Eco Factor: Old coal mine repurposed to generate geothermal energy. Coal was one of the main sources of energy for Netherlands, but the need to protect the environment and the discovery of cheap natural gas in the north side of Netherlands, put an end to most of the coal mines in this part of the world. Once closed the shafts of the mines were flooded with water and have been unused for the last 30 years. The need for renewable energy could not open the locked gates of some of these mines after the town of Heerlen in the...
Google Friend Connect is the latest in a trend of big media companies who are ‘opening up their users data’ to help make the web more social. Facebook recently scored big by securing a deal that would allow Digg, Hulu and Discovery users to sign up and authenticate using their existing accounts. This is huge because it opens up all of Facebooks users to those services, allowing them to quickly create profiles and to use the same username and pass across all four services. Not to be out done, Google is prepping the launch of their own portable identity...
Whether it's with your family, your co-workers or your clients - many of us like to share the excitement we have about the new, social web with others. What do you show other people to demonstrate how powerful, and yet easy to use, this new world of technology really is? We asked our staff and a number of other advanced social web users what the one thing is that they like most to show people who are less experienced with the web than they are. Some of our favorite responses are below, maybe they'll give you some fresh ideas about...
Software maker Flock has released an OpenID management add-on for its social web browser. The add-on -- which works only on Flock 2.0 and not on Firefox 3, the browser upon which Flock is based -- was co-developed with MySpace and identity management company Vidoop. Even though MySpace helped create it, the add-on itself is site-agnostic. Once you install the add-on, you can use it to store your OpenID credentials securely within Flock. Then as you browse around to all of your favorite, OpenID-supporting social websites, Flock will alert you whenever you're able to use OpenID to log in to...
Mars Rover was rovin’ along the Red Planet where it snapped a picture of what looks like … a log of wood? The photo immediately a conspiracy theory rush in the blogosphere: The unusual image was featured in a NASA press release in 2004, although the space agency made no mention of the timber-like object captured on the spacecraft’s 115th day on Mars. But one website insists it is a leaked image that ‘could get someone killed.’ A writer from TheCrit.com said NASA’s claims Mars was a desert world were ‘lies’ and that ‘there are vast forests on Mars,...
WordPress is well known for its plugins and themes, but not enough people know and love what you can do in your themes functions.php. Chris Pearson showed his love for them back in May, and he did a great job of explaining how you can bring your own functions.php file to each and every theme you use, so I'm not going to repeat that, just go read it. Then Matt Varone started releasing a whole array of useful functions in three consecutive posts over the last couple of months: Taking Advantage of Functions.php in Wordpress Themes Useful custom functions for...
On Monday, Facebook announced it will soon roll out its Facebook Connect login system to several high-profile websites, including Digg, Hulu and Discovery.com. The sites, along with a few others, will begin supporting Facebook Connect within a few weeks. The New York Times has the scoop. The news is sure to be welcomed by Facebook's 120 million users and its potential partners, but it presents a new challenge to proponents of the so-called "open stack" for ID management -- OpenID, OAuth and the related technologies that allow users to share data across multiple websites. Facebook Connect is the company's...
From A Hamburger Today Over the weekend, while I was trying not to work, we at A Hamburger Today received this email from longtime reader and frequent commenter Phauxtoe: Hey, I got a bone to pick with you guys. Today (Friday) I stopped at Burger King to get a road coffee (nothing else). I saw an ad the menu for "BURGER SHOTS," with and without cheese.I guess they have moved into the slider market.Here is the problem: I read your site everyday or so—why do I have to hear about this on the streets?Thanks but no thanks, Phauxtoe Trying my...
By Taylor Pratt Boston Federal Judge Nancy Gertner has ruled to protect IP addresses in an RIAA anti-piracy lawsuit. Judge Gertner’s ruling could cause additional problems in future cases involving the RIAA. The RIAA had subpoenaed Boston University to disclose the identities behind specific IP addresses at their university. Since 2003, the RIAA has prosecuted nearly 30,000 individuals for violating anti-piracy laws (basically, downloading music illegally). In any case in which an IP address was identified to that of a school, the RIAA would subpoena that school for the identities of the users of that particular IP address (as they...
Wired's Joshua A Davis has a great profile of my pal Dan Kaminsky's work on discovering and then helping to fix a net-crashing DNS bug earlier this year. Davis really captures the excitement of discovering a major security flaw and the complex web of personal, professional and technical complications that come to bear when you're trying to disclose the research in a way that minimizes harm to the net. Dan does a lot of fun security-related stuff that doesn't get talked about in public. There's this one thing he does -- But that would be telling. The next morning, Kaminsky...
Tonight is the final night to thank your favorite websites by putting forth your vote in the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services. This voting round closes at midnight PST, November 30th (4 hours from now). After that, it’s back to our regularly scheduled startup news until we announce the finalists on Wednesday. Vote now with the widget below, or forever hold your peace. Mashable Open Web Awards ---Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:Open Web Awards Voting: 50,000+ Votes CastWebGuild’s Impact of the Social Graph on Search...
