at advertising and hasn’t had much success with it. Adding to these failures is the fact that the current offer of marketing and advertising tools is rather chaotic. This might also be due to the fact that the concept of a "friend" on Facebook changed long ago into the mere concept of “contacts” – of the hundreds of “friends”, only a handful are actually real in the true sense of the word. The rest are unknown people or simply those that you met by chance at some point in time. And for now Facebook continues to focus on the idea that if person “X” (one of your “friends”) recommends something, then it must have a positive influence on you.

Not only does this not work: in many cases it has the opposite effect. Especially if you know that the person in question has extremely bad taste (which Facebook knows nothing about). Likewise problematic is the success rate of ads (generally) in social networks – according to IDC, only 57% of people in social networks click on ads while the rate on the Internet in general is 79%. And income per user? In the case of social networks, this is measured in mere pennies.

Will Facebook manage to convert the failing Facebook Pools into Facebook Engagement Ads? What do you think?

Britney Spears on Twitter, OMG, so cute!

2009-02-05T14:45:00.002+01:00

The word is out – Britney Spears micro-blogs. “Yes! This is really Britney Spears”, visitors to the singer’s micro-blog are assured. She has 18 280 followers, which really isn't much to write home about. (Barack Obama has 165 000 and Britney ranks around 80th in older statistics) And just under 70 updates – nothing to get excited about either.

But Britney Spears’s micro-blog, as is the case with the majority of these things, was created for marketing purposes. You can learn, for example, that “I love Japan! I think all of those little cars are so cute!” Or that “I liked walking through the botanical gardens and I saw a Japanese wedding. Then I went shopping with Brett.”

It’s tough with micro-blogs: there are millions of them and they have a minuscule value. But at least Britney’s is amusing. I’m just not sure who I’ll go shopping with. Will you come with me, Britney?

George Bush top ten moments

2009-01-26T11:44:00.001+01:00

What would we do without YouTube? Is any of Czech TVs going to show this brilliant cut?

Apple’s best known advertisement celebrates its 25th anniversary (1984)

2009-01-13T11:28:00.001+01:00

Somehow I still can’t believe it, but Apple’s best known advertisement is a quarter of a century old. You don't know which one? That’s almost unbelievable. It’s a landmark - in terms of design, directing, effect, everything. And also in terms of the fact that it’s now 25 years since Apple launched the first Macintosh on the market, because it was that very model that the advertisement was for.

And here it is - directed by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, etc.), in the lead roles an Orwellian society and the individual. And can you guess who is the villain, who shackled the whole of society? Naturally IBM, represented by Big Brother, declaring unforgettable things such as “Our Unification of Thought is a more powerful weapon than any fleet or army on Earth.”

Oh, and you say to yourself that the running girl looks like Melanie Griffith? You’re right, but she really does only look like her. And if you still think that this advertisement is insignificant, go and tell Advertising Age, which awarded it the title of Advertisement of the Decade in 2004.

Economic crisis? Google allows the sale of alcohol ads

2008-12-17T16:30:00.000+01:00

They say that even in the direst of times there is still one market that will continue to thrive – the alcohol market. So what do you know, now you can advertise even the strongest of spirits on Google AdWords, a clear sign that even Google grasps how tough things are going to get. They state that “ads that directly promote the sale of hard alcohol and liqueurs are still not permissible," so you probably won’t be able to directly advertise a bottle of booze. But now you can get away with a cocktail recipe.

But let’s be serious for a moment. Google has also made available a new ad section on YouTube and this week announced AdWords for the iPhone and G1. So it’s clear something is on the way – something BIG. Oh, and by the way: alcohol advertising in the USA is a two-billion dollar business.

Apple: Ads don’t lie – you’re just a fool if you believe them

2008-12-11T09:56:00.001+01:00

Apple ran into a little trouble with its ads for the iPhone 3G in the USA and Great Britain. British regulators didn’t care for the iPhone ads and in the USA, William Gillis filed a complaint after taking umbrage with Apple’s claim that the iPhone was “twice as fast for half the price.” In their ads, Apple compared the new (3G) version with the original model; this comparison concerned the speed of the Internet connection.

Apple’s response (PDF) reflected textbook advertising and marketing: “the statements are such that a reasonable person would not reasonably assume that the claims reflect reality.”

In other words, ads don’t lie – you’re just a fool if you believe them.

MUJI is not a brand. Is the time nigh for contempt for brands?

2008-11-06T15:15:00.000+01:00

MUJI is not a brand, claims the “brand” of itself MUJI. An advertising cliché, where Muji attempts to differ from the others and to build a brand based on denial of brand affiliation. It claims that it does not create products for individualism or fashion and popularity is not reflected in the prices. Products that it creates are created in view of future global consumption. Their products are not the “best” and one cannot even say that it is “something I must have”. A cliché…

MUJI has a pleasant looking website on which, upon closer inspection, one finds that they offer furniture and home accessories that can easily be classified under IKEA style and category. Nevertheless, take a look at www.muji.com, it is an interesting site. However, you can leave out brand contempt with the aim of creating a brand. This is brand calculus.

Good advice – what not to do in social media

2008-10-30T09:23:00.001+01:00

Responding to all negative feedback is a waste of time, especially where the most classic aspect of the Internet is concerned – anonymity.

Participating in flame wars to increase site hits may in the short term increase visitors, but as clever people already know, the people attracted to a flame war are not the people you want on the web.

Paying somebody $2,000 to professionally read a podcast for you. As David mentions there’s no substitute for experience and listening to the results.

Sending notices to friends in social networks really does usually lead to some of those typical unpleasant reactions.

