Has Google become a modern, technological paparazzi?

Apparently, some folks are up in arms about Google Map's new "Street View" feature. The interesting thing to me, is not that people are being caught picking their nose or entering a strip club, but that people are reacting the same way celebrities do to paparazzi.

Of course, the big difference here, is that Google's cameras are not seeking to photograph people intentionally, nor in non-public view. What people don't realize is that you can rightfully be photographed any time you go into public.

In some places this is not a concern (mostly where you can't be easily identified as you, i.e. crowded places like train stations or busy city streets or huge riots :-) But when someone takes a photograph of us fixing ourselves when we thought the coast was clear…that is suddenly outrageous.

The outrage does not derive from Google, but instead the fact that Google is an Internet company and these images have a good chance of being seen by many a set of eyes. Think of all the photos you have where someone in the background is picking their nose, or making a weird face, or propositioning a hooker. (You know what I mean.) It wasn't a big deal to have those bits of our lives in other people's photos, because most of the world wouldn't see it, nor would they be scouring your negatives to find it.

So, has Google become the modern equivalent of a technological paparazzi? Maybe, but there's nothing you can do about it. Perhaps this will get people to think a little more before doing some of the things they do in public.

Steve Jobs at D

Terrific, if for nothing else, the last 15 seconds.

Flexibility vs. Simplicity

Apple and EMI made their big announcement yesterday about DRM-free music and premium downloads. It certainly is a big deal, as those who care a lot about technology and music, have been fighting for a wider range of DRM-free music for a long time.

The announcement is really wonderful and begins the slippery-slope of DRM changes that consumers have been demanding. There are a few things that haven't been discussed in the Q&A session that I found interesting.

First, EMI's CEO, Eric Nicoli, made the statement that EMI had known about Steve Job's feelings about DRM far before his well-known open letter about DRM. It seems that this letter was more of a rebuttal to attacks on Apple's iPod and iTunes in Europe than an attack on the music companies. It was as if Jobs was letting the nay-sayers know that he has been in favor of DRM-free music all along, but it was the music companies holding everyone back. Kind of like saying, "I told the big boys already, but their not listening, so stop blaming me and my company." Passing the buck a bit.

Anyway, the really interesting comment to me was from Steve Jobs on choices (Timestamp 41:02): "Life is a balance between total freedom and simplicity. We try to strike the local maximums… where we can give people what they tell us… and what we think they want… and yet keep it very simple."

I connected to this statement, because it Jobs articulates the struggle of design very well. As designers you want to create something that will satisfy the consumer's problem (i.e. I want to buy music easily and securely form the Internet), be flexible (i.e. I want to buy only one song, or a song at a better quality, or without dirty words), and yet keep it simple (integrate the store within the player, make backing-up the music integrated, and give me album artwork automatically, etc.).

To me companies like Microsoft and Sony have always been scoring really high in the total freedom category. Their products can be "modded" and third-party applications abound for them. They allow a person to do virtually anything related to their products.

Companies like Apple and Google have done well with simplicity. Here's one white page with a dialog box, one image, and two buttons. Apple for years had only a one-button mouse ship with it's computers.

To me the race is now on for that balance that Jobs mentions. Google's front page is actually a bit more complex now, including a personalized home page, and customizable widgets. Apple has embraced a mouse with four buttons and a click-wheel. Microsoft is simplifying it's interface to resemble the more user friendly OS X.

Google's Adwords is a terrific example of the two extremes of simplicity and freedom. There are two ways to use Google's Adwords: a Starter Edition and a Standard Edition. The Starter Edition is on the simplicity side of the extreme and the Standard Edition is all about Freedom. Starter has one campaign, one defined area, one set of keywords, etc. Standard has the ability to create multiple campaigns over many specific areas with various keywords. It includes analytics and reports. You have a virtually infinite array of choices.

