talkingDigital

Anyone who follows tech news knows that today, Facebook announced that they have acquired FriendFeed. Not a big deal to most people.

What does FriendFeed do?

FriendFeed is a social media service that tracks “friends” across all of the other social media services – Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Tumblr, etc. etc.

FriendFeed allows users to watch what their friends are doing everywhere – but it also allows users to post everywhere more easily.

Like Twitter, Facebook is searchable. However, FriendFeed also aggregates Twitter feeds. This means that a FriendFeed search could yield what everyone is talking about everywhere. Read the rest of this entry →

When Google buys a company, everyone scratches their head and asks, why?

Bloggers immediately go into overdrive as they post speculations about what Google is up to, or they rant about the stupid decision on Google’s part in buying a company that has nothing to do with their services.

Everyone eventually forgets about the whole matter until months or years go by and Google surprises the world with a new service either changes the Internet forever, or nearly ruins a service that is offered by a competitor.

And then there are the Google wannabes. eBay leads the pack. Read the rest of this entry →

Big Secrets

In about 1985, I checked out a book called Big Secrets by William Poundstone. Actually I can’t remember if that was the book or one of his sequels, but in that book was a list of how to guess Social Security numbers.

Based on that list, I have been telling people for years that Social Security numbers were based on a simple system based on birth date and location. I have been challenged on this several times. Most often, people would tell me that if it were that simple, everyone would know.

Last week all the big tech news sites broke the “news” that Social Security numbers were based on a simple system of birth dates and location.

I felt smarter, but I wish that talkingdigital.org would have broke the news first.

Social Security Numbers Are Easy to Guess — Fox 2009 (706): 1 — ScienceNOW.