Thinking that social media did not exist before you noticed it. This is pretty helpful advice in many other areas. People, firms, places and activities have their history and customs.

Responding to your own Facebook profile is a much weaker move, but the history associated with it is entertaining. I won’t give it away, check out the original article.

Don’t start anything with people who are promoting their own activity. David paradoxically advises not to ignore them as is typically done. The presumption is that these people want to make contacts and do business. And you never know... something interesting might come of it.

Crowding web pages with options and content without ever speaking with the user (customer). This is something which should be highlighted in red or written in stone. People want simple functional things. An example of this continues to be Google, in addition to all of the complicated things which Google created that never caught on.

Being too careful of what you say online. In social media you can actually become the victim of your own censorship, embellishment, or simply fear of disclosing something too personal.

Defending yourself when someone is saying something bad about you. It is always better if someone else defends you. But be careful, do not give in to temptation and create an alternative identity.

Accepting friendship requests from people whom you barely know. Useful advice unless talking specifically about Facebook.com or MySpace.com. On the other hand, too many “unknown” friends can lead to too much static. And the last bit of advice I will not harp on here, but looking for women and girls on Facebook.com need not necessarily be a bad thing.

Scientists will soon outnumber penguins

2008-10-21T15:15:00.001+02:00

If there is one thing in recent days that I have found really amusing, it was the possibility of defenestrating the management of a certain unnamed sports club. And the fact that there will soon be more scientists than penguins at the North and South Poles. Thanks to the International Polar Year programme, researchers from 63 countries are headed for the poles. And because we live in a century which one day will be named after Google, IPY offers its own layer for Google Earth.

Unfortunately, you first need to install Google Earth on your computer, including several less than useful accessories. For this reason, it might be better to use the map at Zeemaps.com (click here) - if, that is, you want to keep track of how the penguins are faring against the scientists.

Google high-resolution satellite

2008-10-13T10:11:00.003+02:00

Google has yet another premiere – the first photographs from GeoEye-1, the world’s first high-resolution commercial earth-imaging satellite. The level of detail available can be seen in this photograph of the campus of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania (USA).
The satellite orbits at an altitude of 680 km at a speed of over seven kilometres per second. The satellite is capable of imagery with details the size of 43 cm. Photographs will be offered for sale and will be available on Google Maps/Earth in 50 cm resolution. As the second largest partner (in terms of finance) of the GeoEye-1 project, Google provides this as an exclusive offer.

And should you begin to crave even higher resolution, you can look forward to even greater detail in Google Maps sometime after 2011/2012. Set for launch at that time, the GeoEye-2 satellite will provide resolution of 25 cm.

However, government restrictions would have to be eased for anything in such detail to be released to the public. This is the reason the current resolution has been set at 50 cm.

Google not welcome in Germany

2008-10-03T15:11:00.001+02:00

... Google Street View, that is. The Google cars driving around German towns photographing everything with uncanny accuracy are the thorn in the side of local authorities and even Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar. The irritation is also apparent in the German media: “You can see everything in those photos. They’re opening homes and households to criminals,” cries Reinhold Harwart, a councilman from the small town of Molfsee.

And the reaction from the Google spokesperson? Kay Oberbeck has told the press: “We don’t need any permission.” Her statement also comes in response to a new bill that would make it necessary to ask property owners for permission to photograph their land. “We're not taking the pictures for criminals,” she adds.

Bill Gates in Modrá Pyramida ad!

2008-09-29T16:19:00.002+02:00

Although Microsoft had to pull a television ad featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in the United States (here and here), the company needn’t worry about having to do anything of the sort in the Czech Republic. Bill smiles at me every time I walk through the passageway near I. P. Pavlova and sometimes I even run into him at other spots around Prague.

While the Microsoft ad may have been met with misunderstanding or even hostility in the USA, philanthropist Bill Gates doesn’t elicit the same commotion here in this country.

The only thing I scratch my head over now is this: if that’s Melinda and Bill’s kid there on the right, who is the babe on the left?

Truly European television and truly useless

2008-09-19T16:56:00.000+02:00

Europarltv will be broadcasting news and educational programmes in twenty languages. It will acquaint viewers with life in the “European” parliament. It is estimated to cost nine million EUR. A horror upon horrors, it only goes to show how “Europeanesque” agencies are able to waste money. Or, if you wish, is just proof that not even “European” politics is able to survive without its “own” media - a media created as a response to those that no “European government“ is able to influence or control.

And now it’s just a matter of time before someone manages to hack into this nine million EUR farce and starts broadcasting something worthwhile, something actually worth watching.

An open letter to T-Mobile Czech Republic

2008-09-11T18:53:00.002+02:00

Dear T-Mobile,

I’ve wanted to write an open letter to you for a long time now. As a user of your data services I must say that I find your business practices to be unmitigated insolence on your part. The entire time I have been your customer I have never once come across a single location where I’d be able to establish a connection faster than the insanely tedious GPRS. And yet month after month you continue to bill me for “fast” Internet that can’t be used.

So I wanted to ask, with wholehearted earnestness – when will you finally offer here in the Czech Republic that which is already commonplace everywhere else? And if by chance you aren’t planning anything of the sort, don't you think a reasonable discount (retroactive!) would be in order?

Yours Sincerely,

Fritz the Hacker

M. C. Escher: a world of bizarre perspectives

2008-09-04T11:17:00.003+02:00

You are surely familiar with some of his works; they boggle the mind with their negation of all spatial rules. M. C. Escher (official website) or Maurits Cornelis Escher, was a Dutch artist who gained popularity for impossible constructions that can only be depicted on paper.