Jumping from a Starter Edition to a Standard Edition is overwhelming, and I wish now that I could jump back for my NJ Mac Help campaigns. If you have ever "graduated" from Starter to Standard like me, then you perhaps know what I mean. There is no middle ground for Adwords.

Apple, I think has been doing a great job of opening itself up to more flexibility, while still safeguarding it's simplicity. Boot camp, the Intel switch, iTunes/iPods working with PC's: these were all flexibility moves. So, as we see Apple become more balanced or hit those "local maximums," I wonder how many people will seek to reap their benefits.

Hydrogen, Fuel and the Future

I was reading an e-mail by NY Times columnist David Pogue about the future of car fuels, and I thought that he served up an interesting solution via BMW and a new car they a prototyping.

Basically, BMW has created a prototype of hydrogen car that runs on both hydrogen and regular gasoline. Like current hybrids it seamlessly switches between gasoline and hydrogen power, when the hydrogen runs out. This is necessary as there are not enough hydrogen refueling stations to make an all-hydrogen car viable yet. The big benefit here is that hydrogen fuels by product is pure water instead of Carbon Dioxide, and other greenhouse gases.

You can read all of David Pogue's Column on BMW & hydrogen fuel here.

As I was reading about it, I thought to myself that there are probably a lot of opinions about this technology, and I might have my own, but it's certainly not as informed as those who are currently working in fields related to fuel technology. So, I e-mailed three of my chemical engineering friends who do do work in the field to see what they thought. Below is a condensed version of their thoughts, as one statement. I thought their thoughts were worth sharing:

"Fossil fuels are finite."

Agreed. In the meantime oil company salaries are probably only going to keep going up and up as we try to squeeze out every last drop. If you are interested in a good read about the future of oil, check out either of the two books here: Hubbert's Peak and Beyond Oil are both fantastic. Ken Deffeyes weaves an excellent story about the past, present, and future of oil.

"Hydrogen as a fuel."

I am extremely skeptical of the hydrogen economy. In my opinion there is currently no viable technology to store hydrogen. Activated carbons have been promising, but we are nowhere near DOE targets. Anything involving nanotubes is a load of crap. Adsorption on MOFS is partially irreversible. I think all of these chemical storage methods are likely to be better than compression though. How far did that car go before refueling or before the tank heated up? How are they cooling it? If the tank is "a tank so bulky, it makes a visible bulge behind the rear seats," what family is going to want that in their car? How will they fit in their 5 kids? Storage is the big problem. How much weight does it add to the car to have these high-pressure tanks?

"Their primary objection, of course, is the amount of energy that's consumed (and pollution generated) in producing hydrogen in the first place."

Yes! Hydrogen can solve the fuel problem. Burning hydrogen is clean but making hydrogen is not- although it should be cleaner than burning gas. Big Al Gore (and I mean big, have you seen that dude lately?) won't be too happy to find out that although greenhouse gases aren't coming out the tailpipe, they are coming out somewhere else. OK, what about CO2 sequestration? This is not completely feasible at the present time, but it is closer to working than any of the methods to store hydrogen.

"Ethanol?"

The efficiency of ethanol is very low. And corn prices are skyrocketing. This idea is better for the American farmer than anything else.

In conclusion...

I pretty much agree with Pogue. I have bashed all of the technologies out there, but I do think all of them are only in their infancy. Importantly, none of them is the silver bullet. Each will only makeup a portion of the total solution. People out touting the greatness of just one of these technologies drive me nuts. Especially when they quote figures to make a case that their solution can make up 100% of the total. No freaking way. Whatever the final solution is, it doesn't exist right now. In the meantime, we need to conserve. All new vehicles should be hybrid within 5 years, 10 at the most. If we can double efficiency, then we have double the time to come up with a better solution before oil runs out.

I propose a minimum 25-50 cents a gallon tax on gas with all money going toward renewable energy research. This would also encourage people to drive less and buy more fuel efficient cars.

