Emanuele Vulcano is making waves with his latest Infinite Labs release . The grad student recently released SwapKit - a new iPhone OS exchange protocol that allows developers to share data between locally installed iPhone apps. Sponsor SwapKit is a unique protocol in that it allows developers to transcend the walls of the iPhone OS and pluck information from across a local network. In his own Mover application, Vulcano allows iPhone app users to add photos, videos or contacts to Mover's table. From here you can slide your various forms of media to nearby Mover app users. The result is a Bump -like application interface that allows for easy flow between devices. The Mover app will ship with SwapKit support in its next update. In this case, the application will use SwapKit's built-in UI to identify the sending and receiving app using a grand total of two lines of code. SwapKit is available as a binary package or you can view the source repository in GitHub . The API documentation is also available on Vulcano's Infinite Labs site at infinite-labs.net/swapkit/docs/api . Below is Erica Sadun's TUAW demo video of the protocol. Discuss

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iPhones Share Data with SwapKit Protocol

The latest quarterly survey by comScore reports that the iPhone just passed Windows Mobile phones in US market share, though it remains at just over half the level of the Blackberry. The iPhone has been outselling Windows Mobile for some time, so it was only a matter of time until there were more iPhones in peoples' hands. Android is still at the back of the pack but is showing signs of significant momentum. Sponsor Tracing links back from blog to blog the comScore phone survey of users about what types of phones they have in their hands appears first on FierceDeveloper ; comScore's press contact was unavailable for comment but mobile developers say the numbers are unsurprising. Android growth has been steady but that platform remains below Windows Mobile, Palm's WebOS and Symbian. Another report by comScore this morning though found that consumer interest in Android is growing fast and now rivals consumer interest in the iPhone. "Of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone," comScore writes, "17 percent are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone. Android's prospects may fare even better in the global marketplace. "Android will continue to pick up market share, especially in the global smartphone market, because of Symbian's lack of innovation in the last 3-4 years," mobile blogger Jason Harris told us today. "Symbian is said to have 37% worldwide market share, and this will further erode as more folks give Android a look. Especially with the Nexus One coming out - a phone that is sold directly from Google and not from your carrier - that's very cohesive with the European model. Right now Android has only been available from carriers, leading to OS fragmentation. Now with the Nexus One, the phone will come from Google itself, meaning your OS updates will be direct from the source, not via the carrier, who has customized the Android OS to their liking. That might work in the US, where we are carrier-centric, but not in other markets, especially emerging markets." Discuss

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More People Now Use iPhones Than Windows Mobile

This morning, we got news that Microsoft had unequivocally ripped off design and code from marginally successful microblogging service Plurk . Now, we're seeing reports - and seeing for ourselves on the Microsoft website - that the knockoff site has been unceremoniously ganked from the tubes. Did a major corporation get caught red-handed stealing intellectual property from a startup? Say it ain't so! More interestingly, is the site's removal an admission of guilt? And are these side-by-side source code screenshots incriminating or what? Sponsor We received an email from a Plurk co-founder Amir Salihefendic this morning calling MSN China's Juku an obvious counterfeit . The proof is in the pudding. And the screenshots. And the source code: Currently, the Microsoft microblog site reads something along the lines of "We regret to inform you that the service is temporarily not available due to system maintenance. Please visit the site again later. We apologize for the inconvenience." Perhaps they ought to be apologizing to Plurk for the inconvenience. "We were absolutely shocked and outraged," wrote Plurk rep Dave Thompson, "when we first saw with our own eyes the cosmetic similarities Microsoft's new offering had with Plurk... "We're still in shock asking why Microsoft would even stoop to this level of wilfully plagiarizing a young and innovative upstart's work rather than reach out to us or innovate on their own terms." Microsoft has issued this press release that passes the buck on to an unnamed third-party contractor. Is it likely that the Microsoft executives in charge of producing the microblog were a) unaware of Plurk's existence and design to the extent that they wouldn't recognize a clone as such and b) that they didn't simply point at Plurk and tell their vendors to "make us one of those"? Having had some experience in both startup development processes and corporate application deployment, I personally know very well that a (literally) criminal amount of IP theft goes on every day in Silicon Valley and around the world. Most of the time, the offending parties are operating under the belief that they won't get caught. And a great deal of the time, they're not caught. We must, however, applaud Microsoft's taking the site down to investigate the matter rather than being defensive or litigious. Still, the software giant should be accepting more accountability for the attempted theft that was conducted in its name and under the auspices of its brand. What do you think? Who is to blame in this situation? Cast your vote below, and tell us what you really think in the comments. How Do You See the MSFT/Plurk Situation? ( polls ) Discuss

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Microsoft Caught With Hand in Plurk's Cookie Jar?