As is the case with so many geniuses, his life was also quite peculiar. Escher struggled in elementary school and couldn’t handle his architecture studies. He concentrated on drawing and wood carving and ended up in the decorative arts. Nevertheless, he pursued mathematics many years later. His published studies and works are highly valued today and he was even bestowed the title of Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Today his works are found in museums around the world, including the Escher Museum in The Hague, Netherlands.

ASCII art as spam

2008-08-29T11:11:00.006+02:00

ASCII art conjures up memories of the beginnings of computers when imaginative artistic creations could be printed out on large (and loud) printers. These images were typically meant to be hung on the wall and viewed from a greater distance. Only then was it possible to see exactly what the picture, created from a tangle of various letters and graphic symbols, depicted.


      _______                            ______
     '       '                          '      '
    (   BUD   )         _______        (   SER  )
     ,_ _____,         /       \        ,___ __,
       |              |   WEI    |           |
        \             |         |          /
          oO)-.        \___ ___/      .-(Oo
         /__  _\           |         /_  __\
         \  \(  |         /         |  )/  /
          \__|\ |     ()~()         | /|__/
          '  '--'    (-___-)        '--'  '
                     ==`-'==

Back then it was the only thing that could be printed out on printers and creativity knew no bounds.

But the times have changed and ASCII art has become a tool for spammers. They are able to successfully evade spam protection programs - it's enough to simply "write" the name of the coveted pill in somewhat oversized form using the ASCII art technique.
What is the world coming to?


cqr      iqh                                                
 llm    ddl                                                 
  lwg  pna                                                  
   jkmmsg     hnbmhaqm   lqwnlhme    jdhvwrpn  qqm     coj   
     ejq     lcb    kgx  agt   ira  aar    xc    mhw hvl     
    rjvc        npgnlfy  qq     fe     ovmobb     uoxfv      
   kt  ge     kirjy jct  td     pa  tohaje xa      adj       
  ei    phi  rl     qew  tx     xd  gs     nk    vuw um      
ejat     vhb spf i rcux  ae     ny  hsx  dpaju  fla  oiku    
ru        ue   ulphp  pd uq     ga    thxa   mw dh     ec

One in ten will get the iPhone 3G

2008-08-20T16:54:00.000+02:00

A never-before-witnessed telecommunication craze will break out this week. Three Czech operators will release on the market the latest iPhone 3G. A friend of mine (who works at one of the operators) thinks that around one in ten people will get them – and not for lack of interest, but because not even enough phones will arrive on the market to satisfy those who have registered in advance.

But not even the lucky ones will be all that happy, and those who spent thousands of Czech crowns to move up the waiting list will be even less so. The 3G network doesn’t serve the 3G phone very well in other countries, let alone in the Czech Republic where a properly working 3G network is more the exception than the rule.

Exceed the limit! Right on!

2008-08-13T14:46:00.000+02:00

Twitter, where I also have an account that isn’t terribly active (here), allegedly doesn’t allow you to “follow” more than 2000 “twits”. But apparently that isn't true and the number isn't exactly two thousand, but is tied instead in some way to other factors. For example, how long you’ve had your account, how much you write and how many people follow you.

It must be pretty wild to follow two thousand twits. That is, if something like that is even possible. I’ll have to give it a try – give me a week and I’ll try to come up with those two thousand twits. Or you can give me a hand: follow me and in return I’ll follow you.

Google is right – there is no privacy on the Internet.

2008-08-07T10:59:00.001+02:00

Let’s just admit that there is no privacy on the Internet. Google openly professed as much in its own court documents while defending itself against charges of publishing photographs of a house and property clearly labelled as private in Google Street View. In the end it’s simply an admission of what others just don’t want to acknowledge. No, I don’t think Internet celebrity Vint Cerf is evil for saying: “There isn’t any privacy, get over it.”

Thanks to his position at Google, Vint Cerf has a much better understanding for how Google is able to connect fragments of information concerning one specific individual. Take this text, this photo, this video, an indirect quote from here, a complete profile from the social network from somewhere else. In the end it's understandable how he can use this knowledge to clearly state that privacy doesn’t exist. I’m just not sure if I want to accept this as the new societal norm, especially if it’s served up by Google.

Cuil seeks to overtake Google

2008-08-01T12:15:00.001+02:00

After two years of intensive work a new search engine appeared at www.cuil.com. The challenging goal set for the new venture was to overtake Google. Nevertheless, unprecedented worldwide media attention was responsible for the end of its initial existence. It crashed due to excessive interest, as the result of a typical problem: the underestimation of the necessary hardware. “The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity,” was all that could be learned on the website.

When it does actually conduct searches, Cuil (pronounced “cool”) does not offer such fine results, which are also presented in a confusing manner. The new search engine is an interesting attempt, but even more compelling are the people behind Cuil.

The main figure is Anna Patterson, who joined Google in 2004 after Google bought her company Recall, the developer of a search engine designed specifically for handling the massive Internet Archive. Patterson left Google in 2006 to begin the development of a new search engine.

Her husband, Tom Costello, is also accomplished in the area of search engines, having developed the promising Xift in the late 1990s. He then worked for IBM on the WebFountain Internet analytics engine, which was also closely related to the Internet search process. Another familiar name is Louis Monier, the former CTO of the once popular and prominent search engine AltaVista; Monier later also worked on search mechanisms for eBay.com.

Cuil, which Anna Patterson runs with her husband Tom Costello and two other former Google employees (Russell Power a Louis Monier), launched operations on Monday with an index of 120 billion web pages. According to its creators the search engine, funded by 33 million dollars in venture capital, also has much lower demands than Google.