The holy grail is hydrogen from water using sunlight. There is an infinite supply of both.

Many new technologies plus conservation need to contribute to the total solution. I am actually part of a collaboration that is working on solar-powered water splitting to make hydrogen. There is "capital" CO2 produced in making the device but no "operational" CO2 produced to keep it going. Our method is just one of many being tried. Hopefully one will work. At least we are trying, the worst thing anyone can do is the same thing that we've been doing for the last 50-100 years.

Anyone else have an opinion?

What's in a name - iPhone?

In considering the recent unveiling of Apple's iPhone and the excitement surrounding it, I believe Apple has made a misstep.

First, Apple now has a continuing legal battle with Cisco, as Cisco had announced their own iPhone several weeks prior and had owned rights to the name 'iPhone' for even longer.

Second, and perhaps most perplexing, is Apple's abandonment of the 'iPod' moniker. Well, perhaps abandonment is too harsh. Apple isn't phasing out 'iPod.' But in Steve Jobs own presentation, he pointed out that Apple's new product is at least a third iPod. As he put it: an iPod, a web device, and a phone.

So, what I wonder is, why not call it, 'iPod phone?' It would follow in the same line of current iPod naming conventions: iPod nano, iPod shuffle, e.g. It would eliminate any worry about litigation with Cisco's iPhone. It also would fit in a logical way with the rest of the iPod line.

One of the best things about the name 'iPod' was the foresight involved with it's naming. At first, it was primarily a music player, and no one would have thought twice if the name for it had been iPlayer or iListen or iBox, etc. But Apple had the prudence to realize that there was room for growth for the device. And thus, iPod was actually an appropriate name as the device grew to include photos, video, games, contacts, calendars… and you would suppose phone capabilities.

Instead Apple is abandoning iPod as part of it's phone's name, and it leaves me saying 'iWonder.'

Apple changes the world again

Steve Jobs, in today's keynote speech, alluded to Apple's ability to change the way we do things. They certainly did it with the Mac in 1984. They did it with the iPod. And will this next endeavor, did they do it again?

It's an iPod, it's a phone, it's a web browser... but is it revolutionary? I hope so, because everyone has been talking it up so much... without ever knowing what it really was. With touch screen technology, it seems versatile enough to grow and be copied and be wanted... badly. Seems like all the ingredients that helped the last two revolutionary devices.

The really nice thing was making the technology work with something we already have... fingers. No need to keep track of your stylus or key in with tiny buttons. No, instead use fingers and gestures.

When I was at school at the University of Delaware, there was a Computer Engineering professor who was working on exactly this technology. He wanted to make a keyboard without keys. One where cutting and pasting was like gesturing a grab and a drop. The coolest part was how he had figured out how to identify each finger, so that an index + middle finger touch was different than a index and pinky finger touch.

I'm not sure if this professor's work ties in at all with the Apple iPhone, but it sure seems like it's similar.

As I hear more and more about this phone I am stoked! It's running OS X! It's got a 2 megapixel camera! It's really so much more... a new way to call people.

Holy shit... it's just getting cooler.

Puzzling

The past few days I have been endlessly distracted by a new puzzle. It was sent to me by a former co-worker, who I am convinced was trying to sabotage my chances of getting a new job.

I had been trying to do the New York Times crossword puzzle as a stimulus for the mind, but this turned out to be that and so much more.

The puzzles are known as Weffriddles and they are created for a more modern audience, as the answers to clues turn into the URL for the next puzzle. So, you can only continue if you have the correct answer to the puzzle. It's an interesting way to puzzle in our new technological world. It's also leads to obsession and hundreds upon hundreds of 404 error message screens.

Luckily there is a Weffriddles message board that is filled with people bashing their heads against their screens (as they will prominently display in their signatures and posts). I'm not sure if I would have scratched my way through "batch 4" without some nudges from other "Weffers" along the way, but now that I am (temporarily) finished, it's nice to not have nonsensical words like NURLO and GORP running thorugh my head.

