Internet

StarTribune Doesn’t Get the Internet

December 24, 2011 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

Two weeks ago our print edition of the StarTribune wasn’t delivered to our house and I looked online to figure out the login info so I could use the StarTribune app on my iPad. We weren’t registered and couldn’t on their website, so was told to contact customer service.

It was 6:30am and customer service won’t open until 8am (really?) so I sent them an email. This was December 12th and I’ve had no response. That same morning I tweeted to @StarTribune and, after finally acknowledging the tweet that afternoon, asked if the situation had been resolved. I tweeted a reply that no, I’d heard nothing and their subsequent Twitter follow up was zero too.

I’m at a family member’s house Christmas eve morning and didn’t have time to read the paper so thought I’d use the app. I forgot that the StarTribune folks dropped the ball and I’m not going to chase them down on the telephone…

…and newspapers wonder why the digital generation could give a shit if they go out of business? I am in my 50′s and see them as their own worst enemy and increasingly don’t care if most of them fold either.

UPDATE 12/30/11: Just received an email from a StarTribune web developer — 18 days after connecting with them initially – and it’s resolved and I’m able to use the iPad app. While I am very appreciative of his assistance, I’m still stunned it took this long.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Internet

About Comcast’s 250GB Data Use “Cap”

December 8, 2011 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

My household's last three month data usage. We are a family of four with only three of us infrequently streaming TV (click for larger view)

Much has been written about Comcast’s 250GB data use “cap” and what it means for the future of internet-based TV. My biggest concern, expressed here in my post “Will Comcast crush internet innovation?“, is that their moves are intended solely to put up obstacles and barriers in front of any organization threatening their cable TV franchise.

Can’t blame them really. But the control they enjoy is far beyond what is reasonable. Of course, with the government pushing the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), a measure opposed by numerous organizations including virtually every major technology company in the U.S. (with the glaring exception of any wireless carrier or ISP like Comcast or Time Warner), Comcast is less likely to do anything about their data usage caps.

Based on our family use of the internet — and that our streaming music and TV is only increasing — it is highly likely that we’ll bust through that artificial data usage ceiling in 2012. Then it will be interesting to see what we are forced to do to stay in compliance (probably just pay more?).

The prospect of SOPA passing only emboldens a Comcast since their control will only accelerate. Do anything even remotely infringing under a SOPA law and Comcast could just cut off your internet account with only suspicion (and no due process) being their justification.

Like everyone implores you often, oppose this SOPA “blacklist” by standing up and pushing back. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has this simple and fast way to tell you whom to contact in Congress.

Filed Under: Internet, Media Shift, Television

Don’t Just “Allow” Permissions for Cloud Apps

September 22, 2011 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

You have to think before you click “Allow” and grant permission for your Facebook, Twitter, iPad, iPhone, Android or any other apps. If you “Allow” without at least some consideration, it is like you are allowing someone to knock on your front door at home and letting them come in to go through your drawers, open your mail, poke through your address book, look at your private photos, and turn on your computer to browse through your history and files.

This morning I received an email from a PR person pimping the new Wall Street Journal (WSJ) “social” app and encouraging me to watch their “film”. Thinking, “Hey…it’s the Wall Street Journal after all” I went to take a peek at the app, thinking it might be a new iPad or iPhone app.

It was a Facebook app. Sigh.

While many are all excited about the Facebook f8 Developers Conference starting today and articles like this one on Mashable that believes we should Prepare Yourselves: Facebook to be Profoundly Changed are coming out in droves, I still have an extremely high degree of resistance to arbitrarily opening up my accounts to any organization, even Dow Jones (parent of the WSJ).

I don’t think so.

Believe me, I’m no Luddite. In fact, as part of my work I’m constantly trolling the app space, signing up for dozens per month so as to try them out, and many I stick with for the long term (e.g., Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Delicious, et al). It’s just that I cannot, in good conscience, willingly grant permission to all of these apps, especially now that seemingly every app (especially those running on smartphones and tablets) ask for interconnected permissions.

Many provide these connections since they’re easy for the user. Take an iPhone pic with Instagram and tweet it and send the photo to Flickr. That’s convenient and powerful and I don’t worry much about Instagram. But do I really know if they can “see” my username/password in transit? Nope. It’s that way with so many other apps too.

Same thing with Google Chrome extensions. I’m often blown away when I see how many developers, many of whom are outside the U.S., deliver NPAPI extensions. Google says on that page that developers should strongly consider these security considerations with NPAPI:

Including an NPAPI plugin in your extension is dangerous because plugins have unrestricted access to the local machine. If your plugin contains a vulnerability, an attacker might be able to exploit that vulnerability to install malicious software on the user’s machine. Instead, avoid including an NPAPI plugin whenever possible.

