Google published very interesting research on how smartphone usage effects users shopping habits. After using their smartphone to search, for example, 68% pay a visit to a business and 53% make a purchase. Retailers take note - you better have a mobile strategy…
Google Research Shows How People Use Smartphones to Help Them Buy Stuff.
Would love to see what must be one heck of a revenue hockey stick in the business plan that makes these kind of losses acceptable. Either that or they’re playing games about how they allocate costs and revenues between Online and their other units.
CHART OF THE DAY: Microsoft Keeps Burning Hundreds Of Millions Online.
Seriously, who doesn’t know Apple and the Google gaggle are kicking RIM’s butt? Late quarter cuts in guidance mean things are seriously headed in the toilet. Somehow don’t think the Playbook will save them either.
Sony has finally come clean on the full scale of the breach in the Playstation Network. It is enormous in scale and more than just an inconvenience to gamers. The hacker was able to get everything needed to launch identity theft on 70 million, yes MILLION, users. I’m in the business of enterprise IT including security and the majority of the breaches I see are the result of unpatched systems or lax administration. The breadth and depth of this baby shows the fundamental design of the Playstation Network had one, and like a whole list, of critical security flaws. Far too much information was exposed than necessary. Companies need to learn to not cut corners on the secure design of systems that store our critical information. No amount of patching will fix these kind of design flaws.
I'm glad I don't use the Playstation Network. And encourage you to do as I do - never let a merchant store your credit card info for future use. For sites that insist on storing one, such as those that do auto-renewals, I simply obtain a one time use number from my credit card company. The number has a dollar limit just enough to cover my purchase and will expire in a month which provides additional protection. Since the credit card number isn't my real number it is of little use to a hacker. To avoid the inconvenience of always having to type in my credit card info at merchants I use regularly I find 1Password to be invaluable (and it does a whole lot more to help secure your information).
Update: Personal Data of 70 Million Sony Customers Exposed in Hack.
As soon as I got my 11” MacBook Air, some months ago now, it was obvious carrying it in any of my existing backpacks or bags would look ridiculous. Rather like my 2 year old walking around in one of my shirts. I was seriously disappointed when I hit up Google to start my search for a case that would meet my requirements. They weren’t very complex: thin and sized for the 11” MBA, modest amount of padding to protect the diminutive baby, a small pocket to hold my essentials such as a 2 factor USB fob, earphones and so forth. Oh, and it had to be something a male would generally be comfortable carrying. Particularly on Etsy I found a few interesting cases but they were way too feminine in design for my taste. Most cases I found were either nothing more than a slipcase (no pocket) or were too bulky (basically small versions of a backpack). Somewhere in my digging around someone praised this Targus case and since my local BestBuy had it in stock I checked it out.
The Targus slip case is made of neoprene and sized for notebooks of up to 12”. In practice the 11” MBA has a nice snug fit along the width of this case. I was originally concerned that the height of the case was a couple inches more than that of the MBA. In practice this is actually a nice little feature as it provides a fairly secure grip (almost like a handle). The pocket is a great size. Mine contains a 2 factor USB device, two USB thumb drives, a small pad of paper, pen, earphones and my Bluetooth earpiece.
I’ve carried the case around a lot over the past few months and it shows no signs of wear. Although not as cool looking as I’d prefer (an identical case made of leather would be so much nicer) the price and functionality are fantastic. I can easily recommend it if your needs are similar to mine.
... Sarah Perez's op-ed on ReadWriteWeb pretty well sums up why I don't have any Android devices yet. They seem to perpetually be behind Apple, for my use cases (and maybe not yours), and about the time they're close Apple leaps ahead again. I've used an iPhone for several years now and, if for no other reason than a constant desire for change, would like to change platforms. The rumors regarding a new iPhone seem to point to only a modest update later this year. If so that may be enough for Android to do some major catching up and finally make me consider a change. On the other hand in the tablet space I think Apple is so far ahead I don't see anyone catching them in the next 12 months. And maybe therein lies the cause of the predicted modest update to the iPhone - Apple could be pouring the resources into rapid innovation of the iPad instead.
Consumers Don’t Want Prototypes (They Want iPads).
I live in an area where tornados and severe thunderstorms are a regular occurrence. Staying aware of these threats should be a basic part of life but used to entail either being glued to a weather broadcast on TV or constantly checking radar/warnings on a website. Sure, there are sirens outdoors but they can only be heard indoors under ideal conditions. However advances in weather radios and a new tool for iPhones provide a much better proactive notification solutions.
For homes the top solution is a Weather Radio with S.A.M.E. technology. These radios will “wake up” and sound an alarm if a threat occurs and, most importantly, allow you to specify exactly which dangerous conditions will generate the audible alarm. This is key because without it minor alarms can wake you in the middle of the night for no good reason at which point you turn it off an lose the value of having one in the first place. We’ve had one for a few years now and it has been reliable in alerting us including several times when we were unaware severe weather was a risk.
More recently I discovered an iPhone app call Weather Alert USA that does much the same thing. It costs a few dollars but is worth it since it means you will get alerts even when running errands, at a sporting event and so forth.
It’s always good to keep your eyes and ears open when weather threats are around but these tools help ensure you and your family are not caught off-guard.
