The Newest Handphone: ReadWriteWeb Daily Recap

Developer Creates Tool to Bring RSS Back to Twitter

Earlier this month, entrepreneur and blogger Jesse Stay noticed that both Facebook and Twitter had completely removed support for RSS from of their websites. After much outcry from the tech community, Facebook relented and re-added an RSS link to Facebook Pages once again. Twitter, however, did nothing.

But now, one developer has taken it upon himself to build a tool that uses Twitter's API (application programming interface) to create RSS feeds. The code, called "Twitter API 2 RSS," is now available on GitHub here.

Patent Holding Firm Lodsys Goes After Android Developer for Use of In-App Payments

10 days after patent holder Lodsys sent out threatening letters to iOS developers, claiming infringement and demanding licensing fees, Apple sent in its lawyers to defend against the attack. According to Apple's legal team, the license it holds on Lodsys' in-app payments technology also extends to its developer community.

So what did Lodsys do next? It went after an Android developer, it appears.

How Mobile is Changing the Way We Work

Once upon a time, things didn't happen now, they happened later. Editing a document meant volleying back and forth over email or fax, meetings were something everyone had to be in the same place for and group communication on-the-go meant saying "hold on, let me call you right back" over and over. Then came the real-time Web.

If there's any one thing that the real-time Web has changed about the way we work, it's in communication and collaboration. Sure, we've had phones, faxes and even email for ages now, but the Web puts the full range of media into our hands and makes the office seem like a thing of the past.

Crowdsourcing Project Will Help Identify and Recover Lost Films

Do you know this man? The folks at Lost Films hope that you do and that you can identify the name of the film from which the still was taken. Archivists know it's a German film, and they believe it was made in the 1930s. And they're asking for anyone with more information to help.

Glmps: A Social Photo App, With a New Dimension

When serial inventor, pro candle maker and very early YouTube star Paul "Renetto" Robinett called me on the phone six months ago and told me he and a team were creating a new video service, I was interested. When I got to see the service on Robinett's phone in the lobby of the Driskill Hotel at SXSW, I was downright excited. This was my favorite new app that I saw in Austin. It's not publicly available yet, but it's finally getting close.

It's called Glmps and it's a social photo service - with a very important twist. It stores the five seconds before you snapped a photo in video - and saves the whole package together for context. It's cool; it lets you see a little bit of the story behind a picture and it turns video into a fun freeze-frame experience. Check out the Glmps I made of my lunch, below.

Altly: Another Privacy-Focused Facebook Alternative

It was just last week when the privacy-focused Facebook alternative Diaspora posted an update on its development status, promising to "go faster." It may need to do just that not only to please its community and woo new users, but to help stave off the competition from yet another startup that's just announced its plans to also provide a privacy-focused social network.

This one's called Altly, and it announced its plans to build an alternative to Facebook today with a lengthy manifesto on why privacy, personal data control, and data portability should matter.

Google Announces APIs Scheduled for Shutdown

Google made a number of API-related announcements at Google I/O earlier this month, including a new Books API, an API discovery service, and a more widely available Places API.

But as the list of Google's APIs continues to grow, there are some older APIs that are, in Google's own words, no longer "receiving the necessary love."

Google Scribe Updated, But Automatic Text Completion Still More Fun Than Functional

When Google released Google Scribe, ReadWriteWeb's Mike Melanson called the text completion tool "Mad Libs-esque," noting the possibilities not just for keystroke-savings but for some good laughs as well. The tool works much like Google Suggest, auto-completing as you type.

Although Google Scribe promises to save you time and make writing easier, there were some hiccups with the service when it was initially launched. However Google Labs has just released a newly updated version that has a lot more polish and utility.

Google Street View to Take On India

Google is bringing Street View to India, an ambitious plan to collect visual data on the vast sub-continent. The project started in Bangalore and will move through the country the way it has done with 25 other countries since 2007.

Google will also try to avoid the same problems that have plagued Street View data collection in other countries, such as alleged privacy violations stemming from Wi-Fi hotspot mapping and identifying individuals.

The Internet of Elsewhere: Reorienting the Map of the Web

The tendency to map our world with our own country or region front and center is well documented and reasonably well-understood, at least intellectually. When someone from America sees a map with, say, Peru in the middle, with south in the up position, it still creates some dissonance. But that dissonance can be useful, beyond simply disabusing ourselves of the notion of our own centrality. It can make the world, including our own homes, new again and impart us with an urge to understand how elsewhere affects here.

Cyrus Farivar has done much the same thing with his book, "The Internet of Elsewhere: The Emergent Effects of a Wired World."

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