Blackberry on The Huffington Post

Apple, Android Dominate Smartphone Web Traffic

2009-11-23T11:57:30Z

When it comes to the mobile Web, increasingly there are only two mobile platforms which matter: Apple and Android. According to AdMob's October, 2009 mobile metrics report, the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android phones accounted for 75 percent of mobile Web traffic in the U.S., as measured by all the mobile ad requests it tracks.

Elissa Altman: Move Over Slow Food: Introducing Slow Media

2009-11-23T10:24:48Z

When my father died in 2002, I inherited his thousand-album music collection which ran the gamut from The Red Army Choir Plays Kalinka to a chortle-inducing bit of vinyl called Port Said, the cover of which involved a belly dancer wearing what appeared to my once very embarrassed young eyes to be pasties of a sort of Levantine variety. Over the years, Dad migrated from his prized Garrard teak-cased turntable to a Teac cassette deck to a Bose whole room CD system, and with every passing year, his beloved record collection gathered more and more dust. I finally dipped into it a few months after I lost him, extracting Moishe Oysher Sings Kol Nidre; I put it on my ancient record player, fired it up, and remarkably, it drew the attention of our cat, Neville, who planted himself in front of the speakers and refused to move until it was time to turn it over to Side B.

Most of my father's albums are still sitting in the closet in the box they were moved in, but these days, I'm seriously thinking about bringing them into the den, and housing them in a nice Danish modern credenza, much like the one they lived in when I was a child. I've been trolling eBay for a vintage Garrard turntable just like his, and if I find one, you can be certain that the next iTunes audiobook I buy won't actually be digital and won't actually be on iTunes: it will be David Sedaris's Live for Your Listening Pleasure, which Hachette is releasing on January 5th 2010.

On vinyl.

According to the New York Times:

Maja Thomas, senior vice president for digital and audio publishing at the Hachette Book Group, said she was drawn to the idea [of the format] precisely because it was quirky. Mr. Sedaris's "audience is very attuned to irony and is going to find this funny," Ms. Thomas said.

That said, the Times also reports that:

albums are enjoying something of a renaissance, posting $57 million in sales in 2008, more than double the previous year and the best for the format since 1990, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. The format is so rare for audiobooks, however, that the Audiobook Publishers Association has never even tracked its sales.

Which, among vintage-loving, Slow Media geeks may not even be the point (although it certainly is to bean counters). What is the point, exactly? The fact that there are a lot of us out there, and the grass roots reaction to universal hyperdigitization (perceived or otherwise) is omnipresent, and extends far beyond the audio world.

Consider: a close family friend ditches his 12 megapixel camera for a Leica M6 Rangefinder. Culinary anthropologists Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford shoot only film for their magnificent books. The Fountain Pen Hospital on Warren Street in Manhattan is selling a 1918 Stars and Stripes model Conklin for a little over $1000. One of my close friends, a trader in Chicago, mans his stock exchange desk with nothing but a small pad and a Bic pen. I regularly keep my eyes peeled for an Ericsson rotary Cobra phone to match the one that used to sit on the desk in my childhood living room. Letter press printing communities are emerging everywhere, creating original cards and posters in response to their mass-produced counterparts. The guitar of the minute (if you're a hipster) is not a brand new Taylor (or Martin or Gibson or Breedlove) but an old Epiphone beater that you maybe picked up at a tag sale. Serious cooks are eschewing microwaves and food processors for pressure cookers and mortar and pestles. And the only book publishers who seem, in these days of Kindles, Nooks, and Readers, to be doing passably well for themselves are low-overhead, specifically traditionalist houses who specialize in, let's see....BOOKS....meant for the long haul, printed on better paper, and produced with loving care and attention. It's like comparing McDonald's to Chez Panisse, only with flap copy and royalty rates. Food photographer/stylist Christopher Hirsheimer and editor/writer Melissa Hamilton gave a big, fat Bronx cheer to the cookbook industry, and instead, they now make their own. From scratch. Like a cake.

Sure, this whole Luddite, reactionary, writing-with-a-quill, back-to-basics thing may be an oversimplification. And admittedly, I, myself, am waiting with baited breath for the arrival of the much heralded Apple Tablet; I am changing phone plans and will be buying an iPhone in the coming weeks; I even want to wire the house with a Sonos system so that I can simultaneously hear Bach in one room and Coleman Hawkins in the other, the latter digitized by my banker friend from his father's collection of 1950s Blue Note recordings. What goes around comes around, it seems.

