An anonymous reader writes "Right on the heels of Microsoft's adoption of the OpenID protocol by announcing their intention to enable OpenID authentication against all Live IDs, Google has announced their intention to join the growing list of OpenID authentication providers. Except it turns out they're using their own version of OpenID that is incompatible with everyone else. It seems that Google will be using their own 'improved' version of OpenID (based upon research and user feedback of the OpenID system) which isn't backwards compatible with OpenID 1.0/2.0, in hopes of improving end-user experience at the cost of protocol compatibility and complexity."

An anonymous reader points to what's claimed to be "the world's first look at Dell's 12.1" netbook," running at Australian Personal Computer Magazine. There's a bit of gushing at the beginning, but this is followed by some informative pictures, informal battery-life tests, and interesting background about the machine's components. Upshot: it's a well-made, decent-performing small laptop with a better keyboard than smaller netbooks and more wireless options than most. However, it's shorter on battery life (bigger screen, smaller battery) than Dell's smaller Mini 9, and less easily upgraded.

What is 10' tall, has six hydraulic legs, and is powered by the wind and solar panels? The prototype pod house built by art collective N55 in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the help of MIT, N55 built the pod over a two-year period at a cost of £30,000. Designers say it provides a solution to the problem of rising water levels as the house can simply walk away from floods. One of the designers says, "This house is not just for travellers but also for anyone interested in a more general way of nomadic living." It won't be long now until the Japanese make Howl's Moving Castle.

javipas writes "A simple analysis of the most updated version (a Git checkout) of the Linux kernel reveals that the number of lines of all its source code surpasses 10 million, but attention: this number includes blank lines, comments, and text files. With a deeper analysis thanks to the SLOCCount tool, you can get the real number of pure code lines: 6.399.191, with 96.4% of them developed in C, and 3.3% using assembler. The number grows clearly with each new version of the kernel, that seems to be launched each 90 days approximately."

snydeq writes "US IT workers could find considerable payoff and invaluable experience by taking their IT skills overseas, InfoWorld reports, as foreign, US, and global firms have increased the demand for a wide range of tech talent across the globe, offering positions that clearly move beyond the scut work of heads-down programming. Business fluency, industry-specific skills, and knowledge of American markets is fast becoming an invaluable asset foreign firms will pay a premium for, according to the report, which offers insights into finding IT work in a range of cities and regions abroad."

B0bReader writes, "Simply sign up to something called jajah (a VOIP service that connects real telephones) using your friend's number (mobiles included), then log in and dial your own number. Your friend's phone will ring and after they hear a brief 'Jajah is connecting your call' they will be calling you and incur all charges. As an added bonus you will quite probably receive your friend's latest voice-mail message as your own (at least on Irish networks), which you may or may not wish to hear. There is even a Jajah Firefox extension — which at the time of writing is the Firefox featured add-on — so you can do it right from your browser. This is about the best example of a bad idea, with terrible implementation, that I have seen all day. And with the wonderful publicity the Firefox page offers it should reach a wide audience in no time."