Ever since getting my iPhone, I’ve been almost exclusively reading my RSS feeds on it with the well designed iPhone version of Google Reader. Typically, I’m reading during my commute to and from work (ever since the rains, I haven’t been able to bike as frequently). I usually finish scanning my river of news by the time my homeward bound commute is over.

The information geek in me also loves the cool but not very useful trends feature of Google Reader. Below are some of my daily reading trends.

A few observations:

• My biggest reading day is Friday. I don’t feel like I read for longer periods of time on Friday, but perhaps there’s just more news.
• You can tell I typically roll into the office somewhere around 9-10am.
• I had major issues with Edge on my prepaid AT&T account 1.5 weeks ago (thus, the flat weekly graph). I barely caught up with the news.

Effectively, my iPhone is creating time for me to catch up with my daily RSS feeds. It’s place shifted my reading, which is one of the biggest reasons why I bought a mobile internet device.

Google Blogoscoped is reporting that SmugMug’s private photos are really not that private. You’re able to get access to them with simple URL rewriting. The URLs are not appended with a GUID, and the photos pages are not password protected.

SmugMug has replied with a semantic argument:

Thanks for writing. This is expected behaviour. A private gallery just means that that gallery will not show up on your Smugmug homepage but it is accessible by knowing the direct URL to it. You do have the option of turning off external links so that no one can link to an individual photo. You may also password protect galleries so that no one can access them without a password.

This functionality is simply irresponsible. When a user sets a photo to be private, they expect the URL to be either password protected, or at least have a secret hash appended to the URL. Without such a hash, any visitor with a little bit of coding skill would be able to retrieve all your photos. SmugMug claims that they don’t have the bandwidth right now to implement such a GUID system.

The problem really is of expectation. On other sites, setting an object to private means either a GUID or password protected page. Regardless of the semantics of the wording, SmugMug needs to either follow the precedent, or put in big bold letters that your private photos can still be accessed by anyone.

At Scribd, our private documents require a secret password to be inserted into the URL.

Like many other people, I’m just barely holding back from switching over to the iPhone. But, alas, I’m still on a two-year contract with Verizon. I know that there are plenty of ways to get out of the contract. So, I decided to call them to ask how much the early termination fee would be, and what other options I have.

Almost immediately after I said I was considering other options, the Verizon rep jumped to attention. Here’s how it went:

Verizon rep: So why are you considering leaving? Any problems with the service?
Me: No, I’m just considering some other options.
Verizon rep: Are you consider moving to AT&T and that.. iPod.. iPod phone?
Me: Umm.. yes, actually, I’m considering that.
Verizon rep: Oh, really? I just got training on that today. And I was so surprised by how limited the iPhone is.
Me: Oh, please do tell. (thinking to myself: this is gonna be good)
Verizon rep: Yes, well, there are a few phones coming out that just so much better. They’re AWESOME!
Me: Okay..
Verizon rep: Yeah, well, there’s that new Blackberry that we have. I’ll send you the info.

The rest of the call was basically me waiting patiently for her to compile the desperate marketing email. From the way she was talking, it was apparent that she had never touched an iPhone. And, even if she did, she probably had no idea why its features are compelling.

The fact that Verizon reps are getting specific training to battle against the iPhone shows that Verizon is at least a little scared of Apple, contrary to what the CEO has said before. In my case, I’m going to be thinking hard about the price of getting out of a contract along with the sky high price of the iPhone before I make my purchase.

Or, I could just wait until the hackers successfully unlock the iPhones from the AT&T network. That would probably make me switch in a pinch.

Apparently, the Japanese have now created a simulator that feels exactly like popping bubble wrap. This, my friends, is the epitome of human technology.

By now, I’m sure all of you are sick of hearing about the report from the iPhone lines, the reviews, and all the other general hype about the second coming of the cell phone. Virtually every technology blog is covering the iPhone in one capacity or another on this glorious date of its release.

But, besides Apple, there are a bunch of people trying to make money by developing iPhone applications. Ever since the announcement that iPhone applications will simply be web widgets running in Safari, developers have been scrambling to get iPhone applications up on the web. And of course, you have to have some place to list all of them. Say hello to the iPhone directories. The following is a list of the ones I was able to find:

Application Lists

ModMyPhone iPhone Application List (Wordpress)
iPhone Application List (Wordpress)
Everything iPhone’s Application List
PhoneLauncher.com
List of iPhone Apps on Ma.gnolia
iPhoneApp.de
Kudit - they are a developer of iPhone applications

Blog Listings

Techlogg’s List
Lifehacker’s Top 10 iPhone Apps
Stuff.tv’s List

If anyone has a list that I’ve missed, please comment below.

Robots are becoming more and more realistic to the point of becoming creepy. But, we all know the more important question is, can they break it down? Judge for yourself.

5. RoboNova-1 RTW

Dance Robots - More amazing videos are a click away

4. Traditional Japanese Dancing

3. Sony QRIO

Nice synchronized choreograph.

2. Sony QRIO in Beck’s Hell Yes Music Video

1. Keepon Dancing to Spoon

The Keepon is an amazingly cute dancing robot that yellow and snowman shaped. It’s able to dance to the beat, and actually change and transform its dance in a fluid manner. In addition, it also has the capability to recognize human eye contact and react to it. This is one of my favorite videos.

You may have seen the Microsoft Surface teaser video, which introduces Microsoft’s multi-touch research. It’s going to be interesting to watch Microsoft and Apple battle it out for the title of superior touch interfaces.

In the mean time, SarcasticGamer has made a great parody of the teaser vid, complete with a voice over that is just spot on to the original.

Now you too can track how much electricity Google is generating using their solar panels. And, they use the same graphing interface as Google Analytics.

It looks like the fake iPhones from China are here. Features include: 2 Megapixel camera for photos and movies in MPEG4 format 2 SIM-Cards, which you can switch between on the fly, WAP browser, 64MB of built-in memory, 256 MB micro SD Card in an expansion slot, Stereo speakers on the front face and two additional speakers on the back that boast “3D Sound”, USB-connector, and removable battery.

I woke up this morning and found 20 messages from Facebook in my email. I shrugged it off as “Facebook Spam”, as some other people have been telling me they’ve been getting unsolicited messages on Facebook. I didn’t bother to log on to check the messages.

Later in the day, I logged on only to find that they weren’t spam at all. They were all comments and suggestions on the Mood app that I made for Facebook. It turns out that yesterday, Facebook added my Mood app to the official applications directory. Overnight, over 4,000 people added my app. By my rough estimates, it seems to be growing by about 20 people per minute right now, and I expect to reach over 10,000 people by tonight.

Currently, it’s easily overtaking the neighbors in the ranking list, and I think this is due to how viral the Mood app is. It’s a dead simple application that adds a bit of customization to your page that is familiar to MySpace and LiveJournal users. I really believe that it’s simplicity that will win over these other complicated applications.

Things that I’m planning on adding:

• More moods.
• Instant updating right on profile page.
• Custom moods.
• Custom pictures for moods.

Any other ideas?