The fact is that new media, love it or hate it, is never about usability. That's not its point. It's usually about getting there first, and changing the media lexicon; it's about selling us, the consumer, the next big thing, which will be obsolete by the time it hits the stores so that we want the next thing after that. And after that. The only answer? Go Slow. Listen to your father's albums. Write a letter and stick a stamp on it. Make dinner from scratch. Read a book. A paper one.

I only hope that I can make Slow Media work in my house; I look forward to sitting back in my Eames knock-off lounger, sipping a cocktail, and listening to vinyl, until the meditation gong goes off on my Blackberry and tells me that I've got mail.

Jose Antonio Vargas: Unplugging -- Turn It Off! (VIDEO)

2009-11-23T07:48:17Z

We can't turn it off -- we just can't. Our relationship with our phones (BlackBerrys, iPhones, Sidekicks) have gotten so eerily co-dependent that, as the New York Times noted in a must-read story, we're solving "a problem caused by technology with more technology." Instead of simply turning the phone off, some of us go to a free site like ZoomSafer to disable our beloved cell phones. And, as if texting or talking on our phones aren't enough, some of us want to type in our cars, too -- hence the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. Thankfully, the product's seller warns: "For safety reasons, never use this product while driving." No kidding.

Because here's the biggest challenge of our hyper-kinetic, always-connected, tech-powered daily lives: Unplugging. A few weeks ago, we asked some of the biggest names in the tech and online world how they slow down. Recently, for a video for CNN.com, I spent an hour or so at Times Square in New York City -- the capital of TWW (texting while walking) -- asking people when they turn off their cell phones. "A text message is more important than my health," a 16-year-old told me. "Radiation, like, it's not gonna do that much."

Well, we've got a long way to go.

BlackBerry Bold 9700 Review: It's 'Best Blackberry To Date'

2009-11-17T15:31:41Z

Every few months RIM manages to bring to market a new BlackBerry that remedies minor flaws to the OS from previous iterations with updated hardware that's both gorgeous and functional. The Bold 9700 is no different, but the latest flagship model still isn't what it should be while managing to be the best BlackBerry to come out of Waterloo.

Craigslist BlackBerry App Coming Exclusively To RIM Phones (VIDEO)

2009-11-16T08:55:33Z

The BlackBerry app store may be trailing the iPhone and Android app market but it's got an exclusive that's sure to leave other smartphone users envious.

The official Craigslist app will soon be exclusively available to BlackBerry users.

Joseph Satto: Just Say 'No' to Your Mobile Device

2009-11-09T17:23:08Z

Recently on mySomeday, I came across a woman who planned to document a holocaust survivor's story and then did so. We featured this completed Someday on the site and interviewed her about the process.

During that interview, she said that the real moments of connection came during regular visits with her survivor, mobile technology-free. Her belief was that conversations have a life of their own. On many occasions it took time for the survivor to be comfortable enough to share a memory and a mobile device would surely have made it more difficult to stay in the flow of the conversation. Putting aside the obviously compelling subject matter, it struck me that this one woman's effort is a great reminder of the importance of preserving conditions for meaningful face-to-face exchange.

How often are you with someone at a social gathering who has one eye on you and one eye glancing furtively at a blinking red light? Either you're just not that interesting or, more likely, you've fallen victim to a whole new set of addictions: iphoneism, crackberrying, textomania. Mobile technology has made 'connectivity' easier but has made the simple ability to sustain live and meaningful exchange more difficult. Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of mobile technology. Day-to-day planning has become much easier and it's good to know that I can be reached if an emergency should arise. The question is how to balance those advantages against the somewhat trivial updates, emails and texts.

As an experiment, next time you're in a conversation, count how many times the 'ding' or blinking light of a mobile device interrupts the natural flow of that conversation. I recently did this and was a bit surprised by the sheer volume of interruptions and how each interruption is as if someone literally tapped your conversational counterpart on the shoulder.

