So Steve got out his bed this morning to over 5000 people to confirm the rumours circulating about the new iPhone. The iPhone 3g combines the great features of the iPhone with 3G networking, built in GPS and software that will support Microsoft Exchange Active Sync. It will be launched on June 11 in 22 countries and is UNBELIEVABLY cheap! 8GB - $199US 16GB - $299US.

Of course it comes with its own new advert, here.

Erm, so those of you that bought an iPhone last year…are we pissed off yet? A new iPhone, half the price? The evil genius of Apple strikes again…as reported by Wired a few months ago.

Hang on to your pants! Today beckons the Apple World Wide Developers Conference, a day limited only by Steve Jobs’ imagination. I can barely breathe, I am almost as excited as these guys, note how I use guys and not girls. Well, apart from Lisa of course.

Personally I hoping for a new better more Apple like Apple TV. I can’t see it happening though. And we might not realise it due to the stampede for the iPhone 2…

The countdown begins…(cue drum roll and orchestra)…

I was actually amazed that anyone from the UK home office would suggest keeping another database after the past couple of years they have had.  However, as the Timesreported yesterday, the UK home office is planning a database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public.  Obviously the government agencies feel that they are not finding the quality of porn they deserve nowadays, and keeping it in a big database ‘bucket’ will make it easier for them to copy and distribute to their peers.  Let’s not suggest that they would mail copies of the database to others or leave it in taxi cabs, that would be crazy talk.

The information would only be kept for 12 months (until they decide otherwise) and permission to view this information would granted by the UK courts.  This would allow the police, security services and other agencies across the EU to access the data.  It’s a thought provoking challenge on how they will develop a database that can hold 57 billion text messages and 3 billion e-mails per day (Times), especially as they are still developing their NHS database that is billions of pounds over budget. Amusingly it is suggested that the data for this database could be entered by Tom, Dick or Harry.

David Davis the UK shadow secretary suggested that after previous database fiasco’s ”this could well be more of a threat to our security, than a support”.  Currently, in the UK, records of phone calls and text messages are stored by the telecom companies and that requirement is to be extended to internet, e-mail and VOIP use and that this new database, held by the home office, should store the information.

The home office is suggesting that rather than get court orders for hundered of companies to hand over information, they can quickly check one database for all the information.  Oh, so it’s for your convenience?  Well that makes taking our privacy OK then…

Unfortunately, it smacks of not being able to breathe without being watched.  Never mind that one database holding this information could be abused and it would be under a huge risk of attack.  I think that the UK government are justifying this database as it will make their lives more convenient instead of having to justify why they need access to a individuals records. 

According to other reports Napster opened the worlds largest music download store today, allowing access to more than 6 million songs in what looks like a direct challenge to Apple’s iTunes store.  Napster has previously focused on selling monthly streaming music packages that could be synced with a portable player, however, they are now selling MP3 format songs (according to PC magazine at 256 Kbps) which can be transferred onto a portable device including (crucially) the Apple iPod and iPhone. 

Like Apple’s iTunes individual songs are sold at 99cents and $9.95 for an album, and will auto sync to a users existing iTunes music library, if they currently use iTunes.  Unfortunately, although tracks purchased from this new Napster service can be played on the iPod there is at this point no Napster subscription option available. 

The associated press reports Chris Gorog (Napster’s Chairman and Chief executive) as saying “It is really the beginning of a level playing field, which I think is essential for Napster, but also for the health of the digital music business in general”.  This is certainly a step forward for Napster but I cannot imagine switching from my current service from iTunes which I am currently happy with.  The exception may arise of course if iTunes doesn’t have a song that I want that Napster does, but that has never happened to me yet.

I am constantly amazed at the applications that keep popping up for Twitter, there seems to be no end to the things that people want to do with it. Twitter really does appear to be the internets answer to cell phone’s texting, except of course it is a lot cheaper (when on the internet anyway). I have been looking around for some applications that allow you to search twitter, mostly because I am nosey. I found a few sites, some of which really impressed me.

I’ll start with summize. Summize allows you to search twitter in realtime, bringing up the latest results for the string that you searched. If while you are looking through your results there are tweets containing your search string summize will tell you and allow you to refresh your search. It will also allow you to twitter these results and provides an RSS feed for the query. Summize also has an advanced search feature that allows you to find tweets based on

• words
• people
• places (and distance from)
• dates
• attitudes (smileys)
• links

It is an impressive search engine that must feed the hunger of any twitter searcher!

Tweetscan also advertise themselves as a real time Twitter search, not quite as user friendly as Summize, but Tweetscan will send you a daily/weekly update of any five search strings that you want. It also gives you a link to run your search at anytime, which is handy if you are not wanting your email inbox clogged up! From what I could tell it doesn’t offer an RSS feed to your saved queries, but I may just be overlooking it…

Terraminds also provide a search engine for Twitter. It is a very basic engine that allows you to search updates or users. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of the query. It is a basic version of Summize. Another basic search engine I found was Twitter Search by Flaptor, who also produce Hounder.

I also found Twitter Who to be a useful application. It searches for people that are registered as Twitter users by using their name or email address, and they promise not to store or distribute the information entered into their search box!

Although not strictly a searching application, I enjoy using Twittervision. It’s hard not to become addicted. It basically shows you a world map and tweets the messages from their originating geographical location. You can have a 2D or 3D map, the 3D map is just so cool! If you haven’t seen it you should go there now! From the same producer there is Twittermap, this allows you to search for a place and see what tweets have been posted.

I think that due to the selection of different searching methods people will gravitate to the one that they find most comfortable, however, it is not clear just now if one method is more popular than another. Of course, Google also picks up tweets, which some people have complained about.