A storm of news points to a future of frictionless publishing and subscription, across platforms. Google just announced that its FeedBurner RSS publishing service now supports automatic publishing to a Twitter account. If you're among the many people who use the service Twitterfeed (like CNN, the WhiteHouse, ReadWriteWeb, etc.) then you may very well find that startup expendable starting now. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this and a series of related announcements over the past few days. Sponsor The new feature looks relatively sophisticated and will use a new URL shortener, goo.gl . FeedBurner has not proven the most reliable service in recent years and is now part of the ad network AdSense, but the little startup Twitterfeed isn't always reliable either. It does, though, have more incentive to innovate and work in user's interests. Ultimately, the service you use to publish content updates to Twitter is just a small part of a much bigger story. The Twitter/FeedBurner integration uses secure OAuth authorization, so you don't have to give Google your Twitter password. It will check the links coming through that shortened URL for malware and bad sites. Right now other apps won't be able to use Goo.gl, just Feedburner and Google Toolbar, but that might change in time. Consider this announcement side by side with the WordPress announcement this weekend that WordPress blogs can now be posted to and read from Twitter clients , the rumor today that Facebook is experimenting with its own URL shortener , this afternoon's announcement that the ability to expose your geographic location is now live in Google Toolbar and now longer a Labs product and last week's go-live of real-time search on Google. All of this combined says one thing to us: the web is getting a whole lot faster and much more free of friction, quickly. WordPress, Google, Twitter and Facebook will force each other to agree to common standards for reading and writing content updates, those updates will be delivered in real time and the standards will allow an ecosystem of 3rd party client software to proliferate and play along with the big guys. Authentication is being done by OAuth, real-time feeds by RSS, Atom, PubSubHubbub. WordPress is the wild card because it is huge, more supportive than anyone else of Open Source and it could force everyone else to open up to interoperability. The next step? This morning Google's Marissa Mayer said in an interview that Google is working hard on intuitive search , the ability to show users what they want before they even have time to search for it. Publish once and your content is everywhere, immediately. Open your browser and it will show you just the kind of content you need, from all around the web, targeting your particular circumstances like clickstream, social graph and geographic location. If that's the kind of platform that's coming - how will people innovate on top of it? The foundation is being laid right now for a whole new web in the near-term future. Discuss

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Google, Twitter, WordPress & Facebook: Publish/Subscribe Matrix Could Explode Into Glass-Smooth Platform

2009 has been a turning point for the Internet of Things , when real world objects (such as lights, cars and packages) get connected to the Internet. This trend has added a significant amount of new data to the Web, so for that reason alone it is an important development. Having said that, many of the following top 10 list are not yet mainstream products. But we expect some of them to become well known over the coming years. Underlying the Internet of Things are technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification), sensors

