KITT is ready to hack your car's computer

Remember how Michael Knight's KITT could take control of other cars in Knight Rider by jamming their brakes with a 'Microlock'. Technology has now surpassed that.

CNET reports that a group of university researchers has managed to 'hack' a car, locking the brakes, the engine and the windows remotely. They were also able to change the speedometer display, turn on the radio and sound the horn.

So watch out if a 1982 Trans-Am pulls alongside you...

An unnecessary 'thank you' from the Red Cross

As far as I'm concerned, the Red Cross does a great job. But I'd rather it didn't waste my donation on sending me 'thank you' gifts I don't want.

I've just received a letter from them that contains some cards, envelopes, address labels, gift tags, a bookmark, a sheet of wrapping paper and a ballpoint pen. Because that collection of tat will persuade me to make another donation, right?

Now, I'm sure there's evidence that this kind of thing works for many people. I'd like to think the British Red Cross isn't just sending stationery because it's run out of novelty gifts or jelly beans - and I'm sure it's not spending for fun, given that the world isn't crisis-free at the moment.

But today this seems like money-wasting nonsense. These gifts are of no real use to me. And yes, I know the Red Cross suggests that unwanted gifts could be passed "to friends, family or community groups to help spread awareness of our life-saving work". Probably not the address labels, though.

I'm also irritated that the gifts were - according to the letter - created as a tribute to Red Cross volunteers in the First and Second World Wars. Adhesive labels are hardly a fitting tribute, are they?

So now I feel guilty. Guilty that most of those gifts will be heading for the recycling bin. Guilty that I'm annoyed at the Red Cross. Guilty that I'm disinclined to donate to them again, given their tendency to buy ballpoint pens instead of bandages.

Perhaps it's just a question of demographic profiling. (Filter out the grumpy people from the free gift list). Or perhaps - as has been suggested more than once - it's time for charities to get back to basics.

Did you mean...?

It's not just Microsoft Word that thinks it may know better than me. Asda's website also isn't sure. "You searched for irish. Did you mean finish, fresh, brush, wrist or crisp?

Breaking News?

The front page of 'Grazia' includes the following message:

Breaking News
Is Angelina pregnant?

Leaving aside the 'news' aspect of a 34-year-old woman in a stable relationship possibly having a child, I'm inclined to ask something else.

Can 'Breaking News' ever involve a question?

A very mobile wedding

Well, as I mentioned on 3rd April, I got married. Well done me. And, as I also mentioned, I was attempting to use a variety of different online social-type services from my mobile phone. So... how did it go?

I started the day by sending a text message update to Twitter. (It wasn't quite the 'Twitter wedding' that some people have achieved - but I didn't want to be too distracted during the important bits).

Then, when I picked up the flowers, I sent a MMS picture message to photo-sharing site Flickr. This wasn't perfect - I didn't use all of Flickr's mobile options so I needed to 'tweak' the file name and description later. I also updated this blog by visiting Blogger.com from my phone's browser. (I'd wanted to use ShoZu to upload a photo to Blogger at the same time but I’d written the blog post in a separate document and couldn’t cut and paste it into ShoZu).

Later that day I uploaded a photo and a short note using the Facebook application on my phone. (It’s an HTC phone running Windows Mobile). In fact, all of the day’s updates showed up on Facebook, thanks to FriendFeed, which takes information from other social networking sites and adds them to Facebook as well.

I updated my location on Foursquare, which was a little bit messy on Windows Mobile because you’ve got to tell it where you are. (Unlike the iPhone app, for example, which can automatically use GPS to narrow things down). I also used Google Latitude to keep a small circle of friends up-to-date with where I was. (If I'd wanted to share a one-off location update, I'd have chosen Glympse instead).

I left a short phone blog - a phlog - using ipadio. Not only does ipadio put your voice blog online, it also uses SpinVox to convert your words to text. It's all as simple as making a phone call. And I recorded a short video clip using Qik. Rather like a video version of ipadio, Qik doesn’t just record but also streams live, which means people could watch or listen online in real time.

Reasonably pleasing, I'd say. Anyway, I'll be talking more about my technology - and the services I used - in this week's edition of The Fonecast on Wednesday.

Wedding day

Today I've set myself the challenge of using my mobile phone to update as many different types of social-enabled web sites as possible. It's the type of thing that's been done before, I know, but not by me... and not on the day I get married.

Most of my updates should end up on Twitter (twitter.com/markbridge) and FriendFeed, in case you're interested in following them.

Right. I'm just going to upload this to Blogger.com on my Vodafone-branded HTC TyTn II.

Cuckoo

Today's OED word of the day is 'cuckoo'. The etymology notes include this delightful moment: "...the annual lessons given by the bird have prevented the phonetic changes which the word would normally have undergone".