links for 2008-05-09

• Who says big ideas are rare?
  Malcom Gladwell speculates (in a long New Yorker piece focusing on Nathan Myhrvold) on the nature of ideas and whether it takes genius to have them. "The history of science is full of ideas that several people had at the same time."
  (tags: ideas invention innovation)
• Ideas aren't rare, but they don't all qualify as inventions
  John Gapper at the FT has a couple of "lingering doubts" about Gladwell's article, including criticism of Myhrvold's approach (patent troll): "it an idea does not actually work, then I would suggest that it does not count as an invention".
  (tags: ideas innovation invention)
• The Hunt for the Kill Switch
  Are there hidden "backdoors" on commercial off-the-shelf microprocessors that would allow to "kill" them remotely? Interesting report by IEEE Spectrum.
  (tags: security cybersecurity cyberwar)
• Five examples of mobile activism
  Michele Bowman lists 5 trends in "mobile activism": "From fish farmers in India to mobile financing in Africa, the ability of the mobile phone to effect social change is one of the most exciting and important stories being written today" (From FringeHog)
  (tags: mobile wireless development activism)
• Location/status information: track the deer
  Evgeny Morozov: "Somebody “hacked” a deer in Pennsylvania, attached a GPS, a cellphone with SMS, and used the SMS-to email-to-blog system to regularly post the location of the deer to a blog, then to a spreadsheet, to Google Maps and Google Earth"...
  (tags: location wireless oddities)
• The primary goal of social networks is *not* communication
  Insight from Tim Mansfield: "The primary goal of a social network is to connect people and help them maintain weak ties, not to simplify communication or help them stay in touch". For that we have email and IM.
  (tags: socialnetworking facebook insight weakties)
• Speakers announced for iFest08 in Barcelona
  The first 20 or so speakers have been announced for the iFest conference in Barcelona (10-11 July - I will attend): interesting lineup.
  (tags: iFest conferences)