api

Buzz Out Loud 796: Is that an HTC Dream in your pocket?

In today's show, we're introduced to the concept of the "banana phone" (complete with drawings), China tells GoDaddy to Go Away, a Scottish bank sends a computer into the eBay abyss full of customer data, and Apple's latest iPhone firmware shuts down copy-and-paste. As expected, Molly blows her stack. Like, a couple times. It's crazy. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 796

Apple event for September 9 http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/25/rumor-apple-event-for-september-9th

Network notary system thwarts man-in-the-middle attacks http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080826-network-notary-system-thwarts-man-in-the-middle-attacks.html http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/New-Firefox-Extension-Thwarts-MITM-Attacks-97239… Read more

Google offers location services to Web sites

Google announced two services Thursday that programmers can use to build services into Web sites that employ a site user's location.

The first is a tool for Web sites built with the Ajax programming method. The Ajax client location property provides Web sites with a rough estimate of a user's location based on his or Internet Protocol address, said Google engineer Steve Block on the Google Code blog. The property can be seen in action in the "news by state" feature on Google's 2008 election site API (application programming interface).

Second is an expected change to endow Google's Gears software with the ability to employ more detailed location information. … Read more

Video status site 12seconds launches API

Video sharing site 12seconds, which launched its private alpha late last month, has declared its intent to become the premier site for video status (the Twitter of video, if you will). To that end, the company announced on Thursday morning the launch of its first API as well as three launch partners who will be incorporating 12seconds into their own platforms.

TweetDeck, the Adobe Air client that helps you organize information from Twitter, will now let users follow 12seconds channels and play videos inside the TweetDeck client. Microreview site Blippr (review) is letting users record a 12second video review in … Read more

Google releases near-final Android programming tool

Google on Monday released the first beta version of its software developer kit (SDK) for Android phones, a significant step in the company's hope for "open" phone technology.

Google, which is leading the 34-company Open Handset Alliance to create the largely open-source Android software stack for mobile devices, already had released an "early look" SDK in November 2007. With the new beta SDK, though, the company is telling programmers they can get started in earnest creating software that will work on Android phones due to start shipping later this year, though stopping short of promising full compatibility.

"Since this is a beta release, applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0," Google developer advocate Dan Morrill said in a blog post.

Among changes in the new SDK are the addition of the phone's new home screen as well as some new applications for controlling the camera, playing music, setting alarms, viewing pictures, and dealing with SMS and MMS messages.

Android phones, notably HTC's Dream, are due to ship in the fourth quarter.

Google had hinted in May that the new Android SDK was imminent, but the company ended up sharing it only with finalists in an Android programming contest until Monday. The Android Developer Challenge is awarding $10 million to coders to try to jump-start development efforts; on Monday, Google said a second challenge will be announced later this year that "will give developers a chance to build polished applications once hardware is available."

Google hopes Android phones will be open to run innumerable applications, not just locked down to handle a relatively small number of authorized packages. To achieve this promise though, one key step is helping programmers to write that code. And SDK does just that, for example, by providing a software emulator that can run Android applications without an actual Android phone. … Read more

Data-mine Elvis: Yahoo opens music interface

Yahoo has released an API (application programming interface) that lets outside Web sites automatically extract information such as top 10 lists from the Yahoo Music site.

For example, a programmer can use the service to search for the numeric ID that Yahoo gives a particular musician, then use that ID to retrieve all the albums by that artist or to retrieve a list of artists Yahoo deems similar, according to self-described Yahoo music nerd Jim Bumgardner on the Yahoo Developer Network blog. The item ID for a particular video can be used to retrieve a thumbnail image for the video … Read more

NPR looks to developers for help distributing shows

National Public Radio, the home of humorist David Sedaris and the popular show All Things Considered, is opening up its API.

What NPR wants is for developers to help make it easier to share its content on Web sites and blogs, including those owned by the 860 NPR member stations.

Want to build a widget that will play Morning Edition on desktops or on Web sites or create mashups with NPR content? The nonprofit media organization will welcome you.

"This launch represents one of the first comprehensive Open APIs introduced by a major national media organization," the company … Read more

Get PollDaddy in smaller sizes with PollDaddy Jr

Over the weekend, poll-making tool PollDaddy quietly released a new OpenSocial app called PollDaddy Jr. It's got all of PollDaddy's features squeezed into a "mini app" (not to be confused with a widget) that can travel the rounds to any OpenSocial-ready network.

I gave the app a spin on Hi5 and MySpace, and both offer the same experience of building polls like you would on PollDaddy's own site, but nested within the confines of the social network instead.

What may be more interesting is the chat I had with PollDaddy founder David Lenehan. Lenehan says … Read more

Do Flickr's APIs protect its users enough?

Over at Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey notes:

A recent post by photographer J.M. Goldstein raised a very interesting question about Flickr and its API, namely whether or not Flickr was policing its API well enough and doing an adequate job protecting the rights of photographers and artists that post to the service.

I would have thought the answer was obvious. No.

Or, perhaps more accurately, Flickr has apparently decided either deliberately or as a matter of generalized neglect that providing its users with more sophisticated and granular tools to protect their content isn't a priority.

While there is much that I like about Flickr, … Read more

Yahoo seeks ad revenue by fueling others' search innovation

In an attempt to boost its search-ad business, Yahoo has begun a project that lets anyone build a customized search engine atop the Internet company's technology.

The service, which enters public beta testing Wednesday night, is called BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service). With it, someone can build an independent Web site with a search box, pass users' queries to BOSS, process the results returned by Yahoo's search engines in any manner, and display the results.

Essentially, BOSS is a bid to enable others' search innovation then share profits from the results. It's also the most significant … Read more