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Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

December 21, 2009

Google Nexus One Phone Rumor Round-Up

There is a rumor going around that Google is set to release its own phone in the beginning of next year. Now speculation about the Google phone has been in the rumor mill for a couple of years, but it has really picked up after Google handed their employees what seems to be THE Google phone and pictures leaked out shortly afterwards.

The phone will be called Nexus One and it will be built by HTC, the same company that manufactures the Android G1 phones.  This will be the true Google phone since unlike the G1, Google will not be responsible for the software side only but they commissioned the hardware as well. The buzz worthy piece of information here is that the phone will not be tied down to a single network and will be unlocked. Which might be a game changer for mobile phone operators if the phone becomes a hit.

For a round-up of the rumor mill be sure to check out this video from SoldierKnowsBest.

Filed under: Web News — Tags: , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 9:30 pm

December 4, 2009

Health Radar: Mobile Real Time Disease Tracking [video]

When it comes to health issues, one of the major challenges of controlling the outbreak of any disease is real time information. The internet has already proved quite pivotal in tracking the outbreak of the H1N1 (swine flu) Virus. Twitter, Google, and Wikipedia have been all excellent tools in obtaining real time information about the outbreak and this was certainly crucial in controlling the outbreaks.

The problem is that in the developing world mobile adoption far eclipses internet adoption, so a model that facilitates the real time data streams from mobile phones is certainly of interest to health officials in the developing and developed world.

The video:

This video shows the concept of how a system like that would work. Feel free to share your thoughts about this in the comment section below.

Filed under: Future of the Web — Tags: , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 9:15 pm

December 2, 2009

Is Technology Making us Cocoon Away From Society?

I can still hear it ringing in my ear every time I sit behind a computer screen “Get off that thing and go interact with Real People!”. That was my father’s reaction whenever he noticed me spending too much time on the computer. It has been more than a decade since I started growing up with the internet, and up to this day, my parents still feel that the internet makes people withdraw from society and leads them to become anti-social. That idea is not only fostered by my parents but also by a lot of people. You know what is even worse than being an internet user? To be an internet user and avid gamer!

Personally, I never bought into that argument at all, and apparently the people at PEW set out to find the truth. The results of the research have been interesting, to say the least.

Social Interaction

Social Interaction

The numbers…

People who use the internet have been found to have a more diverse network of people whom they interact with. Internet users are 55% more likely to have a discussion partner that is not part of the family. Not surprisingly either is that internet users who blog and share photos are more likely to have a confidant (people whom they trust and confide in) of a different race and tend to interact with people from across races and political lines. That’s certainly an advantage since our comfort zone is constantly challenged and hopefully not by many trolls.

[read full article >>]

Filed under: Controversial Picks — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 4:40 pm

November 19, 2009

Android, Gizmo5 & adMob: The Scary Thought of Google As My Mobile Operator

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

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?

[read full article >>]

Filed under: App Reviews, Controversial Picks, Research-Based Topics, Web News — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 4:01 pm

November 16, 2009

Does Social Media Have the Power to Deteriorate the Economy?

“More than half of office workers use sites like Twitter and Facebook for personal use during the working day, and admit wasting an average of 40 minutes a week each.

“One in three of the 1,460 office workers surveyed also said they had seen sensitive company information posted on social networking sites, leading to fears about how workers use the internet.” ~ according to The Telegraph (article linked to below)

If Twitter ‘costs British economy £1.38bn’, then how much is the total economic cost of using social media in other countries worldwide? Consequently, in the long run, does social media have the power to deteriorate the economy in general? And is social media to blame for information leakage and lack of privacy?

World Economy

World Economy

I Told You So! Or Did I?

In recent posts, I have discussed the power of social media both positively and negatively. May it be in terms of its privacy concerns, the personal safety threats it represents or its ability to motivate us to waste time, social media has been blamed for almost every mishap in our lives since Web 2.0.

However, when it comes to actual facts, figures and numbers, I highly doubt that it is a true statement that social media does have the ability to actually hurt the economy! Here is why:

  1. There WAS technology before Web 2.0 & social media; we were not living in the dark ages! Whether we used to spend hours sending e-mails, making phone calls or just sending messages via our mobile phones, there has always been a reason or a way to waste time! Before the mobile phone, there were landlines, before those, there was the television and so on so forth! [read full article >>]
Filed under: Deductions and Realizations, Web News — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Beirut @ 3:57 pm

November 6, 2009

MIT’s Social Garden: Tend to Your Relationships

“I’m the kind of guy who can’t keep a plant alive for a week, let alone a relationship” – Jerry O’Connell

Throughout our social lives on the internet, we tend to maintain many more relationships than we do in real life. Keeping all those relationships healthy and staying in touch with everyone becomes more of a chore, and sometimes it’s just hard to remember when you did what!

The Social Garden project from MIT MediaLabs comes in to help solve this problem. Using a plug-in architecture, this Mac OS software will track your interactions with each individual through emails, social networking sites, phone calls, text messages, instant messages and many other channels and tools.  Social Garden will represent each of your relationships as a plant, tracking its progress over time. The more frequent your interactions are with a person, the healthier and bigger the plant will be. This visualization maybe displayed on your computer, mobile phone or even a photo frame.

This will certainly be a fun and pleasant way to be reminded of the person you haven’t heard from in a while, if only it could understand the content of the interactions. Currently, Social Garden will only be able to track the frequency, but hopefully with an infusion of NLP (Natural Language Processing) it might be able to give a more accurate representation of the relationship.

Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of relationships you have to maintain online? Do you think Social Garden might help you? Let us hear your thoughts.

The Concept of Social Garden

The Concept of Social Garden

Filed under: App Reviews — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 5:00 pm

November 4, 2009

4 Technologies That Will Shape The Future of Mobility

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

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.

[read full article >>]

Filed under: Future of the Web — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 5:30 pm

November 3, 2009

Google Maps Navigiation for Android 2.0 is for Free [video]

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?

Filed under: Web News — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — M. Bamieh @ 9:27 pm
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