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• Microsoft: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted

  Very smart move (also covered at GigaOm) – Microsoft are trying to lead the race to the bottom with HTML 5, presumably in the hope of killing Adobe, rather than cascading money faster and faster into Silverlight in an attempt to fight the old way. They only place Silverlight is still strategic is on mobile, and honestly they probably realise HTML 5 is the future there too.

  This suggests Microsoft are finally awakening to the power of community. Instead of trying to fight their competitors alone, they are teaming up with open standards – and increasingly open source – to achieve that effect. You can tell where they think they are strong – those are the places they are still fighting with communities and consequently about to lose their lead… [See ComputerWorldUK for an expanded commentary]

• US Invasive Intimate Pat-Down Checks On Travellers Would Fail Research Ethics Review

  “I did not observe anything that would approach informed consent. Put another way: if I proposed this as a university research study, IRB would reject the design.”

  Is the whole point here to see just how far people can be pushed? Or is it really the case that America’s legislators cannot see the challenge to the county’s core values posed by these Constitutionally-challenged measures. Over here in Europe the tolerance threshold seems to be about reached, but nothing of the kind seems to be happening in the US. Why is that?

• Into the sunset : The data charmer
  The diaspora continues as Giuseppe Maxia, all-round good guy of MySQL, leaves Oracle.

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