Plus scammers exploit Norway murders and Amy Winehouse death, and Africa's mobile economic revolution
A quick burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
Mac malware 'explosion' missing in action >> TUAW
"Would the hackers win and Apple be overwhelmed, or would they be defeated by Apple's vigilance?
"Two months ago, I tried to come up with a way that we could answer that question definitively.
"I wrote a small script to download Apple's malware definitions file every hour and permanently store each unique version. I started this script running on June 2nd, capturing version 2 of the file; since then there have been 22 further versions, each adding new malware definition signatures to the scanner. I now have all that data at my fingertips."
It's interesting data.
The sociological breakthrough of Google+ >> Hannibal and Me
Andreas Kluth of The Economist: "Tell me: In real life, how often do you walk up to somebody and request to be "friends", then begin "sharing" pictures of your naked baby?
"How wonderfully warm and fuzzy do you feel when somebody (oh yes, wasn't he on my soccer team 30 years ago? Or perhaps I vomited on him at that keg party in 1989?) stops you on the street, asks to be "friends", then shares his baby pictures with you?
"Mark [Zuckerberg] has been asking us all to do exactly this sort of thing. I thought it was strange back then, and I said so in our pages. (The picture at the top of this post is from that old piece.) But -- did I mention? -- that was in 2007. A different era, as I said."
He likes Google+ and Circles, however.
Amy Winehouse death video scams appear on Facebook >> Naked Security
Before you wonder, yes, they had similar ones about the Oslo killings. No event is too awful for a scammer not to exploit.
Intrade users think Congress won't approve increase in US debt ceiling to $15.1T or more before midnight ET 31 Jul 2011 >> Intrade
InTrade is a prediction system using crowdsourcing: people "buy" or "sell" a decision ahead of it happening. Keep this one bookmarked. On Sunday night is was at 21% chance of happening.
Africa's mobile economic revolution >> The Observer
Killian Fox: "Africa has experienced an incredible boom in mobile phone use over the past decade. In 1998, there were fewer than four million mobiles on the continent. Today, there are more than 500m. In Uganda alone, 10 million people, or about 30% of the population, own a mobile phone, and that number is growing rapidly every year. For Ugandans, these ubiquitous devices are more than just a handy way of communicating on the fly: they are a way of life.
"It may seem unlikely, given its track record in technological development, but Africa is at the centre of a mobile revolution. In the west, we have been adapting mobile phones to be more like our computers.. In Africa, where a billion people use only 4% of the world's electricity, many cannot afford to charge a computer, let alone buy one. This has led phone users and developers to be more resourceful, and African mobiles are being used to do things that the developed world is only now beginning to pick up on."
APIs for Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook et al >> Apigee
Very nifty console for any API work you need to do or test. (Thanks @artesea on Twitter for the link.)
Microsoft FY11Q4 Results >> Mini-Microsoft
Microsoft's own Deep Throat, an anonymous manager: "The iPad continues to suck in consumer love and money... money that we'd prefer they send our way but there's nothing comparable for them to buy. Windows 8 ARM tablets? Sometime next year, but what we showed at All Things D is our take of squeezing an elephant into a VW bug. Here's some deep respect and chops to the folks doing all this work, but it's a subtraction game followed by many frustrating conversations about why it's okay not to have certain obvious things work... obviously....
"My one analyst question for today: when the hell is Bing going to stop losing money?!? It appears that the internal hiring spree has finally cooled down so that's good - the piling of warm bodies has stopped.... Seriously though, now's the time to start shaking the Bing tree and let the goodness of the search eco-system keep on going and shed the remaining busy work. Come on, if Xbox did it, so can you!"
In Case You Had Any Doubts About Where Microsoft's Profits Come From >> Business Insider Chart of the Day
What's puzzling is the dip and then leap in the 2009 period. We'd love an explanation.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/jul/25/technology-links-newsbucket
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