Perhaps the answer is to occasionally treat time with family and friends like documentarians. Plan a deviceless brunch, enforce a no blackberry policy at dinner, share a coffee and tuck the iPhone away. The unencumbered face-to-face time might just allow you to really connect with the person in front of you and document the moments where they count, in your brain.

But please, whatever you do, don't forget to tweet about it! I'm sure your followers would love to hear how it went.

Obama's 9 Best Blackberry Moments (PHOTOS, POLL)

2009-11-04T08:25:28Z

President Barack Obama's Blackberry has made headlines, both before and after his election.

His Blackberry holster itself made big news (fashion "do" or major faux-pas?) and the President has rarely been seen without the device, both on the campaign trail and since taking office.

Obama hinted at his Crackberry addiction when it looked like may have to give up his device.

He told reporters, "I don't know that I'll win," then added, I'm still fighting it."

Check out the recap of the best Obama Blackberry moments in the photos below, and vote for your favorite!

Bruce Kluger: Persky on Technology

2009-11-02T01:25:53Z

I can't think of a better way to start a new week than with a good laugh.

Permit me to share a wonderful piece by legendary writer-producer-director Bill Persky on modern technology. It appears in the today's edition of USA Today.

We're Killing Communication

At 78 years old, I can authoritatively say that 'talking' isn't what it used to be

By Bill Persky

What I really wanted for my 78th birthday was a pair of pajamas, but because they're not digital, I didn't stand a chance. Instead, I was deluged with an arsenal of high-tech "communications breakthrough" gadgets: an iPhone (which I quickly renamed a "not-for-me phone"); a Kindle electronic book (which doesn't feel, smell or look like a book); and a GPS navigation device (featuring the voice of some irritating woman whom I would never allow in my car, let alone tell me how to get where I'm going).

I returned the gifts and went to Bloomingdale's to buy my pajamas. Yet what should have been a simple, two-minute transaction was interrupted as my saleslady responded to three text messages and a phone call.

I'm not losing my patience but my sanity. With the wisdom I have gained from age and experience, I have finally decided it's time for all these communications breakthroughs to take a break from breaking through, since they're no longer improving communication but actually destroying it. How? By making it easier and faster for people everywhere to be in constant contact with each other -- about nothing.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the social networking sites of which, I'm guessing, there are 375 (which probably jumped to 376 as I was typing "375"). MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yuku and any other place inhabited by teens and young singles is not a world where we seniors belong. I learned this through personal experience when my ex-wife sent me an e-mail, asking me to be her Facebook friend.

We parted amicably decades ago and have remained in casual contact since. But being her Facebook friend felt like a deeper commitment. Just what is a Facebook friend? What are the responsibilities? Are there legal implications?

With some trepidation, I opened the link and there she was, smiling out at me expectantly, with two boxes next to her picture -- "Confirm" or "Ignore." I didn't want to get involved, but how can you ignore someone who's smiling at you and wants to be your friend? I clicked "Confirm" then briefly logged on to Google to research the side effects of my new acid-reflux medication. When I returned to Facebook, my inbox was bulging with 20 more requests for my friendship, most from people who were already my friends (but apparently that isn't good enough any more).

With each "Confirm" I clicked, the number of new friends expanded, and within an hour I had more than 50 -- some of whom were apparently Facebook friends of my Facebook friends, so I couldn't reject them because my friends would think their friends weren't good enough for me. Even worse, there were three messages on my "Wall" (whatever that was) and a space in which, at that time, I was supposed to answer the question, "What are you doing right now?" I was too ashamed to tell the truth ("I'm on Facebook"), so I decided to see what some of my new "friends" were "doing right now."

My daughter was "Drying my hair." Others were "Watching a rerun of Seinfeld in my underwear," "Eating leftover lasagna," "Looking for a clean pair of socks" and "Getting a colonoscopy" (this final one sent from the fellow's BlackBerry). In that moment, I knew exactly what I was "doing right now" -- and I typed it in: "Leaving Facebook forever."

Tomorrow will bring countless technological breakthroughs, I'm sure. But, for Christmas, unless they stop you from peeing three times a night, help you remember your Social Security number, or teach you to read without your glasses, I prefer underwear.

Bill Persky is a writer-producer-director whose credits include Kate & Allie, The Dick Van Dyke Show and That Girl.

