The Newest Handphone: ReadWriteWeb Daily Recap

Googles Docs Found Hosting Phishing Sites & Other Questionable Forms

The security researchers at F-Secure have discovered several phishing sites hosted on Google Docs, Google's online office suite. This is not an uncommon occurrence, it seems. According to a new blog post on the security firm's site, the team says "we regularly see phishing sites via Google Docs spreadsheets and hosted on spreadsheets.google.com."

The dangerous thing about these attacks is that they're hosted on a google.com domain, which gives these nefarious pages an air of legitimacy. One form even had the researchers themselves stumped as to whether it was phishing or not!

Memorial Day: RWW's Coverage of Military Tech

In the U.S., Memorial Day has devolved into a notoriety based mostly on picnicking and fabulous savings at big-box stores. However, it started life as a memorial called Decoration Day, first started by freed slaves in South Carolina to honor the Union soldiers who had died in a war that ended with the abolition of slavery. It was meant as a day of reconciliation and peace in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

Especially to those in the military, or from military family, the day retains some of its original flavor. Even as it honors those who have died in military service, it affirms the desirability of peace and stands as a memento mori for those in uniform. To do our small part in celebrating it, we wish to highlight a few of the stories of technology in military service we have written in the last year.

ThingLink: The First Social Objects Success Story?

Can 'things' be social? That's been one of the most contentious questions around the Internet of Things (when real world objects are connected to the Internet). Several startups have tried to do this, including StickyBits, TalesofThings and Itizen. I've been skeptical of these efforts in the past, but a new product called ThingLink is taking a slightly different tack - and they may just be onto something.

ThingLink allows you to tag and link things in images. For example: tagging a chair inside an image, giving some information about its design, and linking the chair to the store that sold it. ThingLink calls this an "interactive hotspot." While the concept of tagging things in photos isn't new - Facebook, Flickr and others have been doing this for some time now - ThingLink's tagging is richer and offers a lot more information and linking possibilities.

Making Music and Dance Out of Stars

The night sky has inspired people to create from the moment we as a species could see it above us. Shamans, poets, story-tellers and painters have been impelled to translate what they saw, or how they felt, as the vast bowl of the starry sky turned over them.

Nothing's changed except the technology available to do so and the avenues we have to share what we've made with each other. So on this Sunday evening, I'd like to share with you two high-tech, high-art versions of the night sky.

ArtFinder Brings Recommendations and Image Recognition to the Art World

Recommendation engines have changed the way we think about - and the way we purchase - music, movies, and books. Do you like the Beastie Boys' new album? Then check out Danger Mouse's latest. Do you like Guillermo del Toro films? Then be sure to watch Jean-Pierre Jeunet's movies.

However, there's been no comparable recommendation engine for works of art. If you like a particular Henri Matisse painting, there hasn't been a website for you to visit that will suggest other works by the artist or that will recommend other artists altogether.

But that's the aim of ArtFinder, a London-based startup that wants to help make it easier for people to find art that they love. Or rather, that's part of the aim.

3D Printing Conserves Earliest Communications Tech

There is very little in the way of research into the human past that does not now take advantage of the web, mobile technology and other scientific advances of the last several decades. One of the successful experiments with the greatest wow factor is 3D printing.

It has been used to create a full-size reproduction of King Tutankhamun's mummy and to repair Rodin's sculture, The Thinker. Now it has been utilized by faculty and students at Cornell to safely create replicas of cuneiform, one of the world's most ancient systems of communication. (The writing first appeared in the Mesopotamian city-state of Sumer around 3,000 B.C.E.)

Cartoon: Command, Control and Cake

Herein, a brief rant. It may be bubbling up from the fact that I'm turning 48 tomorrow, and therefore approaching curmudgeon status. It may be from the past week's news: an eG8 summit that looked more like a circling of wagons against the open Web; an attempt in Washington to conscript DNS into the intellectual property wars.

Whatever the cause, I'm entering my 49th year with a deep, burning anger over the forces arrayed against the open Web.

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