Since the holidays are coming up and you may have more time on your hands, I gift to you Weffriddles. Just make sure you start after the family obligations are over.

Another puzzle that I got into a while ago and finished the first round of is a Japaenese laser puzzle, by Hawkpeng79 (whoever that is). If you get through the first, there is a second level (at least). I had to cut myself off, but if you're into it... please enjoy. (Knowledge of Japanese not necessary, but it sure would be nice to know what it says.)

Spam 2.0

According to a New York Times article, Spam is on a come back. How do people really profit off of spam e-mail anyway? I've always wondered. Well, that's for another time.

I started noticing a few months ago that I was getting a really large number of messages that were not being picked up by my spam filter. I'd cycle through them, marking them as junk, but it didn't seem to matter. They were still getting put in my Inbox.

Then I came up with a way to virtually eliminate them from my Inbox, sending them where they belong - to the Junk Mail folder. Today, I share that method with you.

The method works well for a few reasons. First, I am using an Apple computer, running Tiger (OS 10.4). You may have a way to do what I am about to show if you are on some other machine or operating system, but I'll be going through the Apple way.

The second reason the method works for me is that I keep a very good address book that is integrated with my e-mail program. Apple makes it easy by calling these programs "Address Book" and "Mail" but most e-mail programs integrate the two (Entourage, for example). Keeping a good address book allows you to really keep spam low, because e-mail sent from someone in your address book is e-mail you know.

Apple already has a great junk filter that learns what is junk by what messages you mark as junk. It's a process that in the beginning can seem tedious (going through every e-mail to find junk messages and marking them as such), but it quickly gets easier. What surprised me was that Apple's junk filter was not learning that some e-mails I was marking as junk, were in fact junk... because they kept arriving in my Inbox.

So I took a look at the e-mails and I noticed a pattern. Most of them were not text e-mails. They were e-mails with embedded images, made to look like text. A lot of junk mail filters will learn to look at the text of e-mails for irregular grammar, but these e-mails had no text... well, at least no text that the computer could see because the text was part of an image.

The junk filter was also not picking up on any pattern of the sender's e-mail address, because these messages were coming from everywhere. Judy and Elsa and Warren... the names and e-mails were all unique and never duplicated. However, they do share one thing in common. They weren't in my address book!

So, in Apple's Mail program there is a wonderful section called "Rules" (Go to Mail > Preferences > Rules). In Rules you can set up processes that automate things you want to happen in your e-mail. For example, I have my fiancé's e-mail always show up with a purple color highlighting it in the list. This allows me to easily see if I have a message from her.

Awww, too cute? Okay, well using Rules is also how I get most of this new junk mail moved to my junk mail folder as well. Rules uses a series of conditions, and the way I have it set up it looks like this:


Let's go through some of these conditions:

1 - Make sure you set the action to respond only if ALL of the conditions are met. Otherwise it might send a lot of your regular, good e-mail to your Junk mail folder.

2 - We are looking for messages that use image attachments of the file type .GIF This is a standard image file type. Many of you might say that you don't want to do this, because then when people send you pictures they'll get put in your Junk Mail folder. Well, most pictures are saved as JPEGs or .JPG files (as they should for pictures) and that is why we have set the condition to look for senders in your address book and previous recipient lists. Same goes for people who have signatures with their e-mail that use a .GIF image. If you are getting e-mail from these folks, they should be in either your previous recipient list or your address book. If not, put them there and you'll be fine.

3 - I have the rule set to move (not copy) the message to my Junk Mail folder and also flag it. You don't need to flag it, but I did so that I could see how many of these Junk mail messages I was actually catching. It turns out that they make up 48% of my Junk Mail folder!

So, yes it was really helpful to set up this new Rule or filter to manage the new wave of spam. Hopefully it can be helpful to you as well.

