Tag Archives: data

Smartphones As The New Facebook



Facebook hit critical mass and managed to move into the mainstream and is now sucking in mass numbers of new users. Much of the value of a many goods and services revolves around mass adoption – it becomes beneificial for people to use Facebook simply because so many friends and family are already on it.

We keep hearing statistics about smartphone adoption rates. No doubt about it, smartphones are increasingly popular devices and are quickly moving into the mainstream.

How does this translate into the real world?

I came across a guy a few days ago that had recently gotten an iPhone 4.0 specifically so he could do Facetime chats with his brother. This guy was in his 50’s and had never owned a computer or dealt with the Internet in any way. I was surprised at how well he had learned to run his phone. He was clearly thrilled with the smartphone and what it was capable of. Even though this fellow had somehow managed to resist getting a computer and the Internet, the smartphone managed to pull him in. Furthermore, this guy was using a lot of data above and beyond WiFi and Facetime. Even as a novice user, he had already purchased a few iphone apps. Additionally he expressed a lot of interest when I was describing Audible.Com audio books.

There’s a segment of the population I run into personally that doesn’t like the idea of or see the need for or perceive any benefit from paying for mobile data connections. These are the people that are hanging onto more basic phone models. I suspect that these same people likely resisted the idea of getting a cell phone in the first place – in other words, they are late adopters when it comes to cell phone technologies and services.

We are now entering the phase of smartphone adoption of where mass numbers of people will get smartphones simply because everyone else has them. I believe smartphones are poised to outstrip even a service like Facebook with the total number of smartphone users.

These new smartphone users are likely to use mass amounts of data. Cell phone companies wanted people to have data plans because of the extra revenue from larger data-enabled bills – now they’d better be prepared to deliver on the promise.


Better Apps and Better Data Needed



Better Apps and Better Data NeededWhen it comes to certain types of software or social networking sites, I have tended to hold back and let others to be the first to jump on the bandwagon. For example, Twitter was around a year or two before I decided to sign up and see what all the fuss was about. I did the same thing with Facebook. After all, it seems in the initial stages there are dozens and dozens of similar types of sites that are trying to compete for the big prize, and I refuse to sign up for any or all of them until it becomes clear that they are doing something to set themselves apart to garner real interest. In the past I’ve signed up for plenty of sites and it seems like I’m the only one present. The formula is easy – the more people that sign up and actually use a site, the more useful it becomes.

In the smart phone realm I’ve been hearing people talk a lot about Foursquare. I kept hearing it mentioned, but really had little clue what functionality it offered. I kept hearing about Starbucks discounts and Mayors in conjunction with Foursquare and wondered what on earth that was about and what that had to do with a smart phone app.

Since I’m the proud owner of the Sprint Evo 4G smart phone, I’ve been checking out all sorts of interesting Android apps. The Foursquare name kept periodically coming up, so I decided I would check it out.

Once I loaded Foursquare on my Evo and opened the app up for the first time I was presented with a Foursquare login screen and realized I had to go to their site in a browser to create an account, which I did. As part of the Foursquare account generation process, they present you with options of connecting your new account to Facebook and Twitter – very smart on their part, because it helps to connect with friends that are already Foursquare members.

After I logged in on my phone, it was cool to be able to see where those friends had been when they “checked in” from various restaurants and businesses around the country and the world. That’s cool. However, the “Location” tab makes the app EXTREMELY useful for me. I’m an over-the-road truck driver, constantly driving up and down freeways across the country. I happened to be at Gas City, Indiana when I installed Foursquare, so I was a bit surprised to see listed all the restaurants and convenience stores at the exit I was at along I-69, and the distance in meters they were away from where my truck was parked. It uses the phone’s built-in GPS chip so that it knows exactly where it’s at and what businesses are around – within “four square miles” perhaps?

All of these GPS-enabled smart phone apps are great, but they don’t solve all of my problems. I’m constantly looking for truck washes (refrigerated trailers constantly need washed out before reloading) as well as truck stops and truck parking. Even Google’s database has been gamed – try typing “truck stop” or “truck wash” along with the city name of your choice into Google and see if the search results aren’t misleading. “Truck wash” and a city name will often result in car wash business listings, useless for my purposes.

The bottom line is there’s still plenty of room for future smart phone app development. More specialized apps and better databases are two elements that can result in more useful apps.


GNC-2007-11-30 #321



I catch you up on the latest info here at the new house, talk about podcasting and cover a pile of tech news.

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Listener Links:
Venus History
Water Solutions 1
Grey Watergator
Wet Wheelie
Java Promoting Open Office
Listener Opinion on Java and Open Office
Red Monday an Original Podcast Series

Show Notes:
Father of Podcasting Dave Winer’s take on Podcasting
Spammers Giving Up?
Use iPhone on Laptop
Be a Google Search Expert
EFF FInds Comcast Packet Shaping Trafic
MSNBC on EFF Comcast Findings
FBI Bot Roast II
Mobile Phone 3.3 Billion?
3G iPhone
Cyberbulling
Comcast Bandwidth in 2008
Warner Music Loosing Money
EMI to Slash RIAA Donation
Verizon going GSM
DSL Speed Growing Outside US
Digg Google Search
Cool Video Implementation
White Label RSS Aggregator
Netflix and NBC
Microsoft changes the iPod
P2P Traffic Increasing
Pay Per Post Bloggers Crying
ISS May Have Air Leak
Mars Rover Spotted
Hackers Hijack Search Results
NASA Outlines Mars Mission
Sprint Need No Money!
DontCensorMe.com

Gems I Found
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Extreme Data Recovery
Data Center Building


Internet Explorer Unsafe 98 Percent of the Time



ScanIT, an Internet security consultancy, reports Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was unsafe 98 percent of the time, during 2004. The data were collected from 195,000 internet users who used ScanIT’s online security checker. The reported 98 percent unsafe rating is based on security holes being found in fully-patched installations of Internet Explorer on every day of the year 2004, except the week between October 12 and 19.

Continue reading Internet Explorer Unsafe 98 Percent of the Time


Lost Hard Drive Contains 23,000 Social Security Numbers



Students, faculty, and staff at seven campuses of the California State University (CSU) system are at risk for identity theft after a hardware technician improperly disposed of a computer hard drive with unencrypted database tables that included Social Security numbers and other personal details. The CSU is required, under California law, to notify all affected parties.

The law, which went into effect last year, requires notification whenever personal data, such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers or credit card numbers (with identification numbers) have been accessed without authority.

The university system’s hard drive has been missing since Friday, June 25th. The technician left the drive laying on a worktable after upgrading the computer from which it came. In a rush to start the weekend, the drive wasn’t properly secured, and come Monday, there was no sign of it. The drive was most likely picked up by the evening cleaning crew; however, the results of a police investigation was inconclusive.

Dave’s Opinion
Hard disks, like portable media, must be completely destroyed before being discarded. Using a security data deletion (wiping ) program such one that comes with the PGP data security program, would have prevented the data being recovered, even if the drive were reused.

Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.