Stealing your Contacts < There's an App for that.

     How much do you care about privacy? What you may not consider private now, may come back to haunt you later.

It has been recently discovered that several social, productivity, convenience, and even game apps have been guilty of uploading address book data. Most of the time users aren't even aware of the share. This information may be safe at a particular company that has good "consumer privacy" thoughts and practices in place. But what about when that company is hacked? Well, for example, when the VA got hacked, thousands of highly sensitive social security numbers were exposed and an unknown amount of digital damage was done.

Say for example, you partake in a multitude of digital software markets and different minor private information is released in each separate activity... If there was private information sharing legal or illegally, all those pieces may fit firmly together to amount to a private bundle of information you may not be comfortable with sharing.

There have been several posts, articles, and even a law in California that go into more detail. The cali law doesn't quite stop the upload of personal information, it just makes the app developers let users know about it in a privacy policy that is specifically released to the user before downloading/installing the app.

So, next time you skim pass a privacy policy... keep in mind, nobody cares about your personal information more than you yourself.

Care to read on...
Seattle Article Stating Specific Apps and what they do

Appolicious Article - Focus on Apple, Google, and Blackberry

Focus on CA's Law

CNN - Mobile Privacy and Kids

LTE beats Competition

     Long Term Evolution, more commonly known as LTE, has been featured in one of my past posts. I had been comparing it to Sprint's Wimax, which had far more test locations than VZW's LTE. But now, the tortoise has beat the hair. Now... LTE takes all the headlines and is the clear winner of cellular wireless technology. So what do providers say about their own technology? AT&T and Sprint stick by their identical phrase of "Speeds up to 10x faster than 3G". Verizon boasts about 5-12 Mbps download and 2-5 Mbps upload.

Above: AT&T's coverage as of Jan. 12, 2012

Above: Sprint's coverage as of Jan. 12, 2012

Above: Verizon's coverage as of Jan. 12, 2012

Above: Verizon's northeastern coverage as of Jan. 12, 2012
     Just a quick overview of the move into 4G LTE for some of the top cellular providers. If you're due for an upgrade... Now is the time to strongly consider upgrading to a LTE capable phone, as you may find yourself regretting the decision when your friends are cruising the web in the fast lane, and you're just merging into the slow lane.

Stop US Internet Censorship

     Today, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system. This bill can pass. If it does, the Internet and free speech will never be the same. Join all of us to stop this bill.

Website Blocking

- The government can order service providers to block websites for infringing links posted by any users.

Risk of Jail for Ordinary Users

- It becomes a felony with a potential 5 year sentence to stream a copyrighted work that would cost more than $2,500 to license, even if you are a totally noncommercial user, e.g. singing a pop song on Facebook.

Chaos for the Internet

- Thousands of sites that are legal under the DMCA would face new legal threats. People trying to keep the internet more secure wouldn't be able to rely on the integrity of the DNS system.

As we all know, anything the Government gets their hands on, goes to complete shit. In the words of blogger Steve Suranovic:

"Private businesses are continually subjected to the vagaries of the market. While demand may grow steadily for long periods, unexpected shocks invariably hit from time to time. The 2008 recession is the latest episode of falling demand in a wide range of industries. The immediate effect for business is falling sales and reduced revenue. To remain in operation, businesses have no choice but to cut costs as quickly as possible. "

Just like the healthcare debate/bullshit, the government has it's own agenda, and it doesn't care about you, as an individual. This bill would do things to protect media that is stolen from motion picture companies and music labels, so it does have a good aim, although, I don't think the government should step in.

Apple doing TV Transformation

     Well, i have been predicting the change, or mutation, of the TV into what would be a TV Computer combo. Steve Jobs, according to LA Times article by David Sarno on the 25th. The article goes on to explain why Apple would get involved in such a competitive market... to improve it. If you seem confused about the improvement that could be done.

UPDATE: as of the second week of Nov. 2011, it seems XBox has beat apple to the first punch with their introduction of their controlling with your voice. They call it Kinect and it has voice recognition. As far as the software itself, I'm not sure if Microsoft developed it or some other party. The reason I said "first punch" above is because Apple has a way about perfecting things.

