Continue reading »]]> Spammed
Remember how the Australian Government green lighted an Internet filter not too long ago? In retaliation to the proposed filter, a group of hackers, who call themselves Anonymous, took down two government sites: the main website and the Parliament site. Ars Technica tells us “the plan was DDoS government servers first, and then followup with ‘a s***storm’ of porn-related emails, faxes, and prank cell phone calls to government officials.”

An email sent to the media before the attacks declared, “No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be ‘unwanted’.” The email also announced, “No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason.”

Publicized by flyers distributed to recruit participants as “Operation: Titstorm,” the attacks caused intermittent periods of downtime before lunch in addition to about an hour of inaccessibility in the morning. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy frowned upon the attacks, saying they were “totally irresponsible and potentially deny services to the Australian public.” The Sydney Morning Herald has more coverage on the events that occurred last night (well, Wednesday morning Australia time and Tuesday evening through the US).

Dumped
A man in Winnipeg is on a campaign for his innocence after being dumped by his girlfriend of 2.5 years. Apparently, his girlfriend found brow-raising text messages on his work phone — “Booty call” and “Be there soon” type texts. But Darren, the dumped, didn’t even know that he had text capabilities on his Samsung Virgin Mobile phone; they were preloaded messages! Mike Ford, a sales associate at Future Shop, a cell phone store, in Winnipeg tells the Huffington Post, “when we looked at a couple of the same phones he bought, and found they all had the same messages… We all felt horrible.” Well, Darren is on a quest, “I’d like to see the phones recalled and the messages taken off, so that others don’t have to go through the hell I’m going through.” Can he win his girl back?

Censored
YouTube now comes in “Safety Mode.” What is it you ask? Well, let’s go to the source. The YouTube Blog tells us, “Safety Mode is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site.” Maybe this video demo will help…

Since you must manually opt in to enable Safety Mode, it may not be the best way to keep tabs on your teenager. But it still creates a nice alternative to avoid unsightful, salacious or  embarrassing content while browsing YouTube… at work, let’s say… or at home with the kids… Aside from creating a more family-friendly browsing experience, Safety Mode also hides comments and allows you to filter out curse words. YouTube tells us, “while no filter is 100% accurate, we use community flagging, hide objectionable comments and porn image detection to identify and hide inappropriate content.”

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Continue reading »]]> It’s difficult to imagine what we would do without cell phones and Internet nowadays. I remember not too long ago when my friend didn’t have a cell phone — the frustrations of meeting up, not being able to call to find his ETA or telling him I was running late. Soon thereafter, he signed up for a cell phone plan and things have been easier ever since. Being online for over eight hours a day with my cell phone next to me, it’s hard for me to even think about not being connected — especially after becoming so accustomed to the convenience of it all.

So, what would the aftermath efforts of the Haiti earthquake be like sans cell phones and Internet? I mean, text messaging has accumulated over $24 million in donations to the Red Cross alone. This is a significant jump from just one week ago when history was made with the $4 million record. And now, a man is telling his tale of how he survived the Haiti earthquake with the help of his trusty iPhone?! How can we not live without these modern conveniences!

Dan Woolley, a documentary filmmaker for Compassion International, had just finished a day of shooting before the earthquake struck. “I just saw the walls rippling and just explosive sounds all around me,” Woolley tells The View‘s Meredith Vieira. By using his digital SLR camera to illuminate his surroundings, Woolley was able to take refuge in an elevator shaft.

Woolley sustained a compound fracture of the leg and cut to the head while caught in falling rubble. Knowing that he could die, he downloaded a first-aid app on his iPhone. It was like if an EMT was right beside him. The app gave instructions on how to treat his wounds. With directions from the iPhone app, Woolley stopped the bleeding from his head and safely applied a tourniquet to his leg. The app also warned him not to fall asleep, a possible fatality for those going into shock. So, he programmed his iPhone alarm clock to alert him every 20 minutes.

For the next 65 hours, Woolley waited until a French rescue team pulled him out. Just last night, four days after his rescue, he returned home to his family in Colorado Springs. MSNBC has in-depth coverage, including Meredith Vieira’s interview with Woolley and his wife.

Would Woolley have survived without his iPhone? It’s amazing how far technology has come…

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Continue reading »]]> In spite of constant layoffs and a (seemingly) still drowning economy, Americans set a record for mobile giving yesterday. Tens of thousands of cell phone users texted donations that totaled $3 million. This record-setting amount of donations to the Red Cross will benefit the recent Haiti earthquake. According to Daily Finance, yesterday’s record blew away previous single-day mobile giving numbers. The Indian Ocean tsunami crisis in December 2004 brought in $200,000, and in August 2005, Hurricane Katrina received $400,000. The Haiti earthquake hasn’t seen anything yet, though.

News of the earthquake rang around the world, perhaps much more quickly than news of Google leaving China. And this also seems to be the case for news of text donations; word has spread like a viral video on YouTube. The dollars are still banking in by the text message. Right now, donations to the Red Cross, alone, have succeeded the $4 million mark.

