Tech Brief
• Earlier this week, there was of a spree of burglaries in the US that apparently used Facebook Places to target the victims. This relatively new feature of the site allows people to share their location, but only with friends. For . He e-mailed the detective involved, who confirmed his suspicions:
"One or two of the suspects were Facebook friends with the respective homeowners. They basically had access to the walls and could read that the families were away on vacation. The information was only available to friends and the Facebook Places feature was NOT a part of this."
• Some tech fans have a peculiar obsession with queuing for the latest product or title for days on end. And so it was on Monday, when gamers lined up to buy the latest game in the Xbox series Halo. Now Microsoft says it is the biggest game in its history, taking $200m in sales in the US and Europe in its first 24 hours. But :
"To put all this in perspective, however, back in November 2009 Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold 1.23m copies in its first 24 hours in the UK, with combined revenue from [the UK] and North America hitting $310m."
• Ever wanted to tell someone just what you think of their driving? Or that bumper sticker? A new start-up aims to allow you to connect with other drivers, by using their licence plates "like an e-mail address that can be used to contact the owner". At the moment the system is a little clunky - involving dialling into a service and inputting the plate manually. But bump.com is working on :
"When using it you simply snap a photo of a license plate after which it is processed in the cloud to direct your message appropriately."
• Our very own Rory Cellan-Jones blogged about "the phone that your Dad has" earlier this week. Now - minimalist handsets which could be "the greatest grandparent phone of all time":
"Built into the back is a removable pen and pad, so numbers can be stored old-school style."
• And finally, what to do with the bane of all park-goers: dog poo? In Cambridge Massachusetts, :
"Dog owners collect their dog waste in a special biodegradable bag and throw it into the digester - an air-tight cylindrical container, where the dog faeces are broken down by anaerobic bacteria. A byproduct from that process is methane which can then be released through a valve and burnt as fuel. In this case it is being used to power an old-fashioned gas-burning lamppost in a park."
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