It is not surprising to me that the VP debate got better ratings than the first Obama-McCain debate…but the margin DID surprise me–45 ratings vs. a 31.6 rating:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/national-broadcast/e3id613851958f9907269d62c2d9fd70c2b
The US is selling $6 bil in arms to Taiwan, including $3.1 bil for 330 Patriot missile interceptor missiles:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/massive-us-arms.html
The Pentagon wants a $57 bil increase in budget for FY 2010:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aWrLKUxMFUYA
Discussion and link to a report about how the US Air Force’s biggest enemy is itself:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/air-forces-bigg.html
South African police bought mini-UAVs in preparation for the World Cup:
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=6916
More than 200,000 websites have been found to have been compromised by criminal gangs. The criminals use those sites to attack users’ PCs. One of the websites is owned by the US Postal Service!
Article link
Mark McHenry of Spared Spectrum has interesting insight into the white spaces debate because DARPA has funded work quite similar to a white spaces device…but the differences between how defense and commercial applications of that technology is significant:
Article link
Sprint is trying hard to sell Nextel, but their bidders currently aren’t offering enough:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122298223447199579.html
Nokia’s new phone makes an interesting competitor to the iPhone–Nokia seems to have done a good job at their first attempt at a touchscreen:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4869252.ece
HP is coming out with a smartphone:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122298614491799899.html
The DC Metro (which I love to use!) will now provide access to all cell phone users instead of just Verizon customers:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/33961.php
The Obama campaign released a free iPhone application. The McCain campaign has not made an iPhone application yet:
http://www.macworld.com/article/135865/2008/10/obama.html
Wow, in Russia the 16 GB iPhone costs $1100 *with* a contract!
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/10/03/in-mother-russia-iphone-pwns-you/
The Blackberry Storm was shown off in this Vodaphone video promo:
http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/10/02/blackberry-storm-shows-off-in-trippy-vodafone-promo-vid/
Interesting that this prison system in Florida will soon have a cell-phone sniffing dogs. I’ve read that cell phone use is a problem in prisons,but never realized that a dog could be trained to smell cell phones:
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/33954.php
Sporting News is excited that Punch Out! is coming to the Wii:
http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/firstcuts/entry/view/13126/nintendo_resurrecting_punch-out!!_for_wii
Amazing that this mother and daughter advertised on Craiglist their prostitution services…both of them for their customers. And the daughter’s 3 young kids would be sent unsupervised to the sidewalk to wait for them to be done!
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20081003_Cops_wrestle__mom-n-daughter_tag_team_.html