Those who follow me on Twitter or FaceBook know I decided to dive into the world of Arduino recently. After a bit of studying, ordering parts, and making a few runs to RadioShack I’ve completed the prototype build of my first project. The goal is to create a multi-purpose motion detector. The key components of this build are the Arduino microcontroller, a Parallax passive infrared sensor, and a Adafruit Audio (WAV) shield with a SD card for audio storage. Arduino processors have very little memory so the SD card is essential to play sounds of any complexity or duration.
My current software manages the Infrared sensor, lights a LED when motion is detected and also plays a tone on a piezo device. The Audio shield has pretty low level hardware so the software to manipulate it is relatively complex and will take a little time to integrate. I built the Audio shield last night and tonight I integrated it with the PIR, LED and piezo and tweaked the software that senses motion and manipulates the LED and piezo. My next step will be to add the code needed to play audio from the SD card through a speaker. I suspect once I have that software mod working I will have to design more amplification than the Audio shield provides.
As far as applications for this project: well, you’ll have to wait a bit to hear about that. I’m planning to create a few postings on the Arduino resources I’ve found most useful. The photo below shows the current build with the Audio shield stacked on top of the Arduino Duo with a small breadboard for the misc parts.
…and I’m not OK with it. While I don’t think there is any huge Apple or Government conspiracy involved it is not acceptable to record this kind of information without informing the customer. Apple should be ashamed.
But do keep in mind that there are many other ways Apple or law enforcement can track your movement aside from this file and that don’t rely on any capabilities within the phone (i.e. are network side tracking mechanisms). Which also means you are trackable regardless of your phone’s brand or OS platform. If you really don’t want anyone knowing where you are you need to turn your phone off. It is the only real solution at this time. You can partly thank or blame the move to support 911 from cell phones for this situation.
Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves - O’Reilly Radar.
RockMelt showed some real potential when it launched last year. I managed to use it full time on both Mac and Windows before some of its limitations became too troublesome (mainly performance issues). A number of my friends followed the same path of adoption for a month or 2 (or 3) followed by disenchantment. RockMelt recently pushed out a major update which I had not gotten around to testing. With the release of an iPhone version I’ll probably put this pretty high on my “new toys to play with” list. Note: no more invitations required so feel free to grab it for a test drive.
Not surprisingly attacks are increasing but it continues to surprise me that industry is ignoring the threats putting our infrastructure at risk. Stuxnet opened Pandora’s box and gave those who like attacking the US a blueprint for how to create a highly effective attack. One thing I know for sure - when the attack occurs government and utilities will be “shocked” and “surprised”.
Creekside
Nice write up from RW on the Forrester report regarding best practices for Mobile App design. Well worth a read. And keep in mind today’s Mobile app best practices will migrate pretty quickly to desktop apps. Yeah, despite what you may read desktops aren’t going away any time soon.
How to Create Lovable Mobile Apps
This is serious beer…
Rick creek - because that’s what the kids throw in
Showing that hope is a very powerful driver, companies that are unprofitable at IPO outperform those that generate a profit for the first two years. Then reality comes calling and the unprofitable “dogs” head for purgatory while the profitable companies keep trucking higher.
CHART OF THE DAY: What Happens When An Unprofitable Company IPOs?
My kind of cookbook - an Arduino cookbook :)
Nice write-up at Nat Geo on using the iPad 2 for travel. The advice on battery life etc is pretty standard but the list of useful apps contains some gems that were new to me.
Not really a surprise Internet advertising rebounded from the slump or that it hit a new record but there are some standout points in the report. The most striking to me is that Email marketing revenues not only fell off a cliff but that it represents just 1% of the market. That’s good news and I’m sure we all hope it falls further :)
The biggest growth surprise was Sponsorships which were up 88%. IAB didn’t start tracking mobile advertising until last year (umm, a bit slow on that one) so there is no YoY comparison. But in 2010 it is estimated to account for about $600 Million (plus or minus a few 10s of millions).
Visit Mashable for the full story and a link to the detailed report.
Sun dappled trail ride
Only in Texas?
Clowning around
DARPA released a anti-submarine warfare simulator and is asking for the public to ….. try to track (simulated) enemy submarines. Their goal is to collect data from as many players as possible in order to see which tactics work best (and worst). Very interesting use of crowdsourcing by a normally very closed industry.
You’re free to download and use the game even if you don’t want to submit your results. I.e. you are in control over whether or not any usage info is posted back to DARPA.
DARPA | DARPA ACTUV.
We often hear how terrible the education system is in the US and certainly see the benefits of many highly intelligent and motivated immigrants from India. Hence I’m really surprised to read this rather dismal assessment of general education in India…
India Graduates Millions, but Too Few Are Fit to Hire - WSJ.com.
I can’t completely agree with this review for one simple reason: my Airport Extreme does not run hot. In fact it is quite cool even though it is installed in a small equipment cabinet.
More seriously I think the review sums up my pre-purchase thinking and after-purchase result. The Extreme has been rock solid since I installed it while providing very good performance to a mixed network of Macs, Wintels, AppleTVs, DirecTVs, iPhones etc. connected using different speeds of WiFi and Ethernet (via various hubs). It is not the most feature-rich but does everything I need and more. Administratively the main complaint I have is it isn't easy to get a list of active devices. Since that's not something I need to do often it's a feature I can easily live without.
Being a techie there are times I love to tinker and reconfigure devices but now that I have a whole family, and family of devices, constantly on the internet I simply want a router that "works" and the Extreme fits the bill perfectly.