Information that Cuil had a larger index than Google led to the appearance of information on Google Blog that it “knows about” 1 billion unique websites, but does not include all of them in its index.

Cuil is going after Google in other ways as well. For example, it disapproves of the Google PageRank system and aims to attract users with a policy of not storing records of search activity. But will it be enough? Google is so strongly synonymous with Internet searches that the efforts of CUIL.com appear futile.

Hacked: iPhone 3G

2008-07-17T11:24:00.001+02:00

Owners of the first iPhone know very well that if they failed to get any "hacking" utility, they couldn't do their best with it. Unmodified iPhone does not run other applications than those obtained by "official" channels from Apple. And it's not really the best.
Hot news of this week is not only the first million iPhones 3G sold, but also a notice from iPhone Dev Team, the authors of the first iPhone hack. They announced the existence of "PwnageTool 2.0.

"We dedicated many, many hours to that but now it should be so easy that it can do even your grandmother," says the blog iPhone Dev Team. And the information that iPhone was unlocked for any-network use appeared as well.

Holy Patron of all bloggers?

2008-07-09T15:06:00.002+02:00

Computers, computer users, programmers and the Internet. They all have their holy patron, namely Isidore of Sevilla. He was canonised in 1598 and Innocenc XII. St. enunciated Isidore of Sevilla as the parish teacher (1722). In Barcelona was St. Isidore of Sevilla recognised for the saint patron of the Internet and computer users.

Do bloggers have some saint patron as well? Apparently they do not. But there are a number of candidates. For example, Saint Augustin, Saint Hugh of Lincoln or saint Jerome. In particular, the last one would be an ideal candidate, he used to be a mighty letter writer, and had moreover temperament, which corresponds to a series of temperament bloggers (here something more about it).

Another thing is the idea that the true patron of blogging could be Milton Friedman (the idea of the article Milton Friedman, Technology Maven). It is undeniably a very interesting idea, as interesting as Milton Friedman (wiki).

As such, blogs bloggers and blogging doesn’t have a saint patron for now. It is a mistake, or not? And who would it be? What do you think?

Internet makes dickheads (not only from children)

2008-06-25T16:45:00.002+02:00

I have to admit, that the possibility to find anything on the Internet changed my life. I’m using encyclopedias or libraries. I just use www.google.com. More complicated topics I’m searching for I find at www.wikipedia.org.

Scottish scholars have the same problem. By The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) is the Internet what makes dickheads from scholars and they are failing the exams. What’s worse, children trust the information found on the Internet. Particularly Wikipedia, what is known as editing-free content website. It reminds me the old familiar saying "what is written, it is given." That is also no more actual. Today's media are not so far from Wikipedia.

There something about all this matter! The speed by which it is possible to obtain the information via the Internet (I would rather say - through Google)is unequalled with the past methods. We are becoming lazy and our brain is getting stuned,and we are no more able to seek the information systematically and in the long-term. If we can’t find something through Gogole "immediately", we will try a few other forms of our question and then we will give it up automatically. In several years we will be just as much clever as Gogole is.

Stan Winston died, a man who created cyborgs in Terminator

2008-06-19T10:39:00.001+02:00

Beside the Terminator he created the exraterrestial hunters in Predator, tyranosaurus in Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands and also the visual effects of unforgettable Alien. On Sunday, at the age of 62 years, he went away forever. Stan Winston lost the fight with his own alien, with the cancer. As he once said: "I don‘t do any tricks, I do characters."

Stan Winston bet on a tangible work. He did not follow the crowds of the visual effects makers using only modern technologies. The Aliens nor his other works were the result of the magic computer animation, but mainly honest manual work. For example T. Rex from Jurassic park! It is an honourable work hefting seven tons.

Stan Winston got his first Oscar (out of his four in total) for The Alien, a film which scared almost everyone and which got in to the history of cinematography as well as Stan Winston did.

Apple iPhone 3G for 199 dollars ... gief!

2008-06-13T15:26:00.001+02:00

Who did not follow the presentation yesterday at Apple WWDC (video)?

All were expecting impatiently, what hot news will magic Steve Jobs come up with, if all expectations and predictions regarding the iPhone are fulfilled. And if Apple confirms that the successful entry into the mobile market is not just the coincidence.

And it is here again, Apple iPhone 3G for 199 dollars has become a big bomb. Probably because it is rather expected that Apple would offer its original iPhone for this initial price. Sure, to exult over 199 dollars per iPhone 3G with a mandatory two-year contract with AT &T in the United States looks quite strange. But, just remember the original price of the iPhone, 599 dollars. And it is also good to recall that the iPhone should officially come on the Czech market as soon as possible.

Personally, I will go for a more expensive version (299 dollars for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory), memory is never enough. 3G support will also offer fast data sufficiently, but in case I am not in Czech Republic at the moment. A GPS is also interesting in such kind of mobile phone. The only thing to overcome is the waiting time until 11th July. Till then, I can only watch and admire the ad.

Free and unrestricted MP3 (but not from i-Legálně.cz)

2008-06-04T16:07:00.001+02:00

It´s better and easier to download music via Internet. It's free, it´s legal and nobody bothers you with digital copyright protection. Music publishers are trying for years to get rid of music piracy in an effort to save the sale of the overpriced records. They didn´t succeed, people still download music, exchange it and burn it according to their own taste.Will the flat-rate payment, enabling the unlimited music downloading, save the music publishers? It could, if they change their behaviour, their economy and if "unlimited" means really unlimited.