Zune, zune, zune

So it's been a few days since Microsoft brought to market their own mp3 player, Zune. It' pretty clear where my loyalty lies in the Microsoft/Apple battle, but when Zune came out I wanted to try to take an objective look at it, because it's a unique situation. Apple has constantly been playing second fiddle to Microsoft's dominance, and for once, Microsoft is now playing catch up in the music market. So, it is to Apple's advantage to look at this with seriousness, as they really haven't been in this position of #1 before.

So, I went to my local Target in order to see the device for myself, and see how I thought it could fare. Here's what I thought.

First off, I couldn't find it. The Target I went to has avery clearly marked electronics department filled with TVs and cameras and video games. There are end caps of aisles devoted to iPod accessories and PlayStation consoles, even musical instruments now. But I had to ask in order to find the Zune display. I thought that they might not actually have it in stock. It turned out that I had buzzed right by it, because the display was capping none other than the diaper aisle immediately preceding the electronics department.

There was so much established stuff in the electronics department that the Zune display had been pushed to a nearby, but not integrated aisle. These speaks volumes to the problem faces Microsoft. They have been out of the music game for so long that they are going to have to survive on the cusp of it for a long while before they are seen as a real player. (no pun initially intended)

So, once finding the darn thing, I took it through the paces (as much as I could because it was bolted down better than a field goal post). The first thing I noticed was the use of a click-wheel. It seems that Apple's click wheel user input has been so popular that Microsoft could not ignore it. They had to have one in order for Zune to look like it was an mp3 player.

The problem is that the click wheel is not a click wheel. It doesn't scroll with your touch, in fact it's simply a four way navigational button, with a select button in the middle. The first thing I tried to do was use it to scroll through a menu like a click wheel. When I brought Dee to the display, I saw her try to do the same thing. It doesn't work that way, however.

In addition to the non-wheel, click circle, there are two buttons to either side of it. One is "play/pause" and the other is "back." The thing that was terrific about iPod's click wheel design was that it eliminated the need for multiple buttons, by including all the functions of the iPod in the click wheel. (Early iPods had four buttons to control the music play back, when the wheel was strictly used for scrolling, but we're past that now.) This Zune design is not terrible, but...

one of the great things about the zune is that it uses it's screen in both portrait and landscape modes. If you're listening to music the Zune is held vertically, and if you are viewing photos or watching a movie, the screen can be turned horizontally allowing for a widescreen display. The problem is that your interface also turns, and those side buttons are now not that intuitive. What does an arrow pointing downward mean? What does a rotated play/pause button mean?

I have no idea how heavy the Zune really is in comparison to the iPod (again it was practically welded to the display), but the box that I was able to hold felt significantly heavier than an iPod box. The price is $250 which is only dead even with the iPod's price. The songs bought through Zune's music store can't be played on an iPod and vice versa.

It seems to me that you are going to have to be in one camp or the other, and I'm afraid for Microsoft that the iPod camp is far too big and the motivations for switching not great enough. (People want to cite the ability to share songs wirelessly as a great reason to switch, but honestly I can think of less than a handful of situations when this would happen for me and the shared music only plays three times.)

I know that there are people who have attacked the iPod over issues regarding the battery or scratches or price... but I just don't see people rushing to buy a Zune based on these reasons. I think they will catch some Windows users who still don't have an iPod and want to stay in the Windows world. I think they will get a few people who just want to try what's new... but I think the majority of people who already own iPods or have had an iPod experience will be disappointed in Zune and will either choose an iPod or no player at all.

Sorry, Microsoft, but I think Apple is still going to soundly beat you here, and as referenced earlier, keep you in the aisle where you and your brown colored player belong: with the diapers.

Nike+

There are people out there doing really cool things. That was supposed to be our motivation while I was in college. It was supposed to drive us to better ourselves… to face the competition and accelerate our own game.

