One of the latest trends in Web 2.0 technologies, which very well may define Web 3.0, is location-based services.  One such example is Foursquare, an application for GPS-enabled App-Phones that allows “players” to constantly broadcast their location, earn rewards for doing so, and meet other people.

The major problem with this trend in general is that individuals sacrifice their privacy in the interest of what is now considered to be “being social.”  This happens across the Web 2.0 sphere, with individuals sharing every intimate thought in 140 characters or less on Twitter, or posting every drunken photo of themselves on Facebook from the night’s before party.

In comes Please Rob Me, a website that aggregates notifications from Foursquare and other location-aware applications of people leaving their homes for other locations.

“Services like Foresquare [sic] allow you to fulfill some primeval urge to colonize the planet,” says the Please Rob Me creators. “The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use [these services]… Our intention is not, and never has been, to have people burglarized.”

This is just something to consider when you make the conscious decision to broadcast your life in real time.  It is also something to ask your tech-savvy friends to consider, who may be playing these “games” and alerting the world of who is and isn’t at your home.

What do you think?  Is privacy a thing of the past, or will it make a resurgence with Web 4.0: Get off my Lawn!

[This is cross-posted from my site Only Hearsay.]

Holy hell in a hand basket! I just woke up from one of the craziest opium dreams of all times. I know, I know – you are still recovering from whatever drug-and-alcohol coma you induced yourself through. It’s completely understandable. And, an event like this only happens once in a lifetime (or every few years).

Last night, we all hosted, or attended a Windows 7 Launch party. Microsoft really pulled out the stops for us with some fucking-awesome folded up posters, and streamers (tape not included).

It’s all coming back to me now… I started off the day by watching the CEO himself, Steve Ballmer, introduce Windows 7 on NBC’s Today Show in front of a banner of the Windows logo photoshopped onto a late-model Macbook Pro. Classic!

Then, I headed off to Burger King, where I took down the Windows 7 Whopper. 7,000 calories are the perfect complement to a fresh install of an operating system, and took just about the same amount of time to consume. Well played, Microsoft!

The rest of the details are still a little fuzzy. I vaguely remember getting my stomach pumped for ground beef poisoning by some EMTs, and I am having a hell of time getting the charcoal out of my clothes… but please share your launch party antics and highlights in a comment, if you can remember them.

Canned music is just awful. However, it is much more cheaper and easier to work with than some egotistical musician. Thus, Microsoft introduces Songsmith.  Turn up the happy and the jazzy and write that next top 40 hit, yeah!

Microsoft Research is now working on other easy to use interfaces for the lazy artist.  Coming next year will be Fashonista, Turn up the slutty and the tight to design your next prom dress.

UPDATE: My home slice birch from pmog gave me this fun link, That be a mac laptop in the commercial.

So there’s been this damn college humor video on every site that I go to, the Matrix Runs on Windows.  It is a decent parody, but it is beyond viral in just 2 days, geesh.For all my Mac brethren, I ran into The Marble of Doom.   The idea is to log when your Mac freezes up with the spinning wheel of death and what application froze.  Of course, that will be a bit difficult to do when your OS if fucking frozen, no?

Anyway, check out the site if you’ve never been there, though currently the most offensive application is FireFox, so you may have trouble visiting the site.

The writing is all over the web, engadget, mac user, technorati and I read the story at iheartchaos.  Choose your poison and check it out.  Psystar has announced they will offer OS X-capable machines with built-in Blu-ray and NVIDIA’s GeForce 9800GT.  That’s right, if Apple isn’t going to man up and give their customers what they’ve been demanding, Psystar will.

Apple filed suit against Psystar for copyright infringement because Psystar started selling Hackintosh computers, or Open Computers with OS X installed.  Psystar is countersuing Apple for anti competitive business practices, monopolistic behavior, and copyright misuse.  Thus, while all this lawsuit stuff is pending, they decided to go ahead and trump Apple with this latest announcement.

No doubt you’ve heard Microsoft pulled the Seinfeld/Gates ads.  This evening I saw the new commercials for Microsoft:

SEE! PC’s are cool too!  Blah, Blah.  Personally, whatever system is needed to finish the job is the one I’ll use.  I prefer the Mac for my everyday surfing and whatnot because I find their operating system to be more reliable and stable.  It has nothing to do with the flashy designs and the cutesy graphics.    In fact, those are the things that I wish Apple would get rid of because it’s just bloated crap that robs my applications of valuable memory.

Speaking of operating systems, there are a number of folks building ‘hackintosh’ computers, PCs that are running the Apple OS X.  I think the Mac ads are getting a bit played out anyway so they should embrace the folks running OS X on PCs in the final commercial featuring ‘Mac’ & ‘PC.’

Mac: Hello, I’m a Mac.

PC: And I’m a PC.

Mac: Hey, that’s a nice tie.  What is that, a leopard print?

PC: Yes, it is.  It’s part of my new operating system.

Mac: Wait, you’re running…

PC: Yes, I am running OS X.  You see, both of us use similar chip sets now.  So, instead of spending my days fearing viruses, locking up and being jealous of you, I am now running the same operating system as you.

Mac: That’s great, PC.  Ah, you know that the operating system was made for Apple Hardware, so there’s no guarantee that it will work flawlessly?

PC: Could you please just let me have this one victory?  Now, what’s  a widget?  Is that like a gadget?

Mac: Yeah, let me show you something. NYTimes Vista Rips off OS X.

Oh, and some people think they are proving how lame Microsoft is because they figured out the new “I’m a PC” ads were made with Macs.  Guess what, that just proves how lame you are.  Of course they were made with Macs!  The film and video industry has been dominated by Macs since the days of Buster Keaton & Fatty Arbuckle.  Microsoft has no more control of the company they hired to make their ads than you do of the the company that makes your Star Wars t-shirt in Bangladesh.  So Microsoft paid someone with a Mac to make their ads and you support sweat shops, congratulations you’re a pathetic bastard.

You are not alone!  Well, if you are on this site, chances you are.  However, designers, web monkeys & pirates there’s a new home for you called Dear Adobe.  That’s right, go there and find out that you are not alone.  There are loads of people who want set their Adobe install discs on fire and put them out with a stream of urine.  Read some complaints, and vote in agreement or disagreement and feel vindicated.  The site is in no way associated with Adobe, so there’s a fat chance that a solution will come, but voting is important, even if it doesn’t count, like for the President of the United States.  Just like the Electoral College, Adobe doesn’t have to listen to your votes, but maybe it will make you feel better.