Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Spy agencies linked to CIA flights. CIA prisoners in Europe were apparently abducted and moved between countries illegally, possibly with the aid of secret services who did not tell their governments, according to the first report on "rendition" flights. [Guardian Unlimited] 9:44:51 PM    comment []

Wes: Move over Google OS, here's Alexa OS. Unlike other search engine APIs that just let you do searches, Alexa lets you run your own data-mining code on their server farm, where it has access to their complete Web archive. The pricing sounds very similar to the still-gestating Sun Grid. He also notes: I ordered an iPod and an iTMS gift card. One shipped from China and one shipped from Riata Trace Parkway, which is about five miles away. Both arrived on the same day. 9:44:26 PM    comment []

Alexa announcement reality check. Search guru Danny Sullivan says "wait a minute" on all the genuflection taking place regarding the announcement that Alexa will start offering a "fee-based vertical search service." Quote: How about more rain on the parade? Well, what could you use instead of Alexa? Let's see: Rollyo: Just out, allows you to create a vertical search engine by giving it a list of sites. Under the hood, Rollyo is tapping into Yahoo and refining it.   Gigablast: Get your own custom vertical search engine right now, for free, by using Custom Topic Search. It's been out for nearly a year. Want some type of hosted service or something special. If it's not listed here, I've no doubt Gigablast will step up to deliver.   Vortaloptics: This specialty firm began offering services back in 2003, offering to create vertical search engines for anyone. I wrote about them at the time as perhaps signaling a return to easy-to-make vertical search engines that looked likely before the dotcom downturn. They've been quiet, so perhaps no one's taking them up on things. But then again, perhaps the Alexa move might revitalize things.   Google AdSense For Search: Want to search the entire web, just as Alexa offers? Out since last year, Google's more than happy to give you access to its entire database, for free, along with ads ready to go right alongside it. Nope, vertical search isn't as easy. You could try site-flavored Google search, or the Google API might help. If not, fair to say Alexa's move will spur Google along to offering more and probably for free, if you want to carry ads.   Yahoo Search Marketing Partner Solutions: Yahoo doesn't have a self-serve custom web search program similar to Google, but that's only a matter of time. Until then, if you're big enough, they'll do custom solutions. Not big enough? There's the Yahoo Search API you can tap into. [rexblog: Rex Hammock's Weblog] 9:43:52 PM    comment []

Audio from John Gilmore's trial on right to travel anonymously. Cory Doctorow: Mindwarp sez, The link goes directly to an full recording (WMA audio file) of the Dec 8th hearing for John Gilmore vs Gonzales about the constitutionality of the ID requirement for flying domestically within the United States. Each attorney got approximately 20 minutes to argue his case in front of the court. Interesting for a direct look at what each party is arguing and the issues that the court seems most concerned with. There are questions of jurisdiction, which the government is using as a basis to try and get the case thrown out, and they were touched upon in the hearing. Listening to the whole thing provides a slightly deeper understanding of the legal subtleties which will determine whether or not the ID requirement will be found, in court, to raise constitutional issues. Link (Thanks, Mindwarp!) [Boing Boing] 9:43:12 PM    comment []

Fraud earns researcher time in jail: In a rare occurrence, New York VA researcher receives 71 months in jail for altering patient records. By Anne Harding, in The Scientist. 4:19:26 PM    comment []

Amazon rents access to a copy of the Web. Amazon is selling access to its 5 billion document, 100-terabyte web-index. The index is complied by Alexa, an Amazon division that also powers the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Amazon is renting access to the whole, raw database, so that you can build your own search tools and data-mining projects with it. Pretty awesome -- indexes are hard to build and maintain, requiring a lot of computer horsepower, storage and bandwidth, but once you've built a copy of the Web, there's plenty of imaginative ways you can tweak it to produce valuable new services. By treating the index as a saleable asset instead of a trade secret, Amazon is really ripping apart the traditional wisdom of search engines: Anyone can also use Alexa's servers and processing power to mine its index to discover things - perhaps, to outsource the crawl needed to create a vertical search engine, for example. Or maybe to build new kinds of search engines entirely, or ...well, whatever creative folks can dream up. And then, anyone can run that new service on Alexa's (er...Amazon's) platform, should they wish. It's all done via web services. It's all integrated with Amazon's fabled web services platform. And there's no licensing fees. Just "consumption fees" which, at my first glance, seem pretty reasonable. ("Consumption" meaning consuming processor cycles, or storage, or bandwidth). The fees? One dollar per CPU hour consumed. $1 per gig of storage used. $1 per 50 gigs of data processed. $1 per gig of data uploaded (if you are putting your new service up on their platform). (Thanks, John!) [Boing Boing] Also from Cory: Kirby sends up a link to "instructions on making a simple Van de Graaf generator with a soda can, some PVC pipe and a few parts from Radio Shack. It really works, as my daughter made one for her fifth grade science project. (Pic of ours with some napkins taped to it to do the old 'hair raising' trick)" Link 7:07:12 AM    comment []

Graduates less likely to back opportunities for poor. Social attitudes survey: Middle class resists health and education reforms· 'Selfishness' of graduates suggested by report [Guardian Unlimited] 6:04:27 AM    comment []

Colgate Gains Ground in Legal Battle With Fraternities. Colgate University has won its first legal skirmishes in its effort to assert control over the school's raucous fraternities after nearly a year of court battles. By MICHELLE YORK. [NYT > Education] 6:04:06 AM    comment []

Alphabet evolution animation. Here's a really nice animation of the evolution of the Latin alphabet, from c. 900 BC to the Middle Ages. Link (via Alexander Rose, thanks Paul Saffo!) [Boing Boing] 6:03:17 AM    comment []

The Story of Shan Dian Mao. "Called "Shan Dian Mao De Gu Shi" (The Story of Shan Dian Mao),the first Internet addiction themed television show in China will soon be aired to show teenage viewers the horrors of using the Internet too much",ChinaTechNews.com reports."The 38-episode sitcom,shot by the Care for the Next Generation,China Youth League's Online Movie and TV Center,and the China Youth Internet Association,reveals ways for youth to avoid Internet addiction.Chinese media is recently rife with stories about youngsters who fall ill or die in Asia because they spend too much time playing games or chatting online." China To Air First Internet Addiction Television Show [Smart Mobs] 6:02:56 AM    comment []

New Ethics Blog by Bowling Green Grad Students. Here. [Leiter Reports] 6:02:52 AM    comment []