There were a lot of times when I didn't accept it as a true statement. I often would think that for every cool thing being created, there was a exponentially high number of uncool things being produced—especially in advertising.

Today is one of those days when my pessimism is flipped on it's head, because today is the day I discovered the new partnership between Nike and Apple. They have come together to mold two products into one great idea.

They took Nike's passion for running and Apple's passion for music and created the Nike+Apple Sport Kit. The sport kit allows you to set up, track, and motivate your runs, by providing you with real time audio feedback of your progress during your run, syncing for tracking your progress over time and integrated music playlists to help motivate you along the way.

The idea is genius because it is simple and it's derived from the observation of what was naturally happening in the culture of both industries. People who run were buying iPods. They'd strap the to their arms and go out pumped up.

Apple and Nike came together to see the value in making a deeper commitment to the products for runners.

Give them the ability to track their progress. Give them specific music for their workout. Give them a community online to share in their accomplishments. Those are gifts that these types of consumers will snatch up.

The Nike shoes, designed to take the transmitter (pedometer) cost $100, and the pedometer and receiver for your iPod are $29. Not bad for what you're getting. There's also apparel, like shirts with nano pockets.

The shoes themselves are a bit understated for Nike. They actually look like simply a basic running shoe, black for men, grey for women. I'm excited to see what new designs they'll create with compatibility.

I'm guessing that the transmitter that plugs into your nano's dock connection is a bluetooth gadget, but they don't say on either Apple or Nike's site. I'm also wondering if it only works with the nano, or if it will work with fifth generation, video iPods as well. The 5th gen iPods aren't as comfortable or reliable to work out with in the long run, but there's no reason they can't be used for exercise.

Overall, this is a killer idea and it really gets me excited to go out and run. It's definitely proof-positive that people are out there thinking and creating worth-while stuff. I wonder who came to the table with the idea first, Nike or Apple?

New media ain't easy

It's occurred to me that keeping this blog thing going is no easy task. I know several friends who have been on hiatus from their blogs for a few months. Not knowing any better, those two people who read this blog might assume that I too have allowed my blog to fall by the wayside, judging by my infrequent and unpredictable posts.

What is interesting to me is that there are some 14 million blogs out there (that # is from my best recollection - no hard and fast data there) and eventually that number is going to start to dwindle. Perhaps there should be some way of calculating how many posts are truly active and those which receive a certain number of hits per day or week. Let's say we counted the number of blogs that are updated at least 5 times per week and have 100 unique visitors per week. I'd say that 14 million number would get knocked down well under 1 million. But again that's just a guess.

What I have found is that people are discovering it's really hard to not only keep up a blog, but also deal with the baggage associated with it. There is hate mail, suggestions, spammers... it's a high maintenance operation. The same holds true for podcasts and especially video podcasts.

As we celebrate this foray into the world of consumer-driven, consumer-created media, I think the thing that consumers are finding is that creating the media initially is simple, but keeping up the content, as well as managing and maintaining the stuff is rather difficult. It takes time, and if you are popular enough to pull some serious bandwidth - money.

So I wonder when the blog phenomenon will jump the shark? When will consumers get tired of the work associated with generating their own content and return to corporate sponsored media (commercial television, or at least online video or content with commercials)?

I've heard that people are more willing to download a video or television show that has a commercial tied to it, as opposed to paying for it themselves (again no hard data - just a nodding assumption of truth). And it makes sense to me. Why wouldn't our self-interest-driven economy desire to hold onto the cash and sacrifice 30 seconds of time? Time is money, but relatively few people actually calculate the opportunity cost of time in terms of real hard cash. The assumption is that I do, in fact, have 30 seconds to get through an ad if it means I'm not opening my wallet.

I am not Nostradamus, and I am not predicting the end of the blogosphere, but I do wonder how long the working public can keep up the pace? When will interest wane and a new medium explode? Or will an old medium re-emerge?