Having unlimited amount of music from i-Legálně.cz is like having unlimited calls to mobile phones. There is a great lump sum, 249 crowns per month. And you can download and listen to whatever you want for the whole month. Well, only if you have the sole right platform supporting the digital rights protection from Microsoft. And forget about keeping the music longer than just for the month you have paid for. And definitely forget about burning this music on CD. i-Legálně is disappointed by selling only 200.000 pieces per year. They´ve expected „people would buy more songs.“

Just think about it. If i-Legálně.cz won´t think about it and they will try to offer an awkward fee for limited downloading, it will always be easier to download music from elsewhere. Whether legally or illegally.

Men are smarter than women!

2008-05-28T09:16:00.004+02:00

On http://www.iqleague.com/ you can try an IQ test and find out how intelligent you are. Nothing special, there are hundreds of similar tests within the internet. But really interesting is the combination of the test results and datas about the visitors. From information on browsers you can learn, for example, that the cleverest people use Opera on Unix (possibly AppleMAC Safari on MACPPC). And the cleverest people are on the social network LinkedIn.com (while those least clever, with the IQ of just over 72, are on pcdigest.com). Thailand is a country with the most clever people and (surprise) the second place goes to the Czech Republic.

My male ego, of course, is pleased to find out that men are smarter (104.57) than women (97.51), but I´m a bit afraid if my girlfriend read this, I will be identified as chauvinist and ejected to the balcony.

Women have more friends in social networks than men have

2008-05-21T12:48:00.002+02:00

Surprise! Men and women differ in social networks. The average man has on average 57 social network friends, the average woman has on average 62 social network friends, when the group of users with up to 100 friends is regarded. In the higher group (with the number of friends up to thousand) is the average number of friends for an average woman 185, while men have "only" 172. Rapleaf, author of the statistics, concludes that women spend on social networks more time building and maintaining relationships. Men, according to the same study, use social networks to build relationships of more transactional terms. Rapleaf results are based on a statistical evaluation of information about thirty millions of users of social networks, of which 53.57% are women and 46.43% of men. A full 85% were from the United States.

Social networks are in any case "in" phenomenon. Did you know that Electronic Arts bought www.rupture.com, which is / was the social network dedicated mainly to World of Warcraft online and online gaming at all? And that FaceBook.com has more than 60 million users? And that it's really nothing against the 300 million users in the largest Chinese social network QQ?

Ouch, I don´t fit in those statistics somehow, I will soon have to rectify.

Out of sight, out of mind or the machine translation

2008-05-14T11:56:00.001+02:00

One of the favorite stories relating to the machine language translation is the one in which computer translates the phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" to a certain language, and then again back to the original. And the result is a completely new phrase - "blind idiot".

I recalled this old story last week. Google added into the Google Translate the translation from/into Czech. It´s a small step for Google, but a major step for the Czech. There aren´t so many languages in Google Translate. And even this service is free of charge and it´s still a machine translation, the results are surprisingly good. The Translate service will not replace the human translator, but it´s really usefull for the basic understanding of the text in an unknown language.

And what is the result of "Out of sight, out of mind" when translated into English and vice versa? Why don´t you try yourselfe (tip: try the Czech-Hindi and vice versa) ... And you can try more and more, Fritz in Japanese for example.

Safely or dangerously – that is the question

2008-05-05T16:55:00.003+02:00

I was at the meeting in one anonymous supranational corporation last week. Very supranational actually. So suprantional that they have own digital signatures and they use them within the corporate intranet. My good friend works for them, let´s call him Hans. When I needed to connect to the internet during the meeting Hans recommended to use Wi-Fi (the wireless connection) and to connect to their corporate network. I was about to ask what the network key was…

Voila, no network key, no security system at all. Just unsecured wireless network. And within this network there are hundreds of corporate computers, databases, contacts, doccumments and top secret communications accesible to anyone. Well, have fun if you are browsing through something similar.

Miloš Čermák is a publisher and Britannica didn´t get the „restricted“ access under control

2008-04-29T17:50:00.002+02:00

„I´m the web publisher. It was confirmed by Britannica,“ says Miloš Čermák on his blog. He writes about the recent free access to the fee content of Britannica for bloggers and all internet publishers. Britannica content is usually paid for – for 70 USD you can look at whatever you want and of course, you can pay more and buy a few kilogrammes of Britannica and store it in your bookcase.

Britannica has a big problem, it´s called Wikipedia. There you can find the same as in Britannica and a lot more, plus it´s free and user friendly. The clever brains at Britannica came up with a great idea or so they thought – sign up as a publisher and you´ll get unlimited access. You can also share your log in with your internet visitors with no limitations. Well, almost with no limitations – the log in page is full of advertising, is almost illegible and you have to wait for a long period of time before it appears.

I thought Brittanica would have handled the technical support so secondary viewing would not be possible. Well, they hadn´t. Just take the link www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1192818/Wikipedia for example, ignore what´s written at the end of the address, start changing the numbers and you´ll get the whole Britannica content. Well, these are just the aimless experiments before Britannica will have to give up, or at least find a different business model and broaden their offer because they can´t catch up with Wikipedia now.

"Special Gold First Place Award" for Yellow pages, what for?

2008-04-21T17:38:00.001+02:00

Ehm, ehm, Mediatel Yellow pages won the international award „Special Gold First Place Award“ for „the outstanding approach to the line of printed and on-line address books and its progress“. In Strategie, you can learn about the Mediatel team and its hard work with repositioning the brand last year. Repositioning? Nay! Our Yellow pages already lost this market a few years ago. Well, nobody will search www.zlatestranky.cz to find details about firms. And nobody will search phone numbers there as well; this service is provided by Telefónica.

