all sorts

We've seen all sorts of weird or questionable applications, but here's one that we can't quite figure out who would buy.

It's an application for your mobile phone that determines if you're moving, and routes the call directly to voicemail.

At the very least, it tells the caller that you're driving right now and can't come to the phone, but is that really that important?

And how does the app know whether the mobile phone holder is driving... or just a passenger in the car? Or on a bus?

I had the privilege of speaking at this years FrOSCon (23rd - 24th August) and this being the first time I speak there and indeed the first time I venture into Germany, I was very excited about the whole thing.

The Developer Tutorials blog has a new post full of links to some great add-ons for the popular WordPress blogging software to help make your site into more of a community.

We've noted in the past the, well, addiction some people have to calling any sort of regular usage of something an "addiction." It's quite common with all sorts of technologies.

Often there doesn't seem to be any actual evidence of an addiction -- or, if there is, it usually becomes clear that the problem is somewhere else, and the people simply turn to technology to avoid that other issue in their lives.

The DMCA lets copyright holders send takedown messages to various sites, demanding allegedly infringing content be taken offline.

It's been rather successful in doing that. A few years ago, a great site, Chilling Effects sprung up to track all sorts of takedown notices (not just having to do with copyright, but any kind of cease & desist threats -- though DMCA takedowns are common).

Remember that story last week about someone posting a fake ad on Craigslist, leading to people ransacking a house and taking all sorts of stuff?

We've seen all sorts of ridiculous things get blamed on Google and Yahoo, but I never thought I'd see this.

An executive at an adult entertainment company is now blaming Google and Yahoo for not doing enough to stop kids from seeing porn.

He claims that it's all for the sake of protecting the children. Fascinating. If he's so concerned about children accessing porn perhaps he should, I don't know... stop making it?

Just a thought.