Filed Under: Internet

Google Settles Buzz Class-Action Lawsuit

November 2, 2010 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

Just received an email from Google about the class-action lawsuit settlement regarding privacy breaches caused by the Google Buzz rollout:

Google rarely contacts Gmail users via email, but we are making an exception to let you know that we’ve reached a settlement in a lawsuit regarding Google Buzz, a service we launched within Gmail in February of this year.

Shortly after its launch, we heard from a number of people who were concerned about privacy. In addition, we were sued by a group of Buzz users and recently reached a settlement in this case.

The settlement acknowledges that we quickly changed the service to address users’ concerns. In addition, Google has committed $8.5 million to an independent fund, most of which will support organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the web. We will also do more to educate people about privacy controls specific to Buzz. The more people know about privacy online, the better their online experience will be.

Just to be clear, this is not a settlement in which people who use Gmail can file to receive compensation. Everyone in the U.S. who uses Gmail is included in the settlement, unless you personally decide to opt out before December 6, 2010. The Court will consider final approval of the agreement on January 31, 2011. This email is a summary of the settlement, and more detailed information and instructions approved by the court, including instructions about how to opt out, object, or comment, are available at http://www.BuzzClassAction.com.

——————————————————————–
This mandatory announcement was sent to all Gmail users in the United States as part of a legal settlement and was authorized by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Google Inc. | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway | Mountain View, CA 94043

What? No compensation? Dang-it…

Filed Under: Internet

Watching Tweevee: Old & New Media Use At The Same Time

March 29, 2010 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

If you’re engaged with multiple forms of media–both ‘old’ or traditional media like TV, newspapers and magazines or ‘new’ media like social networks, blogs and real time communications like Twitter–then you are probably one of a growing number of us who use both old and new simultaneously.

When I wrote the post, “MSNBCâ€™s awesome Super Tuesday primary coverage” and started off the post with “This, my friends, is the future of television” I believed it then and believe it even more now. It’s just that the connections to traditional TV weren’t exactly what I expected when using the multimedia platform delivered by the gang over at MSNBC, and that emerging technologies would make TV watching a shared experience similar to the “old days” when many of us would hang around the water cooler at work the morning after some TV event or show and commiserate about it.

The crew over at the Nielsen Company just released a new report that is revealing more about how people are watching “Tweevee” (my made up name for a combination of Twitter use and TV watching):

Americans increased their overall media usage and media multitasking according to The Nielsen Companyâ€™s latest Three Screen Report (PDF), which tracks consumption across TV, Internet and mobile phones. In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.

â€œThe rise in simultaneous use of the web and TV gives the viewer a unique on-screen and off-screen relationship with TV programming,â€ said Nielsen Company media product leader Matt Oâ€™Grady. â€œThe initial fear was that Internet and mobile video and entertainment would slowly cannibalize traditional TV viewing, but the steady trend of increased TV viewership alongside expanded simultaneous usage argues something quite different.â€

It went on to talk about DVR use (surprise…more of us are timeshifting our video use!) and then in to online video consumption:

Online video consumption is up 16% from last year. Of note, approximately 44% of all online video is being viewed in the workplace. The research shows that Americans watch network programs online when they miss an episode or when a TV is not available. Online video is used essentially like DVR and not typically a replacement for watching TV.

Active mobile video users grew by 57% from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the fourth quarter of 2009, from 11.2 million to 17.6 million. Much of this increase can be linked to the strong growth of smartphones in the marketplace.

Here’s the deal: No question in my mind that connecting socially makes it more fun to watch a live event (e.g., Academy Awards, Grammys, Super Bowl) and see what our friends are saying about it, almost like they’re in the room with us. But what’s more intriguing to me is that more of us are consuming information, connecting socially and engaging online while doing something else. Is TV too boring? Is it the ability to share with our friends and acquaintances? Are we more capable of multitasking then we thought? Maybe all or some of those, but we’re also discovering that for every hour of TV watching we do, the increase odds we’ll die go up 11%.

One this is certain though, the way we connect with others and consume media has already changed forever.

Filed Under: Internet, IPTV, Media Shift, Television

Why Wikileaks Matters

March 26, 2010 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

If you’re not paying attention to what is happening on the internet — warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, Google pulling out of China — then you should feel ashamed unless you’re an ultra-conservative who just loves to see autocratic or dictatorial governments in power doing whatever they deem necessary, regardless of the rule of law.