Searching within firms is what Seznam has been offering for many years already, so there is no chance for Mediatel at all. Try to find a firm using the Yellow pages and Seznam at the same time. Seznam is always the winner. On top of that, there are many firms missing in Yellow pages.

There is one thing I´m pretty sure about. There are many firms messing about my business. And there are tens of hackers in the Czech Republic. Even in the phonebooks.

"Special Gold First Place Award" for Yellow pages, what for?

2008-04-21T17:10:00.002+02:00

I’m looking for the mobile internet. Key: „Usable and cheap“

2008-04-15T15:51:00.001+02:00

Vodafone started to offer Seznam.cz for mobile phones. Nice, and it’s „free of charge for the first 6 months“, wow. That’s really revolutionary idea. So you will pay to your mobile services provider for the connection and on top of that you will have to pay for accessing Seznam.cz?

Am I crazy or the mobile services providers are? They must be joking. Now, you pay monthly for useless connection with low coverage and capacity, so your connection speed is something between 5 to 15 kb/s. So besides these high fees you should pay additional charges for accessing the specific services.

This shows how badly the mobile services providers understand the internet – they are still trying to generate „another“ internet that should have nothing in common with the usual one.

Dear Google AdWords Customer…

2008-04-08T15:29:00.001+02:00

„Dear Google AdWords Customer,“ that was the beginning of the email I´ve found in my mailbox. It said, my ads stopped displaying because my payment information wasn’t processed. And Google itself asked me to click and update my payment information. I clicked just out of curiosity. The page looking like original Google appeared but the address line showed adwrods.google.select.ncjd43.cn/select/index.html (open at your own risk, adwrods is real, it’s not my typing error). So I filled in some random information and then I saw the typical phishing.

After all those „Darling customer“ making fools from Česká spořitelna clients I find this as a good idea. Two in one – if someone is lucky he gets details to abuse the Google AdWord account and on top of that full data about the credit card, including PIN code and internet security code as well.

I was about to believe it. I was just missing the Google AdWords account. I’ll try to forward to colleagues from Proximity. We will see whose credit card number I will receive.

All your base are belong to us or else the winner will be the robot or Blizzard?

2008-04-01T18:43:00.001+02:00

The most expensive business with the virtual character happened last September. The character Zeuzo changed his owner for 7000 Euro. We are talking about the World of Warcraft, the game played by 9 million players from all over the world. According to some researches 600 hours of playing are needed to reach the high character level. It has to be said selling the game characters is pretty common, but the usual price is about 300 Euro. And the major part of characters for sale is made from the beginning with this purpose.

The complete economy system has grown round the online games. The firms employ tens of people to play the games full time. They care about the character to upgrade it and then sell it. They earn virtual currency that can be changed for real dollars or Euros (something called gold-sellers). Nothing doing, selling the game characters (or changing the game currency for the real one) is forbidden in every game’s terms of use. And players breaking this rule risk deleting of their accounts (and app. 100.000 accounts per month are really deleted). According to the estimates this market contains about 400 million dollars per year.

The World of Warcraft authors are at law with the creator of MMO Glider programme. This programme allowed to automatically control the game characters and was widely used for "gold-sellers" activities. The plea takes almost a year now and there is no specific result yet.

There is a grey zone in this economics too. The Grecian horses specialized in stealing accounts. And if someone steals someone else’s World of Warcraft account he simply sells all he finds. Then he can turn the earned money into some "gold-sellers" activities.

And this world is called virtual?
Maybe the major part of players uses the password "password".

Amnesty for the nuclear explosion

2008-03-25T18:18:00.001+01:00

The nuclear explosion shown on Czech TV was followed by the explosion of activities of the same institution. The chain reaction appeared very quickly and the red tape came up with putting on sections. Receiving the artistic appreciation didn’t help at all, the state apparatus will have with ZTOHOVEN no mercy. Broadcasting the alarming news is broadcasting the alarming news. What if unthinking TV viewer believed it was a real nuclear mushroom in the middle of the colorful Czech landscape? Who cares it was animated very badly, it was static and it missed all effects the real explosion should have had?

Will you support the Petition for ZTOHOVEN members amnesty? And will you ask the Czech TV how come their systems can be so easily used for something like that? And who was punished at their side?

And the very last question. The red tape is about to punish those who have awarded ZTOHOVEN in the first year of NG 333 awards. According to the law, supporting a crime in public is a crime as well…. Is red tap going to punish Fritz too?

Whip your account

2008-03-21T18:29:00.001+01:00

Do you regret the vanishing of the Easter tradition? Go for a carol in one of the bigger cities and everyone will think you are a fool. Well, I´m „the Hacker“ so I ´ve discovered an online aplication made by Proximity Prague allowing you to enjoy the real Easter. On top of that, you don´t have to leave yor beloved keyboard and screen. Do you feel like going for the virtual carol to Proximity Prague and whip your account? You can on www.proximity-newsletter.cz/velikonoce

Improving the internet reputation costs 5 445 dollars

2008-03-17T10:57:00.012+01:00

The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, is said to accept 5 445 US dollars for changing the malignant information published in this encyclopedia. Jeffrey Merkey, the former Novell research leader, said that this amount was given to the foundation running Wikipedia.

Jimmy Wales replied it was all absolute lies and he wouldn’t offer or accept a donation involving change Wikipedia´s content. And he also added that he usually helped people whose Wikipedia records contained lies or malignant information. Hard to decide who is right, particularly in situation when Wiki´s pages were really administrated by Wales who also locked them up and no one could change the content any more.

