Increase in Wi-Fi Reliability

An article written in the Wall Street Journal recently talks about how a lot of people today are now dropping their smartphone bills and switching to a Wi-Fi only mobile strategy. When you think about going through life without a cell phone it would be completely impossible but it is now easier to go without having to deal with those pesky monthly bills. The article first breaks down how an everyday phone user was able to go about his daily routine normally by just using Wi-Fi. For 30 days he disconnected his phone and relied solely on Wi-Fi without many problems. Of course he ran into some when traveling and in buildings but it surprised him how easy it was to say connected. Today you can find Wi-Fi just about anywhere you go, from restaurants, bars, malls, train stations, or just your friend’s house with the simple ask of a password.

Using solely Wi-Fi does have its downs along with the ups. Like I said before it is not close to reliable as using 4G or any other tower based networks. You can run into many problems such as connectivity when outdoors as well as indoors, disconnecting when roaming, and not having available hotspots all of the time. The biggest risk I see if you were to commit to this strategy would be security issues. There are multiple tactics for hackers to gain your information while you are imputing usernames and passwords, using mobile banking services, accessing social media and email, as well as online shopping. One tactic that hackers are using these days is called “man-in-the-middle” attacks where they can inject themselves in between computers and modify the connections to their advantage. Another tactic is for hackers to set up rogue networks to mask themselves as legit networks to have you imputing information directly into their hands. 

Even though these risks are present people are still using public Wi-Fi networks more than ever. Verizon and AT&T put out their wireless revenue statistics recently and they have added collectively 8.8 million mainstream subscribers to their system, almost three million more than last year. The reason these numbers are on such a rise is because of the increase in hotspots that provides are supplying their customers today. Google and Apple are some of the largest supporters of this upward trend that our society is moving to today. Mainstream Apps like Google voice and imessage make it simpler to communicate over Wi-Fi. These large companies do not have a problem with these implements of communication because they know there will always be a market for who wants reliable connection. Break through companies such as iPass and Devicescape are also hopping on this bandwagon providing strings of hotspots across the country with a small fee to counter the problem of sporadic hotspots in populated areas. So do you think that we will start to see these larger cellphone carriers adapting to this trend of our increasing Wi-Fi reliability? I predict that we will see some changes to their policies in the near future.

Information Overload

I'm sick of seeing all this stuff when I go on the internet. No, really. I log on (do people say that anymore?), and I'm inundated with news about my school, my town, my friends, the world. I know what everyone cooked for dinner tonight and who went out with whom last weekend and every little detail of what the judges said to that American Idol contestant the other night. I don't even watch American Idol anymore.

It doesn't stop there. I know about every recorded instance of a dog making eye contact with a human baby ever. I'm pretty sure I know everything Albert Einstein's ever said and done (and a lot of things he hasn't said or done). I see my more politically minded Friends sharing articles about what's happening all over. I see those same Friends reminding me if I don't share their posts on my wall then I am an awful human being who probably has no business being on the internet.

This is insanity. Stop it.

It's a widely accepted fact of life that just because you can say something, it doesn't mean that you should. Unfortunately, people haven't yet realized that this truism translates to the internet. And on the internet it's even more egregious, because if you say something that shouldn't be said it's a one and done. If you post it on the internet, it lingers there for quite some time. If it gets the right kind of attention, it might even stick to the top of your news feed for a while. And as long as there are views or likes or comments, as long as we know that there is at least one person on the internet who is listening (the internet's a pretty big place. that's not hard to find), we'll keep finding creative ways to say boring things. More despicably, BuzzFeed will keep doing it with Ten New and Exciting Ways You're Bound to See Clickbait in 2015!

There's too much on the internet, but there will always be someone who is bound to find any given piece of information useful. What I find vapid and unoriginal might be comedy gold for a Mutual Friend. This makes it difficult to police what kind of content is acceptable to post on your platform. I'm not sure how to solve this problem. If we keep it strictly business, the internet loses its fun. But if we make it all dog Vines, then we won't get any work done. How many dinners a week is it acceptable to post on Instagram? These are problems I cannot solve, but hopefully we as a society will find the right balance soon.

And I hope we learn even sooner that clickbait is never okay. Ever.

Plastic Manipulation

This post was inspired by a film Plastic Paradise (by Angela Sun). The film covers many environmental issues focusing on islands covered in tons of garbage in the pacific ocean.  As horrifying as many of the images and explanations in the documentary are, none struck me as much as the responses obtained in first person from leading production representatives. One comment to a picture of a dead bird cut open to reveal large pieces of plastic and netting incited only the following response: 'well that's not good, stupid bird should know better than to eat plastic'. Worse than this (and perhaps a bit more relevant to the topics of this blog), a response to the same (and worse) images was a request that they be deleted, that they were offensive and likely falsified (earlier in the documentary that same bird was cut open in live stream for the camera, revealing a marker cap, fishing line and many bits of unrecognizable plastics). This request took me entirely off guard, that someone could request the destruction of information in the interest of monetary gain, but thinking on it further it is the basis of our society and saying it that way makes me sound like a hippie environmentalist. Information is not open, it is not sacred, it does not matter the field or the topic. Several years ago the larger companies used the internet and all forms of media they could to spread propaganda against a legislation that would prevent BPA in plastics (yeah.. don't hold receipt paper... just watch the film). Thinking further on it one can see the controversy in the internet not only of ideas but of things claimed to be fact - one or the other must be true yet both say they are.  It is a bit depressing to think on the extent to which we as consumers and users are manipulated by the goals and motives of others without our consent.

