Opera 11 is coming soon

Well, you would have thought that by v11 of a product, it would have become pretty insipid. The Opera browser remains at the very forefront of internet technology - it generates raw innovations that appear in other browsers in 18 months to 2 years' time.

And, in case you can't tell, I'm a huge Opera fan.


This review from The Reg, Inside Opera 11: extensions and benchmarks, is generous - extensions are one area that Opera has lagged. I only hope that enough developers engage with Opera's platform - I don't have a single Opera Widget installed, as they appear to be only fripperies. I hope extensions are different.

Detecting Contagious Outbreaks Through Social Networking

Fascinating (and compelling) methodology that has demonstrated to be valid - that you can detect the likelihood of contracting a contagious outbreak of an epidemic by monitoring the health of your friends.

Dr. James Fowler, Professor of Medical Genetics & Political Science at University of California (San Diego) proposed that people who have more friends will tend to become infected by contagions sooner than others with fewer friends. See Social Network Sensors for Early Detection of Contagious Outbreaks.

To test the method, Dr. Fowler and his team recently studied an H1N1 flu epidemic at Harvard College. Results showed that by simply monitoring the friends of randomly selected individuals, two weeks of advanced notice could have been given for this particular outbreak. Thus, monitoring friends is a good way to alert oneself at being at risk - better than checking your own symptoms.