But there is something more interesting in this case. Internet became a very powerful medium that can be useful but dangerous as well, for individual’s or company’s reputation. Logically, it´ s marketing and PR instrument. Well, there’s nothing so extraordinary about this, medias are always used for marketing and PR.

But internet offers something unique – the possibility to change everything what has been published. That’s impossible in traditional medias. It’s frightening how quickly everything can be published, changed or downloaded via internet. And this case shows that lots of people and firms know that very well. For better or worse meaning.

Do you know how to use the internet?

Cell phone marketing is becoming more about pictures which Otello uses to find information.

2008-03-11T15:04:00.004+01:00

Imagine that you take a picture with your mobile phone and then send it to the search programme. Otello, Vodafone´s new service presented at the Cebit trade fair, will send back information found regarding the specific item. This is something that wouldn’t make sense on the Internet because there you search using specific key words. It would be useful to upload a picture on Google and find out what Google knows about it and it’s one of the few possibilities to use a mobile phone for searching.

And it has interesting features. Vodafone and its Otello have devoted a great deal of thought to tourist information or shopping. I can imagine taking a picture of a specific CD cover and receiving a trial song in return. Or it can be used to find out who is on a specific picture - as long as that person is a celebrity (although it can’t be Angela Merkelová who wasn’t recognized on Cebit). Vodafone integrated the local newspaper Bild - taking pictures of the articles leads to receiving additional information.

And geocaching should be enriched by that. As you arrive to your target destination, or at least where you think you should be, you take a picture, send it and wait for verification that you are really at the right place - thus you have proof that you were able to find the right destination. You don’t have any idea what geocaching is? It’s running all around the world with a GPS (the equipment for measuring geographical position) and searching for interesting places. In a nut shell, it’s orienteering. Generally, this searching is supplemented with

The best thing in Prague public transport history since replacing the horses by electricity

2008-03-04T15:18:00.001+01:00

I used to travel by trams like a stow-away regularly. It was easy. The tickets weren’t available and the controllers were rarely seen. Prague Public Transport Co. stopped these savings itself. Nowadays, you can buy the ticket via SMS. I would say it’s the best thing in Prague Public Transport Co. history. The best one before was definitely replacing the horses by electricity. Well, I didn’t experienced it myself but I can’t get rid of that feeling.

It’s said that up to 70.000 people a day buy the SMS ticket. It’s only few hundreds in Austria.
Each time I go by tram I see someone pulling out his cell phone and buying a ticket when the tram is arriving. A cell phone Java application has appeared recently. It should make SMS ticketing much easier. Few of my friends are trying to find the way how to save money when using the SMS tickets.

There is my idea. Prague Public Transport Co. should offer a quantity discount, for example some music for every hundredth ticket. I mean it.

WikiLeaks.org deleted from the internet

2008-02-26T08:44:00.000+01:00

Don't think it's something trivial. BBC explains the whole issue in article Whistle-blower site taken offline. WikiLeak.org serves to inform about shady secret political or business activities. And it was at WikiLeaks.org where the documents about money washing and tax avoidance in one of the Swiss banks appeared. The tendency to eliminate those documents lead to juridical liquidation of the whole website. So there comes the interesting scandal, thanks to that juridical influence wikileaks.org disappeared from the internet. Californian court ordered the domain register to delete the domain records and to forward the eventual domain records to the blank parking site. Wikileaks.org lost the game with the Swiss bank group Julius Baer Bank. Well, it did not lose definitely because it still keeps going and the medias are pointing out that USA behave just like China. They censor the internet. Well, WikiLeaks.org isn't a minnow. You can find there more than 1.2 million documents since 2006. It's interesting how easily can be something like that erased. Or maybe it can't be. Because even if the destroy WikiLeaks.org other webs with similar content will appear.

Bruce Schneier hit the nail on the head again

2008-02-19T14:07:00.001+01:00

Bruce Schneier is a celebrity of its kind, an icon. He knows what to say and how to say it very well. And he is really rarely wrong. For some people Bruce is the real pain in the ass and they would be glad if he didn’t exist. I like reading Bruce’s blog. There is always something I utterly agree with. For example Security vs. Privacy.

Bruce Schneier reacts to the new tendency of American bureaucracy. They want to start monitoring the cyberspace. He says it would allow American government to control the content of all emails, file transfers or web searches. What makes me nervous is mentioning Google as the owner of so much data that can help the American parliament in cyber investigations.

If you don’t understand it, try to imagine that in the real life, without internet. It means that the government would be allowed to open any letter or package, to capture and check the fax before its deliverance, to tap all phone calls. And everyone would be obliged to regularly hand out a list of all articles and televiews they have recently read or seen.

As Bruce says, if we do a deal with our privacy on one side and security on the other one, we could lose both.

How many MP3 files does Petra Žikovská have?

2008-02-11T10:01:00.000+01:00

Petra Žikovská, the directress of the Czech IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), as a guest of Tuesday’s Dobre rano defended with smile on her face the nuts idea that the internet providers should cut off everyone who is illegally downloading music or movies (tune on 01:55 minutes and listen carefully). Žikovská even regretted that EU is about to declare only a recommendation about this issue. According to her, it’s necessary to have a real regulation instead.

I would vote for some graded recourses, for example one month disconnection for the first time, “ says smiling Žikovská in Dobre rano.

I’m grateful to Saša Michailidis who presented a realistic view in his study. Unambiguously, recording enterprises are slow, frozen in times when CDs were „born“.