Earlier this morning, Wikileaks began to post pager messages that were sent on September 11, 2001. According to Wikileaks, these messages were intercepted by an "organization which has been intercepting and archiving US national telecommunications since prior to 9/11." Some of these messages are from officials in police and fire departments, though a large number of messages are also from businesses. Others are automated messages to engineers that were sent by computers about network and hardware issues. Sponsor Wikileaks is posting these messages semi-live - in sync with the events of 9/11. It's not clear how Wikileaks got this data or who intercepted these messages. This archive is likely to become an invaluable source for anybody who wants to study the events and the public's reaction on this day. Chances are that conspiracy theorists are already wading through this data looking for an official page that authorized the destruction of Building 7. As is to be expected, the archive includes many Twitter-like messages like "Bush calls World Trade Center crashes apparent terrorist attack." Others are internal messages from unknown businesses or government departments ("please due to the incidents taking place and with trying to close centers Please do not tie up aol today unless it is business. Thanks") or personal message ("Things are getting worse....fear is rampid...please call me. HISD are advising to come get children etc.-sm"). This thread on Reddit highlights some of the most interesting (and often shocking) messages. We don't know the nature of Wikileaks this source yet, so it's only prudent to treat this data with some skepticism. Wikileaks, however, has a track record of releasing authentic information and it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that somebody would go through the trouble of writing 500,000 pager messages just to be featured on Wikileaks. Examples Here are a few examples from Wikileak's archive: 2001-09-11 11:20:01 Things are getting worse....fear is rampid...please call me. HISD are advising to come get children etc.-sm 2001-09-11 11:20:01 have you seen the news this morning? penagon and world trade center attacked Mark Hodges - SunIT Ops 2001-09-11 11:20:01 Alaric! Call me on my cell!! Will! 2001-09-11 09:15:01 I just got a page from Jurko in New York. He said they are okay. Thanks 2001-09-11 08:55:35 BreakingNews@CNN.COM| CNN Breaking News|BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com -- World trade center damaged; unconfirmed reports say a plane has crashed into tower. Details to come. For complete coverage of this story visit: http://www.CNN.com 08:50:50 BOMB DETINATED IN WORLD TRADE CTR. PLS GET BACK TO MIKE BRADY W/A QUICK ASSESSMENT OF YOUR AREAS AND CONTACT US IF ANYTHING IS NEEDED AT 212-647-xxx. 2001-09-11 08:45:39 I love you and miss you very much!!!!!!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo I waited to wave at you at the doorway and you didnt I paged you.... you didnt call Did I make you angry with me? I love you 2001-09-11 08:45:46 Update X4236083. PROB: Funlove Virus at KCMART IMP: Affecting 33 workstations. STATUS: Desktop technicians are on site and addressing individual workstations. No servers infected at this time. Peoplesoft has been checked and cleared. Bridge Discuss

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Wikileaks Releases Over Half a Million Pager Messages from 9/11

One of the first social networking aggregators to take advantage of LinkedIn's brand-new API is Sobees , whose two client applications both now offer LinkedIn integration in addition to the other supported networks. A challenger to similar services like TweetDeck, Seesmic, and PeopleBrowser, Sobees is a social networking aggregation tool originally launched as a desktop app back in 2008 with a web app version added earlier this year. Like its competitors, Sobees' clients use a columnar interface to display real-time updates from sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Sponsor Sobees essentially functions as a social networking client for the sites it supports, each site with its own column and separate set of functions and tabs. For example, in the Twitter column, you can switch through tabs to see replies and direct messages and you can use buttons on the side to create groups or view your favorites. Meanwhile, the Facebook column offers Facebook-specific features like the ability to view photo albums and status updates or check out profiles, friend lists, and your inbox. Sobees Adds LinkedIn Similarly, the newly-launched LinkedIn functionality will include features specific to LinkedIn. At launch time, those are as follows: Update your status View connections View profiles Get updates (connections updates, status updates, application updates, jobs posted, groups joined, recommendations and profile changes) Search or search with advanced functionality While the desktop version of the program is Windows-only, the web-based application is built using Microsoft's Silverlight technology which works on any operating system, even Linux . When you go to set up the web version for the first time, you'll be presented with the four supported services and a button reading "connect." At first, clicking the connect button seemed to have no effect but that was because the browser's pop-up blocker was turned on and Sobees launches the authorization screens in a separate window. After navigating past this small obstacle, the rest of the set up process was completed in a matter of minutes. At this point, you're now presented with multiple columns containing the services you authorized during setup. You can also choose to add a real-time search column if desired and you can re-arrange the columns into a number of different layouts using the "change layout" button at the top. FactFinder API Integration Lets You Know if a Link is Worth Clicking Besides simply displaying the most recent updates from the various services, Sobees also offers a unique feature other social networking applications don't have - Factery's FactFinder API integration. ( Read more about Factery's API here ). In short, this API allows the Sobees client to instantly and automatically parse the URLs posted in Twitter links to help you determine whether or not the link is worth clicking. Using the FactFinder toggle button to the left of the column, your Twitter stream is filtered to show only links with Factery data. Once switched on, tweets with links are appended with the source URL and various "facts" snipped from the article being shared. Depending on the amount of info the API pulls, a "more..." link may appear at the bottom of the facts displayed. Click this link to see more facts - aka snippets - from the article in question and then click "less" to once again collapse the window. Anyone who has switched to Twitter as their primary source of news will love this sort of feature as you can get the gist of an article without ever leaving Twitter. If you're interested in trying the updated Sobees clients, you can download the desktop version here or load the web version at sobees.com/web . Discuss

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Social Aggregator Sobees Adds LinkedIn Support