“Wait, let me show you…” The promise of camera phones help us expand our vision of better communications. As costs drop, cam-phones are quickly outpacing the DVD as the fastest growing consumer device.
Camera phones are especially popular in Japan. But U.S. sales are also robust, tech analysts say. About 12 million digital cameras sold in the USA last year.
While pictures taken with camera phones lack quality — and are most often used in e-mails or as PC screen savers — “the best camera is the one you always have with you,” Nowak says.
Camera-equiped cell phones also carry dangers: that the owner will expose others who may not wish to be exposed. Several places and people have banned cam-phones from their establishments. Getting touchy about infinite transparency?
Devices camera phone, cell phone, dvd, exposure, Japan, mobileTech, transparency, US
Some domestic servants in Hong Kong have a new job description: they’re venturing into high-tech maintenance, performing tasks like removing software viruses and cleaning up spam.
It’s “more fun than washing dishes,” says one maid, who got her training at a Hong Kong computer school whose student body is largely made up of other maids in a city where most middle-class families have full-time domestic help. In fact, a maids-only computer course offered by the Hong Kong YMCA has proven so popular that the number of classes has ballooned to 11 from one since the program was first introduced in 1994. Many of the students report being called on to do spreadsheets for household budgets, design and maintain family Web sites, and perform Web searches to help the children with their homework. Meanwhile, the expansion of duties has been a boon for busy execs. One high-tech entrepreneur whose maid takes care of all his home computer maintenance says, “the last thing I want to do is look at [a computer] some more when I get home.”
Content, Identity domestic help, maids, self-determination, technical support, training, tutoring
Secure phones: now available, a bit pricey.
Berlin-based Cryptophone, a unit of privately held GSMK, developed the phone by inserting an encryption software inside a standard handheld computer phone. This ensures that calls can only be decoded by a similar handset or a computer running the software.
But the phone is seen as a mixed blessing in some European countries. While the benefits for business managers exchanging sensitive information are obvious, such a device could potentially have the side effect of helping criminals.
Security specialists in the Netherlands said the device could threaten criminal investigation by the Dutch police, which is one of the world’s most active phone tappers, listening in to 12,000 phone numbers every year.
But privacy lobbyists say the new handset is a “freedomphone” much more than a “terrorphone.”
“It’s a tremendous step forward, because the level of surveillance by authorities is breathtaking,” said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International in Britain.
Devices cell phone, crypto, encryption, mobileTech, privacy, security, self-determination
Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed machines that can “sniff” like dogs: “Dog on a Chip.” Presently they detect vapors emitted from cocaine, but there’s no reason they can’t be tuned for other purposes.
From a few feet away, the device can ‘smell’ microscopic amounts of a particular substance – as little as one-trillionth of a gram. So far it’s only programmed to detect cocaine. But Hunt says it could be developed to sniff out other drugs, anthrax, bombs, chemical agents and even cancerous cells.
The machine is a rectangular plastic box slightly smaller than a phone book attached to a cube with a chip inside it that detects substances. Two antenna-like tubes protrude from the cube – one sucks in air, the other spits it out.
I can see it now: detectors at every post office door to “sniff” dangerous mail. Hospitals will use them to detect potential cancer patients. And of course, airport security will have them in several different varieties.
Devices chip, detection, drugs, odor, smell, sniff, vapor
SBC Communications announced its plans to offer voice over Internet phone service beginning early next year–in a big way.
SBC said it will offer both voice and data services will not be limited to its traditional local markets in the southwestern United States but will be available in all 50 states after having received U.S. regulatory approval to offer long-distance nationwide.
Network incumbent, long distance, telecom, telephone, voice, VoIP
This story is about a game. It’s not, however, an ordinary game. This one incorporates ideas and licensing schemes that could rock the business world. Just one thing first: people must recognize and respect each other’s contributions to the body of knowledge being worked on.
Linden Lab, creator of online world Second Life(TM), today announced a significant breakthrough in digital property rights for its customers and for users of online worlds. Changes to Second Life’s Terms of Service now recognize the ownership of in-world content by the subscribers who make it. The revised TOS allows subscribers to retain full intellectual property protection for the digital content they create, including characters, clothing, scripts, textures, objects and designs.
Content contributions, DRM, licensing, ownership, property rights, respect, Second Life, self-determination, terms of service
Newer and fancier cars have more gadgets and capabilities. However, when designers add complexity to the car’s engineering components, they also add risks. We all know this from our own experience, but it’s not comforting when our expensive new car suddenly sputters to a stop on the highway.
The problems show up on high-end cars because they get the most whiz-bang gadgetry first. That adds insult to annoyance because owners have spent so much on their wheels. Complaints about BMW 7-series and Mercedes-Benz (Parent: DCX) E- and S-class cars range from disconnected calls on built-in phones to seats that adjust without warning while cars are moving, to engines that shut down at highway speeds.
John Nielsen, director of AAA’s approved auto repair network, says it’s little surprise that things are going wrong and some of the problems are hard to fix. The new Audi A8L, for example, has 36 computers with 1,600 trouble codes, he says. “These things make the space shuttle look antiquated.”
Devices auto, car, complexity, design, engineering, risks
Many people know they can’t hear conversations in another nearby room when their computer is on because of the ambient noise.
‘Progressively, PCs have been getting louder and louder over the years,’ said Paul Holstein, a business owner.
‘I just snapped. If you can hear the PC through your walls from the bedroom, you’ve got a problem,’ Holstein said.
Holstein contacted Endpcnoise.com, a Vancouver, Washington-based custom outlet that specializes in creating nearly silent PCs. After buying one for himself, Holstein is now outfitting his entire business, Cableorganizer.com, with silent PCs.
‘We’re building computers you just can’t hear,’ said Jon Schoenborn, general manager of NW Custom Computers Inc., which owns and operates Endpcnoise.com.
Content, Devices ambient noise, computer, noise, silence
Thinking of changing your home/office phone to something a little more mobile? Many phone users have not wanted to give up their long-standing and familiar old phone number. Now they don’t have to. Cell phone companies are happy. Do they think their network reliability issues will keep the new business that they’re likely to get as the phone numbers churn with the customers?
As many as 7 million consumers use cell phones exclusively. Jeff Maszal, research director for The Management Network Group, an Overland Park, Kan.-based communications consulting firm, said an additional 19 million consumers are likely to drop their landlines for cell phones now that they can keep their home or business phone numbers.
Identity, Policy cell phone, landline, mobile, number, phone, phone number portability, telecom
It’s getting pretty expensive to be connected to the Internet these days. The unexpected problem to compound the bigger problem: nobody has an effective remedy. How does a small office deal with the results of bad social behavior?
London-based computer-security firm mi2G said in a report on Thursday that computer outages and lost productivity because of spam led to $10.4 billion in worldwide economic losses in October. Meanwhile, the company said viruses and worms — also known as malware — caused $8.4 billion in losses, while hackers contributed to $1 billion in financial damage worldwide.
Content, Policy cost, malware, spam, virus