Verizon's LTE vs. Sprint's WiMAX

As of 8/14/2009 I wrote up this halfass post on cell phone technology... didn't like it, so I never posted. Today I'm throwing it out there as a post, old info or not, with the hopes that I will follow this with updated post, soon.

     Chances are good your familiar with the term 3G, the wireless generation. As you may know, it's not even fully nation wide. Now, 4G is attempting to squeeze in. Maybe it's the same battle such as Betamax vs. VHS, or Blue-ray vs. HD DVD. The victor becomes the standard and the flop becomes dead weight for the company who supported it. In this case it's Sprint supporting WiMAX and Verizon supporting Long Term Evolution (LTE). The difference is similar yet very different in some many respects.

As you can see the spread of WiMAX greatly overwhelms LTE currently as of this writing. (Shaded area does not mean coverage area).

Lets start with WiMAX, as it already has roots in sixteen states. It's backed by Intel Capital, Comcast, Sprint, Google, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

Now we have LTE, which just finished initial testing of 10 sites in Boston and Seattle.

Resources:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219300110&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

PACman

     Wow, Pacman online, free. Simple no strings or hassles. Quick and easy: http://www.google.com/pacman/

This made my day.

Bloom Box

     How much do you know about natural gas? How about oxygen? How about the chemical reaction when these to gases meet?

Bloom Box currently produces fuel cells for corporations and companies, and does not seem to be geared towards the average homeowner or small business yet. Largely due to the high power output of 100 kW. Their website, although nice, doesn't seem to answer all my immediate questions (Mostly upfront purchase/installation and running cost). The website does, however, provide you to a link to its facebook page and a link for residential inquiries. Keep reading for a repost of information.

The following is from Guardian.co.uk:
"The technology may be good and the product reliable. The claims at the press conference were for a technology that will eventually revolutionise power production. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are indeeed an extremely interesting way of generating small quantities of electricity for homes and offices at attractive running costs and low carbon emissions. Other developers, such as Ceres Power in the UK and Ceramic Fuel Cells in Australia/Germany, have products close to market launch and – so far – it is completely unclear whether Bloom's product is better or likely to be more attractively priced or more long-lasting.

SOFCs take a hydrocarbon fuel and split at very high temperature (perhaps 600 degrees C) into hydrogen and carbon. The carbon combines with oxygen to make CO2 and the hydrogen reacts with oxygen from air to make water. This later process causes electrons to flow through the ceramic electrolyte and generate a usable current. The crucial problem is making the cell robust, cheap and durable at the high temperatures experienced in the cell.

Ceramic Fuel Cells has numerous partnerships with large utilities around the world interested in taking its products into local markets. Its product turns about 60% of the energy value of natural gas (largely methane in the UK and Europe) into electricity, making it more efficient than all but the best combined cycle power stations. The remaining energy – residual heat – can be used to provide domestic hot water or, in theory could be used to offer space heating or energy conversion to air conditioning in summer. The carbon dioxide savings are substantial, even if grid natural gas is used. Ceramic Fuel Cells, and probably Bloom, can also use synthesis gas ('syngas') from super-heating wood in the absence of air or can even split liquid ethanol made from agricultural wastes. In theory, a SOFC can use low or zero carbon fuel and offer huge greenhouse gas savings on fossil fuel combustion. SOFCs can also be used for grid balancing. When demand is high, the grid operator will have the ability to remotely increase power output of domestic fuel cells and turn it down when the wind turbines on the hilltops are spinning fast. Ceramic Fuel Cells has successfully demonstrated this feature of its technology.

The problems with SOFCs, probably including the Bloom Box, are well known. The fuel cells burn out and have to be replaced by professional engineers. Ceramic Fuel Cells talks of the units needed to be switched every two years though the company hopes this will improve to once every four years. The cost of the units is high. Ceramic Fuel Cells has mentioned a figure of about £2,000 ($3,000+ ) for a machine that can continuously develop 2 kilowatts of electric power but I think this number is highly optimistic and the true figure is likely to be several times this level for some years to come."