The new iPhone 3GS was announced yesterday at WWDC. The main changes are in the hardware. The differences are now: 32GB Option 3 Megapixel camera with autofocus Video Recording capabilities with upload to Youtube function Voice Control Compass The other new features coming to the iPhone such as: Cut, Copy & Paste (about time!) MMS and contact send/receive via SMS Bluetooth transfer and A2DP support Data tethering to your laptop (USB or Bluetooth) Spotlight Search Landscape keyboard across all apps Voice Memos will be available on the current iPhone 3G, the iPhone 2G and included oin the new 3GS.

My petty whinging about iPhone prices and data really means nothing. My thoughts go out to the family of the recently killed Australian Solder. Since I have a number of family and friends whom are serving members (some overseas) – I have a very small idea how they must feel. I’m an ex-military and ex-Signaller myself: so I know how committed one can be to the job and the corps.

A recent post on SlashDot quotes an IT professor saying: People are unwittingly trusting the information they find on Wikipedia, yet experience has shown it can be wrong, incomplete, biased, or misleading After reading this, I thought it was time to write about a something I found that backs this up. An anonymous user added information about Sacha Baron Cohen (known onscreen as Ali G.) to Wikipedia on November the 14th 2006.

Some friends and I were discussing the benefits of using Open Source software which is low cost or free (as in beer) versus the equivalent Commercial and close source products. Examples of comparison were Photoshop vs. Gimp Apache HTTPD vs. IIS Windows vs. Open Solaris/OpenBSD/Linux etc. It seems like we are not the only ones thinking about this topic. Slashdot today posted that CNET has a feature promoting Open Source application alternatives for the average home user, if only to reduce software costs to the end user.

With the news of the death of an Australian soldier in the middle east, I would like to quickly examine the dangers our troops face. I served an extended period of time in the Australian Defence forces, and have had family members deployed to conflict zones including Iraq, so I have some understanding of the situation, albeit limited. The risk to the soldiers is huge, but the training and leadership that the Australian military has, some of the best in the world, minimises those risks as best as it can.

An excerpt from an MSNBC article about China and another crazy law: In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.

I was looking at CelticBear’s blog, and saw a link to MSNBC, who has a piece by Keith Olbermann with comments about President Bush and his recent speech about Iraq. He likens Bush to the boy who cried wolf, noting that this time around, who will believe him that the same thing will work (sending another 20K troops to Iraq). I highly recommend watching the streaming video, as it conveys the commentators opinions much better than the written piece.