I just got an email from my system with a screen shot of a message she just got on Facebook. The message stated:
Worried about search engines? Your information is safe.
There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. That is not true. Facebook created public search listings in 2007 to enable people to search for your name and see a link to your Facebook profile. They will still only see a basic set of information.
Facebook Search Engine Privacy Message
NOT a rumor…
What Facebook is calling a rumor is documented by hundreds of posts around the web. About 2 weeks ago, Facebook’s “new and improved” privacy settings were announced. When you click next you get a screen to update your privacy settings (see image below). Many of the defaults on this page are to open your profile information to “everyone“, which includes search engines – and Google.
The iPhone took the world of smart phones by storm and set new standards for these smart small portable devices. Other companies have been looking at Apple with envy eyes and trying over and over again to come up with an iPhone killer.
In the past few months we have witnessed the launching of some real good phones like Motorola’s Droid and Blackberry’s Storm 2, other companies have been following suit and launching their own versions of smart phones. 2010 sounds like a promising year for this market, let’s look into what will be big in the coming year. iPhone 3GS, Motorola Driod, Nokia and Blackberry videos are already flooding the social media, and fighting over the touch-screen do-it-all smart phone market share.
The video should give you a good idea of how the phones look and handle, and our summary below lists each phone’s main features briefly.
The Google Leviathan has been on the move lately, engulfing several smaller fish on the internet. The latest “victim” being Gizmo5 a VoIP service a la Skype.
Google Voice, your next phone company
Google Voice
Gizmo5 coupled with Google Voice has the prospect of being a very seductive concoction. Users will sign up to Google Voice and get a phone number that will forward all their calls to all their other numbers. It will also provide them with free conference calling and free voice mail to email services among many others. The service will also offer them ultra-cheap outgoing calls. If Google adds support for SMS and MMS, it will allow the customer to completely circumvent the mobile operators per minute tariff and, in general, it might do to mobile operators what the mobile did to the land line.
Now Google seems to have delinquently tried to steer the regulators away from branding Google Voice as a replacement for landlines, since you will still need a phone number to direct all those calls to. So does that mean Google will be the next AT&T?
Ever since the introduction of the mobile phone, there has been a shift to add more and more functionalities to mobile devices. We have reached a point where there is plenty of functionality packed into a little device such as a Blackberry or an iPhone but we have also lost something in the shift to mobile computing. The quality of the interfaces has been always dependent on your thumb size.
Now that phones are handling more and more media, the display is being recognized as lacking, and even features such as Wi-Fi connectivity are still being fought over in courts. Soon enough those compromises shall not need to be made.
Here are some of the technological breakthroughs that will help take mobile computing and smart phones to the next level. This is not a promise of flying cars and personal robots – Roombas aside – but these are technologies that are currently available, and in the future will probably play a part in enhancing the mobile computing experience.
Virtual Keyboard:
Virtual Keyboard
One of the biggest qualms people have with their phones is the QWERTY interface that is often too small and restricts typing speeds. There is a perfect solution to the problem: a Bluetooth Laser Virtual keyboard which will project a keyboard on any flat surface. The keyboard promises to deliver the same experience as a regular keyboard even down to the keystroke sounds. If the laser can pick up a gesture as a keystroke, it might be made to evolve into something more picking up on gestures such as point and click and variety of other interface options. This device will now set you back $150.00.
Isn’t it always frustrating how dumb GPS navigation systems tend to be? How disconnected and pedantic they can be when you are trying to find a place? Well the all mighty Google is once again promising the moon, and it seems like they might just be able to deliver.
Google Maps Navigation (Beta), is an internet-connected GPS navigation system that provides turn-by-turn voice guidance, voice and simple English search and up-to-date traffic information a long with many other features. The catch is that it will only be available on Android 2.0 but its completely free. So TomTom, I think this is checkmate! Or not?
I think I would buy the phone if only to use it as a GPS device.
What do you think? Would you consider buying an Android 2.0?