The reasons the framers of our US Constitution were so careful about ensuring there was a checks and balance in place with our three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial) was to thwart attempts to seize or consolidate power. The problem? The internet is creating a cross-country, cross-cultural and cross-legal platform that is causing all sorts of angst among the intelligence agencies, militaries and governmental bodies throughout the world.

But if you believe (as I do) that sunlight is the best antiseptic, it’s an imperative that there are places like Wikileaks, Cryptome and groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that are willing to stand up for transparency, freedom, justice and legality in the 21st century and be places where whistleblowers can be confident of help in bringing to light injustices, crimes against humanity or violations of our basic freedoms or privacy.

The video below is one of the best snippets I’ve seen yet on one of these organizations, Wikileaks, that is a repository for leaked information and, in my and other’s view, a key place to ensure information needing to be leaked is leaked.

These leaks are submitted by whistleblowers anywhere in the world, people that would usually be too fearful to come forward. If you don’t think leaks and whistleblowing are important, then just remember that one led Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to break the Watergate story, ultimately bringing down President Nixon and forever changing the level of trust the citizenry has in the executive branch.

Apparently there is significant surveillance and covert activities focused on shutting down Wikileaks being done by the US intelligence apparatus because of a “…a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5th” and, most likely, because Wikileaks is a thorn under the saddle of several countries, not just the USA.

If you knew that I did this, you might ask why I just donated to Wikileaks or am a consistent donor to EFF. It’s because of my deep desire to ensure that liberty, freedom, democracy and justice prevails…no matter what the cost. For all I’ve received from living in a country for which my previous generation fought and died to keep these at the forefront, it’s the least I can do for them and for my children…

…let alone for oppressed people in other countries to whom we’re increasingly connected via the internet that is making a Wikileaks possible!

Watch this video about Wikileaks and decide for yourself:

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Internet Tagged With: Wikileaks

This Kind of Guy is the Future of Education

February 25, 2010 By Steve Borsch 2 Comments

Salman Khan of KhanAcademy.org

I’m biased, but there’s no question that I fundamentally believe that the future of education is online. Talking to my daughter yesterday, a student at the University of Minnesota, she’d mentioned how dismayed she was having to take the bus to campus, walk to the one class she had that day, sit in a lecture, and then go home. “What a waste of time,” she said, “But I have to go since my prof takes attendance.” So I inquired if they streamed the lecture online. “Are you KIDDING ME!?!” she exclaimed. “Most of these professors and TA’s can barely hook up their computers!“

What you’re about to view is an excellent example of the types of teaching that are exploding on the ‘net. From Instructables to Howcast (the latter is where I learned how to fix the overflow valve on my toilet) to this young man, Salman Khan of Khan Academy, most of this sort of teaching will be pooh-poohed by traditionalists and seen as augmenting existing meatspace education in buildings.

Fortunately, people like Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen see things differently. Christensen has described the three stages of disruption, the status quo will first see disruptors like Khan as “crappy” and ignore them, then they’ll become “less crappy” and early adopters will flock to them, and when they become “good enough” is the tipping point when disruptors kill status quo industries and yes, education is an industry since they still teach using an industrial age, factory model.

Watch this six minute video (discovered via Sid Yadav) and you’ll see what I mean about what one disruptor guy is doing for math education:

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Innovation, Internet Tagged With: disruption, education, math, teaching

It’s Fun To No Longer Trust Your Eyes…Isn’t it?

February 23, 2010 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

I used to be a bit disturbed over how simple it was to manipulate photographs. Now the video/film manipulation has far outpaced that and can make whatever vision the director has possible. I’ve now watched this video ten times and I still find it delightful to see what can be done with strategically placed green screens and matching footage. My favorite parts are the walk through Red Square in Moscow, the ship on fire and the snow scene probably shot in July in L.A.

Watching this also is heightened if you have an appreciation for the challenges in matching the lighting in the scene and other environmental conditions.

What happens when fun, photorealistic 3D characters are matched with this kind of realism? Though many say we’re a long ways off from being able to faithfully recreate a human digitally, I’m not so sure that we’re closer than people think. The fun aspect still exists with many 3d photorealistic characterizations — and it’s easier to pull off believability when it’s basically a major stepup from a cartoon (e.g., Toy Story, Up, Shrek) but what happens as the creation and rendering technology gets so good that it is indistinguishable from reality?

Heavy Rain is an upcoming game that has gamers all abuzz about its photorealism and you should watch this HD trailer (you have to watch a lo-res advertisement first so hang in there) to see why there is so much excitement. Yeah, it’s awesome. OK…it’s still easy to tell it’s a game.

