Tuesday linkage 31 July 2007

I'm having a clearout of all the tabs I have open on firefox so here are a few links for you

Keep stuff secure with your eyes (and your mobile)
Oki Japan has developed software that brings iris recognition security to existing mobile phones. Of course the focus described is security and that's *great*. Can you imagine, no more pin number or password traumas. But I wonder if it could also be used for iridology, either now, or at some point in the future when the resolution improves?

Mobile and fashion
Or perhaps we're better off with a mobile 'colour me beautiful' type service, courtesy of the folks over at HP. It's still in prototype mode but I can see it taking off and is a nice takeaway if you've gone through the whole Colour Me Beautiful (or similar) process. Maybe this is what the fashion industry needs to help get them more mobile. I can't help thinking though that lighting is going to play an important factor as to whether or not this will be successful. In certain lights, it's very difficult to tell what colours clothes are exactly and I'm wondering if the camera can get round this or not.

Get the message right
ICSTIS is investigating anonymous text message services as they seem to be used for bullying and rather insidious messages which is not what they were designed for. There's a public consultation under way, so get in there quick to add your point of view. You can download the pdf http://www.icstis.org.uk/pdfs_consult/anonymous_sms.pdf here and the deadline is 7th September.

Meanwhile, Darla Mack, wishes SMS a happy birthday this week. It's 15 years old. Can you believe it?! I only started texting in 2000 so as much as I like to think I'm an early adopter for some things, maybe I wasn't an early adopter when it came to SMS!

Social media continues apace
Online social networking isn't going away. Via Twitter, I'm finding friends are unhappy about being facebook-less today (it's undergoing maintenance right now - but only affecting *some* accounts, including mine). But never fear, there's always somewhere else to go play and connect with folks like you. So if you're a teenager (I'm not) and you're into anime, avatars and the like, then join 8.5m other teens like you at Gaia. Ok, it's not mobile, but it's big and we need to be keeping an eye on this social media type stuff.