Link Collection

The US Military may ban Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites because they are a "security headache":
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/military-may-ban-twitter-facebook-as-security-headaches/


Army Colonel says that the US should leave Iraq immediately. He says that staying in Iraq endangers US troops, that the Iraqi Army is ready to take over and doesn't want the US around anymore (they even had a "forcible takeover" of a US check point recently), and a big clash between Iraqi troops and US forces could hurt future relations between the countries:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/army-colonel-us-should-leave-iraq-asap/


Soldiers may not need to carry batteries soon because they may be able to power electronic devices just using their own movements on the battlefield:
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/312404/Piezo+power+on+the+battlefield.htm


Customs and Border Protection's surveillance aircraft helped catch a drug-smuggling semi-submersible, with an estimated 5,000 metric tons of cocaine. So far P-3 aircraft have contributed to the disruption of $1 billion in cocaine in the last year:
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/07282009_6.xml


India is becoming an R&D hotspot, but China has surpassed its number of R&D centers through tax breaks and special economic zones to encourage research:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE56K03M20090721


Wal-Mart may be a location for swine flu shots:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE56T4I220090730?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews


Bill introduced in the Senate to ban text messaging in all states:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/29/AR2009072902039.html/content/article/2009/07/29/AR2009072902039.html


Open source database breakthrough could lead to a 80x speed improvement:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/open-source-database-breakthrough-10-80.html


Wolfram Alpha could change software due to their can that not only do they own their software, they own the *output* of the software itself. They claim that each page of results returned by their engine is a unique, copyrightable work:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/how-wolfram-alpha-could-change-software-248?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2009-07-30


Analysis about how the Microsoft/Yahoo search agreement will help Google avoid any antitrust scrutiny since the Microsoft/Yahoo team provides credible competition:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/privacy/thanks-microsoft-google-unleashed-227?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2009-07-30


Yahoo search developers are in limbo now that Yahoo may be abandoning its search engine for Microsoft's:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/update-future-uncertain-yahoo-developer-programs-235


Commentary about why every phone needs Google Voice:
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/every-phone-needs-google-voice-104?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2009-07-30


The next big piece of Nortel up for bid is they LTE patent portfolio. Ericsson only got 600 out of Nortel's 5,500 patents when they purchased Nortel's CDMA/LTE assets:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/nortels-lte-patents-scramble-acquire-begins/2009-07-29


With China's push for their own 3G standard (TD-SCDMA), it is interesting to note that the only 4G standard for China is LTE, so they will use the same standard as the rest of the world:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/lte-only-road-wireless-4g-china


Tenant made a post on Twitter to complain about her landlord...the landlord saw the Tweet and sued the tenant for $50,000:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1687436,CST-NWS-twitter28web.article


Ashley Judd has begun working towards a Masters degree at Harvard:
http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view.bg?articleid=1187923&srvc=track&position=0