This is actually disturbing. The neural system of insects is so simple, that scientists have found a way to remote control the bugs by introducing electrode into their neural system. They can turn flying on and off, and even give directions.

More info at the researcher’s home page. Apart from vast number of moral and philosophical questions, the experiment raises an interesting technical question: Why creating hardware that mimics insects, when you can reuse a live one?

Opossum is the fastest OWL-S matchmaker in the 3rd International Semantic Service Selection Contest, having the best query response time with regards to the seven contest entries. As far as I know, this is the only benchmark for semantic Web services matchmaking, which makes Opossum the fastest in the world! More about the indexing technology that made Opossum fast can be found in this article (PDF).

Matchmakers were tested for speed and accuracy,and while Opossum had won the speed category, it is not one of the three top matchmakers for accuracy. Well, maybe next time . I will add a link to the results summary when it becomes available.

Its been long overdue, but the British PM issued today a public apology to Alan Turing. On popular media, and in Gordon’s public note, Alan Turing is mentioned mainly for his contribution to the breaking of the German code in WW2. However, in my mind, his most profound contribution is to the structure of computers. Every computer we use today, every router and machine that enables you to read this blog post, is structured almost perfectly according to Turing’s design. His work was not merely technical. It was a breakthrough. He introduced an elegant and simple design, which did not change very much in the last 60 years. The human kind will be forever in debt to Turing for this contribution.

The mechanism that led Turing to his death, for the single reason of being gay, is a dark stain on our society. Gordon’s apology is important because this is not a problem of days past. It is a current problem. A month ago, an unidentified man had shot gay teens in a community center in Tel Aviv. Two of them were killed. In the U.S., gays are thrown out of the army if they do not hide their identity. All over the world, people are forced to hide in shame or to suffer grieve consequences. This is exactly the choice that Turing had faced. Admitting that this is wrong is an important step.

Google maps is using anonymous location data from Google maps applications
on mobile phones in order to infer real time traffic conditions.

This is a lovely implementation, but it raises some privacy concerns. For example, law authorities could request the information from Google. While the information is declared as anonymous, it has been shown that location data can be easily De-anonymized.

Google allows users to opt-out of the service (here is how). However, it seems that the only way to opt out from the service is by stopping location services in Google maps completely – something that most users would hesitate to do.

Locaccino has a new Symbian client, working on Nokia phones such as N97, e51 etc. It will update your location on the server, while staying in the background, allow you to check your friends’ location, to see who has viewed you, who can view you, allow you to go offline and more.

To use it, first go to Locaccino and add the facebook application. Afterward, go to Locator and go on from there.

My search engine for semantic Web services is back online, this time on a more reliable server: http://opossumsearch.org/

Sometimes, its funny to see how red and green color codes are used in software. As red/green schemas are basically taken from traffic lights, we can imagine that red would be used for dangerous situations (stop!) and green for safe situations (move on). Like in Microsoft’s personal firewall:

But sometimes, color codes are basically used for what’s good for the software service. For example, in Brightkite, a location-sharing application, this is how full location disclosure (posted to a public web page) looks like:

and this is how a private mode, which is “safe” looks like:

So, can people trust these color codes? Probably not.

Osnat's trail in the park

. Osnat’s trail in the park, as seen on Locaccino