It’s crazy to imagine Žikovská communicating with Czech internet providers about such a thing as the „good French example“ is. Yes, France is the country where they will definitely cut off the illegal downloaders. And Žikovská is so looking forward to cutting off. So good looking lady and so out of reality.

She enjoys the bliss of ignorance. These ideas are really childish and it´s more than obvious that there is some well paid lobby behind them. Who will judge what´s legal and what´s not? Who will decide who should be cut off and for how long? Will there be an omniscient monitoring authority? Will ISP be obliged to track what´s going through their networks and report all suspicious activities? And what about Orwell? And Petra, how many MP3 files do you have? Because according to your supervisors those can be illegal as well. Even if you didn´t download them.

Google will help you to find your ancestors via DNA tests

2008-02-03T11:37:00.000+01:00

You can discover a lot via DNA tests. In detective stories it usually leads to conviction of criminals. In real life it can lead to finding out your children aren't yours at all. And thanks to Google DNA Project, you can enjoy the DNA tests till the final disclosure of something surprising. It's not possible to think about the impact on our lives and privacy yet.

DNA Project, trying to look and behave like an unique social network supported by Google, is heading to Europe. I hope you don't think it's some dumpy-looking thing with no use. The American stores already offer DNA Ancestry Project for samples extracting. Then you just send this sample and wait for the list of your relatives. Not only in the general line (like shared blood of the old Viking captures) but the concrete ones as well...

This new activity will be run in Europe via www.23andme.com. Anne Wojcicki, the wife of the Google founder Sergei Brin, is about to demonstrate this "service" at the forum in Davos. And she is not the only famous person, Esther Dyson is involved as well.

It's not the only project of this kind. You can find other examples on www.genetree.com or www.dnaancestryproject.com. And Google isn't the first to run such a "business". National geographic with IBM did it as well, you can buy really cheap kit (99$) on Genographic Project.

Building the social network based on DNA is an interesting idea. If you are lucky, it will find you some relatives and then it will define your ethnic origin. Interesting. Monstrous and scary. And, why held by Google? Thanks, but not for me.

CES cursed love

2008-01-25T09:11:00.000+01:00

Our expectations of Apple coming out with something as revolutionary as the iPhone were in vain. Apple came up only with a poor substitution — ultra mobile MacBook called Air. Well, it looks good and thin but there is a lot of another hardware looking better and thinner. Adding "World's thinnest notebook" didn't help at all. In a nutshell, big expectations can be sometimes disappointing. It's not easy to repeat the phenomenal success of iPhone, the third best selling smart phone in USA. But still, Jobs' keynote was better than Bill Gates' farewell party where he made the same promises as last few years. Just to be malicious, look at Good Bye Bill. What do you think? Is Bill Gates planning some offspring? Slightly original book "Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House" is flawless.

When talking about Bill, Microsoft kind of failed with Vista on CES. These Windows are maybe really too old. And as one analyst correctly stated in his articles about CES, it won't be able to avoid Vista, so why should they show off at CES. On the other hand, it was almost impossible to reach something more interesting, Microsoft Surface. Table with 30 inches touchscreen, check it here. So if you like Star Trek as I do, you better start saving up. Couple of (up to ten) thousands $.

CES is lately more about knick-knacks, you simply have to enjoy all those gadgets. And count all you want to (especially can afford to) buy. Try it here :).

For example Creative Zen Vision:M, I would say very successful clone of Apple iPod. And I find 30 GB memory very usefull for music. One thing is clear, I can´t afford another gadget presented at CES. Do you know how much 56 inches are? And do you know how much 150 palců are? Yes, Panasonic brought all that as well.

What else you could see at CES? Editor of Gizmodo.com running from TV to TV with massive remote control (I wonder if it was compatible with the world’s largest Ultra HD LCD TV). Of course he used the remote control for its purpose – switching off things. The Editor was kicked off the CES and he got life prohibition of entry. This scandal is enormous (gizmodo prank, gizmodogate). I almost forgot, I need to order, TV-B-GONE, Inves is coming.

Another expensive toy, Optimus Maximus, is available for approximately 1500 $. It’s worth it. Especially when each little key is a single display. Will it be possible to watch video on it? From a Russian designer work-shop Art Lebedev. And you should see the rest of their production. Tactus concept is unbelievable.

iRiver prototype looks interesting as well. If you don´t understand Korean, hem, admire the picture and think of its meaning. I bet you will definitely know how to use this mouse. It was at CES as well. And what aboutWii Shaft?

So, did you choose any knick-knack? See you next time.

Entering the year 2008

2008-01-14T09:40:00.000+01:00

The year 2007 is over and internet is full of enquiries about what was the best and what was the worst. For example announcement of the biggest faux-pas and broken promises of the year or The most sexy IT Geek contest 2007 :) - here. The list of all the bests of 2007 here.

What will be the year 2008 like? Will it be the year of Google, the year of fusions, the year of new faces or the year of flaccid bubbles? The first days made the CPU go red. It's really huge. The front pblishers are cancelling the DRM (Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, EMI Music and Sony BMG as well). Will this save them? Linden Lab forbad bank institutions in Second Life. Is it denying its matter? International Consumer Electronics show is now running in LA. Bill Gates declared the year 2008 as the last one in business. If you are interested in more than just Bill, you have to definitely check the events of CES here. Have you chosen a new monitor already? Well, I have :)

Year 2008 will bring a lot. Be ready! Here is the best technique how to get into the top 5 in January 2009. Don't hesitate.

I will never try to become a politician: more here
I will never try to get into showbusiness: more here
I won´t try to be an artist: more here
I won´t lavish on wrapping paper: more here
I won´t do sports: more here
I will never drink: more here