BillDay.com

The Register reports on the (in)security of Friendster, Orkut, Plaxo, et al.

Is the article inflamatory, or a caution worth heeding? Share your thoughts via a Comment…and no, I won’t share your data with anybody, especially a social networking site!

New to J2ME programming, or migrating from MIDP 1.0- to 2.0 and looking for a primer?

Check out the new Learning Path: Getting Started with MIDP 2.0 page from Sun.

If you’re a member of JavaOne Online you may also want to check out my webinar, “Developing Wireless Applications using MIDP 2.0, WMA, and MMA“. And when you’re done with these resources, dive into some development using the J2ME Wireless Toolkit 2.1 (read about it here).

Jonathan Knudsen has published a Sun article outlining the major features of the J2ME Wireless Toolkit 2.1.

Among other things, this update to the WTK now includes JTWI support (allowing one to develop J2ME apps targeting the core MIDP 2.0 and CLDC 1.0 or 1.1 technologies as well as MMA and WMA).

One immediately obvious change to those used to the device skins provided in WTK 2.0: The DefaultColorPhone has a new, more “colorful” look. Love it or hate it, you definitely won’t forget it anytime soon (click here to see a screenshot).

The facts and financial speculation behind the news that in buying out Psion, Nokia now controls Symbian.

ETCon is live! Check back throughout the week for updates from O’Reilly’s coverage, especially the ETech blog coverage and official ETech moblog. You can also discuss the goings-on via the ETech IRC channel on irc.freenode.net.

IT Conversations is providing audio coverage and transcripts for the event. Keynotes will be posted here. Also of particular interest to those following the impact of blogging on politics: IT Conversations is streaming today’s Digital Democracy Teach-In.

Other ETech coverage: Check out photos from Joi Ito, Russ Beattie, and Matt Croydon for a visual update of conference happenings. There will no doubt also be updates from Dan, Sue, and other other java.net bloggers at the conference.

As readers of my java.net blog know, I’ve become very interested in cellcams during the last year. I’m always looking for news on the latest cellcam developments, especially when it pertains to real world uses.

Reiter’s Camera Phone Report made me aware of a recent Forbes article on The BBC deploying video cell phones to reporters. The “Beeb” in fact has taken Nokia’s off the shelf 3650 and then worked with Phillips to enhance the video software to produce higher quality, longer duration video clips.

My first question is: Where can I get a copy of Phillips’ software? According to comments posted from the Beeb’s project manager in a related Camera Phone Report article, this new software allows the phone to record many minutes, even hours worth of MPEG4 video, a big improvement beyond the 15 seconds or so of video recording supported by Nokia’s default 3650 Video Recorder software. Phillips’ software sounds like a real improvement, but so far I haven’t had any luck finding a download link or purchase information.

And what bigger trend does this news reveal? As Rachel Attwell, Deputy Head of television news at the BBC, said in a related article:

Using this software on a mobile phone is a breakthrough addition to the way we cover news. It is very probable that it will become standard practice for our reporters, and even the general public, to send instant reports of breaking news, as it occurs, before a satellite truck can be there.

Moblogs meet old media! Power to the (mobile enabled) people, indeed!