links for 2010-02-18

Expiration dates are intended to inspire confidence, but they only invest us with a false sense of security. The reality is that the onus lies with consumers to judge and maintain the freshness and edibility of their food—by checking for offensive slime, rank smells, and off colors. Perhaps, then, we should do away with dates altogether and have packages equipped with more instructive guidance on properly storing foods, and on detecting spoilage. Better yet, we should focus our efforts on what really matters to our health—not spoilage bacteria, which are fairly docile, but their malevolent counterparts: disease-causing pathogens like salmonella and Listeria, which infect the food we eat not because it's old but as a result of unsanitary conditions at factories or elsewhere along the supply chain. A new system that could somehow prevent the next E. coli outbreak would be far more useful to consumers than a fairly arbitrary set of labels that merely (try to) guarantee taste.

"It's [the filibuster]just brought the process to a halt, and the public is suffering. So the minority needs to have a right. I think that's important. But the public has a right to see its business done. And not routinely allow a small minority to keep us from addressing the great issues that face this country. I think the filibuster absolutely needs to be changed."

Pogue on Buzz: Funny, isn’t it? It’s a running joke that Google labels many of its services as “beta” (meaning “in testing”) — and leaves that label in place for years. And here’s Buzz, a truly beta product that isn’t labeled that way.

Buzz probably won’t make much of a dent in Facebook or Twitter or FriendFeed. But because it’s nicely integrated with Gmail and Google chat, because it has powerful and flexible features and because millions of Gmail members can get in with a single click, Buzz will have its own following. In other words, its complex design is a challenge that Google will have to overcome — but it’s not enough to be a Buzzkill.

Dazzling: a prototype version of Google Goggles that showcases the potential of integrating Google's machine translation and image recognition technologies. A video in which Goggles to takes a picture of a German menu and instantly translate the text into English.

"Microsoft just planted a massive flag in the ground with the debut of Windows Phone 7 Series. The company's new mobile operating system is a radical and potent departure from the past, and there's a lot to take in …"

Carr's seminal 2003 article, "Are we spending too much on technology? This provocative Harvard Business Review excerpt suggests that IT no longer conveys competitive advantage, so invest your capital elsewhere."

Critique of Carr & Cloud computing: "Carr's vision is either utopian or dystopian, depending on how you look at it, but either way, it mixes a few likely trends with lots of naive wishful thinking, unsound logic, and sophomoric shock value."