But for how much longer?

Filed Under: Brain/Mind, Metaverse, Virtual Worlds/Gaming Tagged With: heavy rain, ps3, startgate studios

Learning from “Little Brother”

July 13, 2009 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

littlebrother Every year my son and I go on a “Dad & Son Adventure” and this year was no exception. Though past ones have been in such places as the north shore of Lake Superior; Rapid City, SD; and New York City; for our 9th Annual Dad & Son Adventure this year we headed to Chicago to goof off and see a play.

See a play? What kind of adventure is THAT!?! As it turned out, a fun one.

Science fiction author, BoingBoing contributor and thought leader, Cory Doctorow (http://craphound.com) wrote a book called “Little Brother” which explored what happened to a boy named Marcus and a group of his friends seen as terrorists after an attack in San Francisco. The School Library Journal writes, “…he and his friends are swept up in the extralegal world of the Department of Homeland Security. After questioning that includes physical torture and psychological stress, Marcus is released, a marked man in a much darker San Francisco: a city of constant surveillance and civil-liberty forfeiture. Encouraging hackers from around the city, Marcus fights against the system while falling for one hacker in particular.”

During a discussion with my son, Alex, where we talked about internet surveillance and within which I happened to mention public key cryptography — knowing I was about to embark upon a very lengthy explanation of what that was — Alex casually said, “Oh, I know what that is…” and he went on to explain it to me! “How the heck did you learn about that?” I asked. “In Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother,” was his answer (a book which, by the way, he’s now read seven times!).

I found this so fascinating and amusing that I emailed Cory (whom I met casually at O’Reilly’s ETech a couple of years ago) to tell me the story and he emailed back, letting me know what a hoot he and his wife had as he shared the story with her. After Alex found out about our email exchange, he stated he’d email Cory too and did…and Cory emailed him back. More on that in a moment. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Gadgets & Hacks, Internet, Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness Tagged With: cory doctorow, little brother

U.S. Home Broadband Adoption Hits 63%

June 22, 2009 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

Readers of this blog are skewed toward those interested in internet and web-centric technology and services. As such, the latest findings of the Pew Research Centerâ€™s Internet & American Life Project will be of high interest.

These findings illustrate a departure from the stagnation in home high-speed adoption rates that had prevailed from December, 2007 through December, 2008. During that period, Project surveys found that home broadband penetration remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%.

The greatest growth in broadband adoption in the past year has taken place among population subgroups which have below average usage rates. Among them:

Senior citizens: Broadband usage among adults ages 65 or older grew from 19% in May, 2008 to 30% in April, 2009.
Low-income Americans: Two groups of low-income Americans saw strong broadband growth from 2008 to 2009.
- Respondents living in households whose annual household income is $20,000 or less, saw broadband adoption grow from 25% in 2008 to 35% in 2009.
- Respondents living in households whose annual incomes are between $20,000 and $30,000 annually experienced a growth in broadband penetration from 42% to 53%.

Overall, respondents reporting that they live in homes with annual household incomes below $30,000 experienced a 34% growth in home broadband adoption from 2008 to 2009.

High-school graduates: Among adults whose highest level of educational attainment is a high school degree, broadband adoption grew from 40% in 2008 to 52% in 2009.
Older baby boomers: Among adults ages 50-64, broadband usage increased from 50% in 2008 to 61% in 2009.
Rural Americans: Adults living in rural America had home high-speed usage grow from 38% in 2008 to 46% in 2009.

Population subgroups that have above average usage rates saw more modest increases during this time period.

Upper income Americans: Adults who reported annual household incomes over $75,000 had broadband adoption rate change from 84% in 2008 to 85% in 2009.
College graduates: Adults with a college degree (or more) saw their home high-speed usage grow from 79% in 2008 to 83% in 2009.

Notably, African Americans experienced their second consecutive year of broadband adoption growth that was below average.

In 2009, 46% of African Americans had broadband at home.
This compares with 43% in 2008.
In 2007, 40% of African Americans had broadband at home.

The Pew Internet Projectâ€™s April 2009 survey interviewed 2,253 Americans, with 561 interviewed on their cell phones.

As I read the report, it was clear that there is an acceleration in broadband adoption which, in my view, is being driven by a number of variables: economic downturn causing a seeking of alternatives, efficiency and cost savings; friends, family and colleagues online, many using social media, creating compelling reasons for others to connect; and a continuing growth of online services in news, information, entertainment and more.

Filed Under: Internet, Media Shift, Social Media Tagged With: collaboration, webconferencing