Just in case you think HTML5 video support will be inferior to Flash when it comes to controls, overlays etc. SublimeVideo HTML5 Video Player. No plugins.

Ignore Apple shacking up with Microsoft Bing in rivalry with Google. The story for my ears is the skunk-works Apple search project coupled with Apple’s recent advertising company acquisition and the many mobile Apple devices (iPhone, iTouch and possibly iTablet) ready to switch their default search provider. It comes right at the end of this Gruber post.

Cuban’s Think the Internet Will Replace Cable post gave me a small idea; a self-service TV network. Log on to the website, pick a free channel number, pay for the number of hours you want, upload your video and press go. If cheap enough you could setup up channel for your family and friends, for your office or your social club.

The MODIS Rapid Response System provides publicly available daily satellite images of Earth which Russ Garrett has neatly used in a script for your desktop wallpaper. Daily satellite images bring up a slew of other ideas. Someday the “Google Earth lets robbers see you leaving your house” myth will become a reality.

Privacy Icons is to privacy policies what Creative Commons is to copyright/left policies. An attempt to clarify and pre-empt user concerns and questions. One question they have is “why would a company use a ‘bad’ privacy icon?” e.g. “we will sell your data to third parties” And fair enough, most companies are not going to make that information easy to find or decipher. So why not have a user contributed, non-legally binding wiki of Privacy Icons? Let anyone assign icons to any company, good and bad. You can then look up a company’s Privacy Icon profile before you sign-up and start telling them your secrets.

I’m as guilty as other digital nerds in lauding it over our physical, reality based brothers. When the trains stop because of ice or wet leaves we laugh in amazement that such things are not planned for and solved. Humbling then when you realise the weather can affect your website. (via Mícheál Ó Foghlú.)

Today a great cricket test between South Africa and England at Newlands, Cape Town propelled the game to number 2 on Twitter trends. Cricket is one of the few sports you can genuinely follow via text commentary alone and so is very well suited to Twitter. Football radio commentary can be pretty good but it doesn’t work in text. You have to watch rugby. Nerves are shot after that game. 5 days of combat came down to the last minute, the last ball.

Balsamiq predicted $400k in revenue for 2009. They made $1.6 million. 3 person company. Not bad.

D4H year in review an inspiration to us all.

Interesting insight from Simon Willison on the Guardian crowd-sourcing projects. Lessons learned in getting effective results.