Yet Another Text Input Method

During Demo Fall 2007, Kannuu presented what they claim is a new and more intelligent way of entering text on a mobile device (or other small footprint system).
The web site description as well as a review on Crave, presents the system as an input method that is unlike others as all it uses is the «joystick» or navigation pad of the device.
The idea is to that the solution will present initial letters and then word completions (like other such systems based on predictive text) that you select through the navigation pad (up,down,left,right). Their claim is that this will work better as they have built contextual predictive text based on the application or desired input goal. So for example in a GPS activated application (such as Google Maps), the input would be based on place or location names.
This may indeed be a better way to input text but it will have to rival with the existing knowledge and habits of people who are now quite use to using the traditional text input on a mobile device.
Definitely a technology to watch!

New gMail in the Works

According to this CNet Article, there might be a new gMail in the works. Well at least a new (and improved?) interface that might support Gears.
Personally, I basically always liked the interface as is. It provides a simple and convenient way to access view and access the e-mail. Gears might be useful but if I usually want offline support, I'll use a standard e-mail client like Thunderbird.
Knowing Google though I am sure that it will be a considerably better version! I hope that they spend sometime putting in some improved mobility aspects. Some of things I would like to see include:

• SMS push notifications
  
• and or direct push of e-mail to mobile
• Better mobile client
  

GuildCafé: Social Networking for Gamers

Feel like the typical social networks (Facebook, mySpace, ...) do not meet your gaming addictions? Well thjs new site might actually be of interest to you.

GuildCafé is a dedicated gaming site to bring together players and/or guild members outside of their typical playgrounds. Jon Radoff created the social network to give MMORPG gamers a space outside the game so that they could continue socializing with one another while continuing to use their gaming handles (their alter-ego) instead of their names as profiles.

Look me up FVTer player member.

People Are Biggest Threat to IT Security

It is a common body of knowledge in IT Security that the biggest threat are People. There is really nothing new here! However the interesting twist in this post on The Register is that a Deloitte report/survey has shown that in fact it is not only the employees of financial institutions that are at cause but also the customers. Interestingly enough this cause beyond the individual company-customer relationship but also the company-to-company relationship. The ability, or in fact lack of it, to set-up business partnerships that are not prone to People error on one side or the other.

This just demonstrates the importance of having a Security Policy that is in fact in-depth and cause to the core of what a company needs to protect: The Information! Protecting the perimeter is no longer enough more in-depth solutions must be sought out and applied!

Firefox Memory Problems Fixed?

News on the MozillaBlog would seem to suggest that Firefox may finally fix some of its memory issues:

Many Mozilla community members, including both volunteers and Mozilla Corporation employees, have been helping to reduce Firefox's memory usage and fix memory leak bugs lately. Hopefully, the result of this effort will be that Firefox 3 uses less memory than Firefox 2 did, especially after it has been used for several hours.

This would be good news. I have been fighting with Firefox memory issues since I adopted it as a browser. For example, right now What's Running tells me it is using up to 46560K when it starts and hits close to 265000K when it is no longer usable and drives me nuts!
I just hope they do succeed in finally fixing this bug (cause it is a bug)!

Hacker-Proof System? Will Ectocryp Be It?

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) recently announced a new encryption protocol called Ectocryp.
The system apparently, according to this Crave post, owes its success to lightning fast key changes that keeps the cryptographic base continuously changing and thus, in theory, not discoverable by a hacker. EADS claims that the system can do real-time encryption of voice, video and data (at least according to their commercial). Their pamphlet claims 1Gbps throughput for the encryption which is pretty good and would be able to sustain their claims.
Definitely a Security technology to follow...

Search Directions

Om Malik's blog entry on the evolution of Search Engines presents an interesting idea or notion on how searching might be improved as we move on. He covers what I think are two important notions: the first being assisted searching like Mahalo and the second being aggregation or hyper-aggregation of results into a consistent information view.
I started trying Mahalo a few weeks ago. The premise is that searching is facilitate by real people who build compilations of results tagged to specific keywords. This in theory provides the user with a more interesting and relevant view of what they are looking for. The problem is that this is in theory! In most cases this will work as long as you are searching for common information that is relevant to a majority of people.
But how successful can this be? Isn't this search aggregation just limiting the results and potentially excluding what one person might think is relevant versus some other persons...

Interactive Bar in London

Just saw this Crave post regarding a new bar in London called the TwentyFour. The bar looks cool with wall-to-wall high-techiness! The description points out that the place is filled with the latest technology for lighting and drink making. The pictures from both the Crave article and the Bar web site are definitely intriguing.
I think that this will be a place to visit on my next trip to London.

New Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard

I've been thinking of getting the Logitech G15 for a number of years now. However, I have been hesitant due to the large size and potentially not sure what to do with all the Macro keys they put on the thing.
Apparently the new version addresses some of these issues according to this ExtremeTech article. The article discuss some of the applications that use the LCD screen and I have to admit I was drawn to the WoW interface as well as others...
Definitely worth some further investigation and potential addition to the home hardware.