"On Thursday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted to allow — in addition to more traditional top-level domains (TLDs), such as .com and .org — theoretically any TLD at all, as long as it is no longer than 64 characters long... "This has the potential for utter chaos," said John Mackenzie, of the law firm Pinsent Masons, on Friday... "All of a sudden, every brand will be forced to register their name at .shop, .buy and .london to stop anyone else getting it.""

Hmm... this could get messy. It effectively removes the guessability of domain names as well, on top of increased forgery attempts. We need new TLDs, but this may be going too far...

"Mozilla’s Head of User Experience Aza Raskin has just posted a video preview and extensive post covering the concept behind of one of Mozilla’s latest endeavors, Firefox Mobile... The GUI looks very cool, though raw... Firefox Mobile will be usable on touchscreen devices, keypad-operated devices and everything in between."

Cool little video. Although I'm convinced it'll work very well on mobile-sized devices. Mini-tablet-sized devices would work well though.

"Not content with simply limiting itself to blocking despicable child sex abuse, a move three major ISPs in the US also agreed to today, the French government instead has decided for its citizens whether or not they can view content it considers inappropriately racist and or linked to terrorism. Sarkozy’s government is inviting people to send in huge long lists of sites which offend their delicate sensibilities."

Looks like the French are doing what our government wants to. Luckily, our government is a tad incompetent... so far anyway.

"A few people at work have been chatting about David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous. I first heard of this book from Weinberger’s Google TechTalk so I thought I’d share... Simply put, the concept of the book is that ordering things in the digital world is different to physical world. So in the real world we’re bound by the concept of one thing in one place – ie one physical object cannot occupy multiple places. However, in the digital world... Stuff can be placed anywhere or nowhere."

Nothing new, but a good overview of an important concept, especially given it's something I'm planning for in my current project :)

"The next version of Internet Explorer, IE8, has passed the Acid2 test, which has historically been one of the toughest Web standards and compliance tests to pass... No version of IE has been able to pass the test, while mainstream competing browsers like Opera, and Apple's Safari have managed to be compliant for the last few years. Mozilla's upcoming version 3 of Firefox is also set to pass the Acid 2 test, although the current shipping version of Firefox (version 2) will not."

Good milestone, and about time. But I'll hold the praise until they release (when?), and when they can finally force IE6 users off that horrible version!

"The world of standards-based web design and development has been undergoing something of a shake-up these past few days; Andy Clarke’s “CSS Unworking Group” seems to have opened the floodgates to expressions of dissatisfaction with the current method of progress (or lack thereof) in developing and standardizing new features for web developers and designers... how to produce a process whereby standards bodies can respond quickly to innovative ideas, and wherein innovators will encourage standardized, interoperable implementations of their ideas. "

Why can't the world be a straight-forward, non-political, friendly place? Damn politics. :)

"More recently, we've started to see moves towards even greater integration of these Web 2.0 applications, with Redhat promoting the concept of the "online desktop", with a focus on using SaaS applications rather than locally installed ones. But what about security? Although the BBC made reference to issues with privacy, other security aspects were covered in a more positive way: your applications and data are being entrusted to "specialists", who will take care of everything."

Good concise post about the security implications of SaaS, or web apps in general really. Is it going to stop the wave of web apps? No, but we should be looking for better solutions to get the pros of SaaS without the cons.

"Being a successful entrepreneur means getting ahead of the competition, says Ruwan Weerasooriya, CEO of new media startup CafeScreen, which is rolling out a network of digital news screens into cafes across Sydney and Melbourne, as well as providing free wireless internet access to patrons... Mr Weerasooriya provides free wireless internet access in CBD cafes with no advertising.."

Stumbled across this, and thoughti it was pretty neat. Wonder how they'll deal with the entrenched contracts many have with commercial hotspot providers like Telstra.

"Vodafone announced a AU$39 per month 5GB (uploads included) mobile broadband plan on a 24-month contract... The plan will only be available until the end of December, leaving little time for indecision... Optus has also jumped on the low price mobile broadband bandwagon, offering a 2GB limit for AU$39.99 a month, but only when linked with an Optus mobile or business phone... A Telstra spokesperson criticised the "low cost" offer on the grounds that Vodafone's network is too slow and offers limited coverage."

Wow, finally mobile internet priced reasonably. Telstra has a point, but even if the speeds are 1.5MBPS, as long as the coverage is ok, it's still a large step forward.