Wait, there’s more. Twitter is abundant with tweets about donations to various organizations. Google live search also shows a constant stream of chatter. Even the President is spreading the word. If you would like to contribute, here are a few organizations accepting donations via text:

• Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross.
• Text “HAITI” to 85944 to donate $10 to the International Medical Corps.
• Text“HAITI” to 20222 to donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation.
• Text “HAITI” to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee
• Text “HAITI” to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada.
• Text “HAITI” to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way.
• Text “YELE” to 50150 to donate $5 to Wyclef Jean’s Yele fund.

As we are becoming more comfortable and reliant on technology, I wonder what numbers the our next mobile giving record will reach… What do you predict?

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Continue reading »]]> In his new book titled “Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World”, author Don Tapscott investigates how today’s youth are fundamentally unique and may be the first example of a true generational leap forward. Mr. Tapscott explains that youth of the Net Generation (people between the ages of 12 and 30) have different brains that the rest of society.

During the period of extended adolescence before the age of 18, the brain develops its deep structures and neurological patterns that will affect the way it works for the rest of that person’s life. Due to the proliferation of the internet, advanced computer software, text messaging, etc today’s kids develop advanced brain switching and temporary memory techniques that allow them to flourish in an environment of constant information streams.

Mr. Tapscott also explains the process of generational lapping that is occurring nowadays. This is the first time in human history when children are an authority on something important that is changing the world. 12-year-olds are surpassing their parents when it comes to new technologies and new ways of sharing information that is so vital to business today.

In an interview with Don Tapscott that I’ve included below, he says that the way the brains of this generation function is having a profound impact on the business world. Increasingly, young people are blurring the line between work, play, and learning through new forms of information exchange. Today’s youth entering the working world expect both knowledge stimulation and a degree of “fun” at their jobs. Technology companies seem to be the first employers responding to this shift in workplace structure.

The Net Generation is now the largest group of consumers in the United States. Powerful consumer research tools and product review websites have empowered this generation, and product manufacturers and retailers are increasingly moving towards being at the mercy of the collective will. Today’s business strategies should be focused on engaging your customers, rather than studying the habits of your customers for effective advertising.

Check out the full interview with Don Tapscott regarding his new book Grown Up Digital below. It’s an interesting view and brings up a number of good points relating to business and economics in today’s world.

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Continue reading »]]> Twitter, for those of you that aren’t into the new era of social networking, is a micro-blogging system that asks its users, “What are you doing?” Twitter users constantly post updates of their daily lives in the form of Tweets, which are text updates shorter than 140 characters. You can subscribe to twitter feeds from your friends, companies, or influential people to get instant updates into their worlds.

So now that you know what Twitter is, why should you care? After all, there are tons of other social applications out there that are constantly bombarding our senses with a never-ending stream of data. Facebook keeps tabs on all your “friends” with status updates, pictures, and messaging. Blogs and emails handle the bigger topics and issues from your friends and colleagues. Message boards and forums give you incite into any niche topic in the world, and YouTube steams a constantly expanding world of video blogs, news, and humor.

Twitter claims to fill in the gaps between emails and Facebook updates, to give you a constant stream of thoughts that paint a picture of your friends’ true lives. After all, life is what happens while you’re not sitting in front of your computer. The bigger question is, why do you need to know that your friend is waiting in line at a movie premier or taking a nap at 1pm?

You don’t. But, humans are creatures with an insatiable appetite for information, and Twitter fulfills your basic instinct to want to know everything about everyone around you. Many people try to make the argument that all of this online social networking is leading to the breakdown of real human interaction and meaningful conversations. This knee-jerk type of thinking is actually far from the truth. Social networking and live feeds like Twitter actually bring people together in more intimate ways then ever before. It just takes less effort to stay in touch with someone since you don’t have to be sitting in their living room or talking on the phone to share meaningful ideas. I’m sure some of these same arguments were made when the telephone was first becoming popular.

If you are still unconvinced about Twitter, think about it as an up-to-the-second way to search the world. Many people overlook Twitter’s insanely powerful search tool. Since over 6 million people on this planet are Twittering every day, multiple times per day, Twitter essentially becomes the biggest live, constantly updating stream of thought in the history of this planet. Twitter search makes Google search seem like reading last month’s newspaper. Google crawls pages often, but there is no way to compete with short, to the point Tweets flying at you from 6 million different people. Also, Twitter alerts you when new search results come in after you original search. It doesn’t get more live than that.

Twitter is also gaining traction as a new form of journalism from the front lines. The attacks in Mumbai in November were a great example. A flurry of Tweets from on the ground in Mumbai kept the world up to date on the situation like no news channel could.

Google offered Twitter $500 million to buy the company, but Twitter refused, if that tells you anything about where this is headed.

The dark side of all this Twittering is the underlying fact that 99% of all Tweets do not contain any information of any real importance. It also empowers ordinary people to make false or misleading statements to a broad audience, which can spread like wildfire in a matter of minutes. Rumors have the capability of flying around the world to thousands of people instantly, which can be extremely damaging.

Do I have a Twitter account? No. Will I ever have one? Probably not (I don’t even use Facebook updates). I am a firm believer of edited, thought-out forms of written communication. Blogs, news sources on my phone, and forums I subscribe to are almost to much to keep up with as it is. I don’t even have time to read magazines anymore. But why would I? That information could be a few DAYS old!

Do you Twitter? Is it a passing fad, or just the beginning of hyper-live communication networks? Does your company have a Twitter feed? Should it? I would probably receive responses sooner if I had a Twitter account…

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