Not to sound crazy or anything but if we don't try to make a difference our new digital sabbaths will be spent wading through mounds of trash to get to the nearest oxygen distribution centers.

This film has left me with a morbid outlook on where our society is trending, not only environmentally but with regard to information delegation and manipulation. Please reply and let me know your thoughts on the matter, I am interested to know what other people feel about this (unless you agree with the 'birds are stupid' guy and then you're just wrong).

PS. Do me a favor, even if you don't want to write a long reply - for the next week or so count the number of one-use plastic items you use (bottles, bags, containers, receipts etc) and just post the number on average you use per day - is it more or less than the number of times you use an internet connected device in a day? - is it more than the number of texts or emails you write a day?

Technology and Health

      Monday morning saw me barely able to wake up. I left sick to my stomach and my head was killing me. No, I didn't get a second round of the flu or a typical college hang over ... though a hangover sounds like the closest thing to what I was feeling. No, I felt so sick because my weekend was packed with everything technological related. I watched episode after episode of Friends and an anime series that I don’t even remember the name of now. I read fanfiction late into the night. I watched TV for hours while making dinner and then eating in front of it. In short, I had an overload of electronics and was running on an average of 4-5 hours of sleep a night. What kind of weekend is it when you come out of it worse then you went in?

     Looking back over this weekend makes me sick with the amount of time I wasted glued to a screen. Sitting down to write this blog, I wanted to explore the health related problems that I faced and that millions of people face every day from tech use. 

• Like me, millions of people have sleeping problems developing from that one more episode of Friends or that one more chapter of our favorite anime. Sleeping problems cause other problems in our lives as well. Multitasking is the first to go while our diet is the next. Sleep deprivation, according the National Traffic Safety Administration causes more than 100,000 crashes, 71,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths per year! 

• Scientists from Tel Aviv University have also recently found that over exposure to cell phone use leads to oxidative stress. Basically, your risk of cancer goes up when you use your cell phone more. 

• Thinking about cell phones and health risks also has me thinking about all the oils and bacteria that reside on them and are transferred to my skin when I make phone calls. Acne is a major crisis in teenagers’ opinions and it seems cell phones are a major culprit. I also recently read an article that said your bathroom toilet seat is probably cleaner than your cell phone. That is just plain disgusting. 

• Most devices that we use give off some type of radiation which our bodies absorb. Looking into it, there is no concrete evidence to prove that it is harmful but I have a very strong feeling that cancer rates are going to be highly correlated to tech usage in the future. I shudder to think how much my technological usage has scarred me.

• Pains from using mobile devices seems to also always be on the list. I remember in high school teachers always commenting how everyone was going to get arthritis from texting or their backs were going to be crooked from always slouching at the computer. I highly doubt these tales are not going to come true.

• Sorry guys but a study (published on the US National Library of Medicine web page) recently found that computers connected to the internet through wifi decreased sperm motility and increased sperm DNA fragmentation. I wonder how children born 50 years from now will be affected by all this we are going through. 

• The same site as mentioned above also has an article published by doctors that found that people are starting to experience hearing loss from listening to music to loudly through their ear buds or headphones. In a way, I’m not surprised.

     It’s really interesting how much technology is killing us and we are enjoying it while it does. Coming back to class from this weekend will be hard since I’m so tired but actively writing down all the problems that could happen to me (not the sperm one of course though a similar study has found a similar thing with eggs and fertility in women) has motivated me to at least put down the iPad and go outside, even if its snowing and freezing. 

YouTube for Kids

Very recently, YouTube released a new app named YouTube Kids. As the name suggests, it is targeted to engage the younger audience while also playing age appropriate videos for the children. With the growing popularity of the internet and YouTube, many parents have been asking YouTube for a product like this. A YouTube spokesperson explained that the videos are highly edited, screened for content, but they will also rely on users to tag anything that is inappropriate. In addition, the app only allows users to watch videos; uploading, commenting on, and sharing videos is not a possibility on the app. Created with minimal text design it is easy enough for a toddler to use. There are four main categories of videos and YouTube will make their money through ads which are highly screened, yet aimed at children.

I think this is a great move by YouTube in order to promote more users for their site. Moreover it allows parents to worry less as it provides children with a safe place to view videos, without much worry. Perhaps the best feature for the parents is their ability to set a timer for the app, which shuts down once the time limit is reached. It is great to see such a popular company listen to the demands of the users and create something like this. While it is great publicity, and a sure money maker, YouTube still provided what the consumers wanted. I think this is an interesting point because although they are not the first website to have a kids section (Netflix offers a section for kids too), they are the first free website to do this idea. That being said many other websites do not have a need to do this as Facebook and Twitter and primarily used by adults, and there are not very many other popular video websites such as YouTube. I do believe that many other companies will start making products to focus on kids such as an iTunes section for kids or Google kids. While those are just some hypothetical suggestions, the point is that other popular sites which also have apps will follow YouTube's lead. What is interesting is that a few years ago babies and children would not have been interested in YouTube, and now they are so fascinated with it, a whole app was created with children in mind.

