Firefox 3 Microformats will brings us to Web 2.5

If you think you're Web 2.0 savvy then think again.

Mozilla designer Alex Faaborg published some introductory posts on his blog about where Mozilla Microformats which on his own words, he describes them as "adding semantics to markup to take it from being machine readable to being machine understandable."

Basically it means you can now use your browser to automatically aggregate data/data sources and publish them to any Web 2.0 application. Example, when ever you digg a news it will also automatically post the URL to your del.icio.us or whenever you subscribe to a blog feed the blog's URL will also be added to your blog roll. This functionality is so powerful it will definitely give birth to another genre of Web 2.5 (or we ready for Web 3.0?) applications; just like how RSS gave rise to Web 2.0

Now here is the fun part, imagine doing this on mobile, add a friend on myspace then it will also add your friend's mobile number to your contact list or subscribe to his mobile service. Now that's Mobile 2.0, its simply amazing!

Happy New Year Google: Gmail Hacks posted on Digg!

Hacker's gave Google a new year's gift: A ways to steal all your Gmail contacts by just visiting a site, anysite for that matter. By the time im writing this, 1628 people dugg the article on digg plus they posted the code on the comment page.

I tried it myself and it only took me 10 minutes to code a Gmail address book slurper using PHP, this code is released for educational purposes only. You may try out if your Gmail is vulnerable here(fixed).

Maybe this is the end of Google peaceful reign and join the likes of Microsoft who battles endless wave of hackers trying to find the next vulnerability.

UPDATE: 3:53AM +8:00

Guys if your using the test site please create a dummy account and add some useless email address on the contact list. Although I'm not harvesting your account (so your safe if you trust me) but my hosting just called saying my access_logs has bloated. So please, create a dummy account first and add Bush to the contact list before testing. I'm adding more tests scripts using other sources of the contact list data such as Google notepad and Google groups.
Thanks.

UPDATE 7:31PM +8:00

I'm checking in to report that the hack has been closed thanks to the cult followers of Gmail who were relentless in finding all the bugs. I'm not sure what time it was fixed since I wasn't able to stay awake to test regularly via the test site, thanks to Aileen Apolo's reply (to my mass email warning) i woke up to update this post right away. Kudos to Google team, i think they had to skip some needed holiday break just to fix this hack as fast as possible lastly kudos the rest of the blogosphere and diggers who searched and posted the hack. IMHO if these guys who initially found the hack didn't come forward with the report (they didn't withheld the hack and use it for their own profit), lots of accounts could have been compromised.

Mobile Video Of Saddam's Execution

Google Video has one of the execution videos takes using a mobile phone. It shows Saddam hanging with rope around his neck (creepy). I advise all viewers with faint heart and children not to view the video but for all you sick puppies out there, enjoy the show :P



For sickier puppies out there, you can download the the video into you phone in 3gp format (created using YouTube Mobile Downloader).

You may also watch the video at Liveleak.com or read the story about how the execution of Saddam video was smuggled (digg).