I came across an article from the New York Times discussing the state of electronic voting. In short, it’s not good. The problem is that these voting machines are rigged with bugs, making them very unreliable. And, of course, everyone is blaming computers for that. What people don’t realise – or are not told – is that machines are just machines. They do what they are told to do. So, if the software does not work, it’s because it hasn’t been written / tested properly. Take this for example:

“In 2005, the state of California complained that the machines were crashing. In tests, Diebold determined that when voters tapped the final “cast vote” button, the machine would crash every few hundred ballots. They finally intuited the problem: their voting software runs on top of Windows CE, and if a voter accidentally dragged his finger downward while touching “cast vote” on the screen, Windows CE interpreted this as a “drag and drop” command. The programmers hadn’t anticipated that Windows CE would do this, so they hadn’t programmed a way for the machine to cope with it. The machine just crashed.”

This is a prime example of poorly developed software. This bug should have been caught during testing. Especially when you think that these machines can decide on the next President of the United State. Scary, isn’t it!

I mentioned in a previous post of Google’s announcement of an open source software stack for mobile devices. Well, today there’s even a better news. As promised Google released the Android SDK, and surprise, surprise, the APIs are in Java. Being working in Java ME land – Java for mobile devices for the uninitiated -, it is definitely a great news. I’m downloading the SDK as I’m writing this post so I’ll have more to say later.

In th last few days Google announced the creation of the OpenSocial APIs and entered the mobile telecoms industry with the introduction of the Open Handset Alliance.

According the Google own website, “OpenSocial provides a common set of APIs for social applications across multiple websites. With standard JavaScript and HTML, developers can create apps that access a social network’s friends and update feeds.” I have to admit, I’m a bit skeptical about this move. Although I can appreciate the benefits of a common set of APIs for developers, I think it comes from the wrong player. The motivation for Google is to get a chance to tap into the rich set of personal data this social networks hold. Plus, Facebook having successfully open its platform to developers, will be reluctant to sign up, which will ultimately undermine Google’s effort.

On the other hand, the Open Handset Alliance announcement is a much more exciting news. Especially given the 30-strong companies who joined the alliance. At its core, the alliance provides a complete and open source software stack for mobile devices based on Android. This should give some of the more established players in this industry something the reflect upon, hopefully resulting in better, cheaper devices for everyone. An early SDK will be available on Monday but it should take quite a while before we see any Android-based device on sale. Nevertheless, the next coming months should be quite interesting.