Why Google Is Expanding into the Internet Service Business

Last month, it was rumored that Google planned to resell existing cellphone networks. Today, Google confirmed this, announcing its plans to enter the wireless carrier market. Much like Google Fiber, this wireless service is planned to be limited in scope, and is “intended to demonstrate technical innovations that carriers could adopt.” In respond to Google Fiber being rolled out in Austin, TX, AT&T offered similarly low priced, high speed Internet services to compete with Google in Austin. Hopefully, a similar result will occur, with consumers having choices when it comes high speed wireless service at a competitive price, even if it is only in a limited area.

Google’s announcement to resell existing network bandwidth is not the first time it’s planned offer wireless service to consumers. Project Loon, which came out of Google’s experimental development lab, Google X, was announced in 2013. It’s goal, through the use of Internet connected high-altitude balloons is to offer decent Internet service at a reasonable price to users in rural areas, who do not currently have such an option. Development of the project is still under way, and is reportedly making progress. Similarly, in 2014 Google acquired Titan Aerospace, a company that was designing high-altitude, solar powered drones. Google’s Titan drones, which will soon make their first flight, is yet another promise of Google’s to offer Internet access over a wide rural area.

Why is Google expanding into the Internet business? There’s more to it than simply making a profit by selling the service. Offering a decent Internet service in rural areas allows millions of users to use the Internet in ways that were beforehand limited due to their poor connection. The idea is that if people have the option of a better connection at a cheaper price, more users will sign up, and once signed up, will use the Internet more than they had with their previous provider. And, given Google’s dominance in certain areas (search and YouTube, to name two), chances are that these consumers will be using Google services in one way or another. Since Google’s primary source of revenue is selling advertisements, more connectivity means more advertisements being served. And the more users use Google products, the more Google knows them, which means they can more efficiently target advertisements. Additionally, by providing a good Internet and data service, Google will be opening up millions of people to the smartphone market, where they can use yet another Google product: Android. Facebook has looked at providing similar services, with the same goal as Google: more people that have access to the Internet means more people that have access to our product.

Putting aside any issues or concerns that may exist with building profiles of people based around their search history, purchases, etc., I think it’s great that we’re seeing a push to offer better Internet service in both urban and rural areas, but especially in rural areas.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/03/google-talks-about-offering-its-own-cellular-service/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-confirms-plan-to-offer-wireless-service-1425308552

Smartwatches

In the early 2000’s the main focus of new technology was to make everything smaller, with the biggest focus going to cellphones. I remember back in middle school that a few friends of mine had these bizarre phones that were roughly the size of a tube of lipstick (as can be seen in the picture below), with screens so small that they could only display a few lines of text. I thought they were the coolest, but my parents never let me get one. I ended up with a basic Samsung flip phone which I thoroughly enjoyed as I had never owned a phone before and it was uncharted territory for me. But as time has progressed, the way we interact with technology has clearly changed. We now watch videos, listen to music, and surf the web on our smart phones which is something that would be impossible for these older small types of phones. So why then are companies trying to force smartwatches to us consumers as the next big thing? Is it for convenience, fashion or purely profit?

Well first off, let’s not pretend that companies like Apple wouldn't do their absolute best to sell products to us that we don’t need for ridiculous prices. Case and point, iPads. Come April of this year, they will be at it again with the release of their own smartwatch. However, people have been quite slow to jump onto the smartwatch bandwagon as only 720,000 of them were sold in 2014. One of the reasons for these slow sales can be attributed to price. The Apple watch alone is estimated to start at $350 for the base model and it will have a model that will cost upwards of $10,000 made of 18-karat gold. But the main problem I see here is that this watch requires an iPhone to pair with for full functionality.

If smartwatches do catch on with this ‘design flaw’, they will simply be for those who want the convenience of not having to take their phones out of their pockets to read a text. One legitimate feature that I can think of for these watches would be their fitness tracking capabilities. Any other type of watered down app would just look ‘gimmicky’ and would never replace what my smartphone could do in my mind. Given that the media we surround ourselves with today mainly requires large high definition screens and speakers I feel like these watches are just an aide to our phones. Most people aren't going to spend $700 on an unlocked iPhone in addition to an extra $350 minimum for a watch. That’s pushing it. If smart watches are to really catch on, I would love to see the main selling point being that they are standalone phones and not ridiculously bulky. However, as stated before, given that our media is quite demanding, this would have to be one revolutionary product with a holographic 3D display perhaps? Only time will tell.

References:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-case-against-smartwatches/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/technology/apples-new-job-selling-a-smartwatch-to-an-uninterested-public.html?ref=technology&_r=0