Guess which country has the most smartphone users per head in western Europe? Photo by The Library of Congress on Flickr. Some rights reserved
A quick burst of 7 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
What Apple and Android owe to Symbian and RIM >> asymco
Delicious, principally for its population-adjusted graphs of smartphone use by country for the US and western Europe, and population-adjusted Symbian use for the US and Europe. (Symbian is Nokia's mobile OS.)
Bing Overtakes Yahoo! as the #2 U.S. Search Engine >> Nielsen Wire
US only; for the world, Google will have a larger lead. But hey, Bing has 13.9% in the US compared to Yahoo's 13.1%! Break out the... well, Bing now powers Yahoo. Not sure it matters.
Former Nokia exec nows calls for an axe to fall across management >> TechCrunch UK
"the former head of Symbian user experience design and Forum Nokia has called for the resignation of 13 key executives and claims Nokia is now following his own plan of re-making the company. Even if he's an outlier, his suggestions are almost certain to set the cat amongst the pigeons. Juhani Risku spent nine years at Nokia from 2001 was also head of Nokia Showroom, where operators make their decisions on Nokia systems."
Nielsen: Bing Passes Yahoo To Become #2 Search Engine >> Search Engine Land
"According to Nielsen data out this morning Microsoft's Bing has passed Yahoo to become the number two search engine in the US. Nielsen says that Google's August share is 65% (and growth is flat) but that Bing and Yahoo have now switched places"
How to Google Instant(ise) a Custom Search Engine (CSE) >> RSC MASHe
Contains instructions on how to, well, turn your custom search engine into a Google Instant version.
Spotify income passes iTunes (for one artist) >> Ugress
"There's currently a public discussion on streaming rates in Norway, where some labels want to pull their material from Spotify. The reason is discontent with current rates, especially from the ad-based model, if I understand everything correctly.
In light of that I was a little bit surprised to see my latest payment for digital music, where Spotify actually passed iTunes, income-wise. I now make more money on streaming than downloads. I knew it would happen at some time, but didn't expect it that soon."
Bouncing Beholder [JS1k entry] >> Marijn Haverbeke
"In typical 21st-century programming, the machine limits one has to deal with are wide and fuzzy. Program size is rarely an issue, so like painters working on an infinite canvas, we often don't know when to stop. When a program has to fit in a tightly limited space, the experience is different. You program by carefully refining every single expression, chipping away at your code until it reflects your vision as well as it can. In terms of productivity, this is an awful way of coding. But it certainly is fun. Not to mention that it gives me an excuse to use every kind of weird hack I can think of."
Includes the 1024-byte program, plus a commented version. Excellent to test your programming chops on.
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