Dear President Obama: Letters of Hope From Children Across America (Beckham Publications Group, Inc.)
By Bruce Kluger and David Tabatsky
Foreword by Linda Ellerbee

Adam Hanft: What Really Scares Me This Halloween

2009-10-31T14:24:00Z

Madoff masks and vampire costumes are simply innocuous compared to the frightening stuff that's out there, every day of the year.

Today I'm scared by:

• The fact that 80% of the jobs lost in the Great Recession were held by men. We haven't even begun to contemplate the psychological and sociological impact of this on marriages, families, education, and health care.

• People in New York City who have volunteered for Michael Bloomberg's third term bid - the Mayor is spending $85 million of his own money, the most on any campaign in history - while there are so many worthy local organizations in desperate need of help.

• Of the 15 books on the New York Times bestseller list, only one, Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," is a work of serious fiction. Many weeks, the list is just tree squandering.

• Poll data that shows 44% of people believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."

• Getting Facebook friend invitations from people who campaigned for Eugene McCarthy

• The possibility that the drug wars in Mexico, and the inability of the central government to control the situation, will create our own hemispheric Pakistan.

• Emotional extremism - people feel obligated to issue paeans to Twitter, or decry it as Satan in 140 characters. We have no time or patience today for balanced consideration.

• Young doctors who leave their residencies after more than eight years of medical education and hundreds of thousands of debt, yet earn a fraction of what Wall Street pays mediocre, snotty kids graduating from fancy schools.

• The reality that I can type complete sentences on my Blackberry accurately, without looking.

• A grant structure that encourages incremental scientific research, and makes it tough for radical new ideas to get funding.

• A brand new study by Pew which found that 100% of the credit cards that the leading bank issues offer online "...continue to include practices that will be outlawed once legislation passed in May takes effect next year."

• Rapidly decaying "monotowns" in Russia, remote cities built by the Communists that represent 25 percent of the urban population and are shedding jobs so fast that they could destabilize the country.

• Clumsy regulations that can't make critical distinctions, as in today's New York Times story on small, hand-made toy manufacturers being hounded by legislation designed to address toxic imports

• The fact that only 10% of Americans can speak a second language - and that includes those who are bi-lingual to start with.

• The 32.2% of adult Americans who are obese, and the complicity of generations of food manufacturers, supermarkets, school lunch programs and fast food restaurants in this epidemic.

• A commercial I saw this morning for a company called Forex, exhorting consumers to go online and start trading currency. That's just the kind of risk-taking, dopaminic encouragement we need.

Feel free to add your own fearsome prospects.

WhipCast: Republicans Hope To 'Whip' Up Support With Blackberry App

2009-10-29T17:19:24Z

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives unveiled a free application for the Blackberry on Thursday to keep users up to date on the latest in Congress through their cellphones.

BlackBerry Storm OS 5.0 Update Released: Here's How To Get It

2009-10-26T08:09:19Z

The long-awaited firmware update for the original Verizon BlackBerry Storm 9530 has arrived, and OS 5.0 brings with it the promise of greater stability, new flick-gestures in the Storm's browser, and other usability tweaks.

BlackBerry Bold 9700: RIM's New 'Upscale' Smartphone For 'Wealthier' Buyers

2009-10-21T09:13:36Z

TORONTO (Reuters) -

Research In Motion is rolling out an updated version of its top-end BlackBerry Bold smartphone, aimed at the company's base of professional users as well as wealthier retail consumers.

Blackberry Watch: First Details Revealed (PICTURES)

2009-10-20T11:06:11Z

Finally, a James Bond gadget for the rest of us. The highly anticipated Blackberry Bluetooth watch has been sighted, and early details (and pictures!) have been revealed.

According to Crackberry, the device isn't intended to replace your Blackberry, but rather is meant to be used on those occasions when your phone is tucked away and you want to quickly check whether a message is urgent, or can wait a few minutes until you've pulled over/your friend has finished talking/you're done with dinner.

Here are some initial renderings of the product:

Some key features of the Blackberry watch, from Crackberry:

it has been designed specifically for use with BlackBerry Smartphones from the ground up - developed by a new BlackBerry-dedicated accessory company

it features an OLED screen that we hear is "big, bright and beautiful" and optimized for displaying text clearly, and thanks to OLED has solid battery life

it's designed to show you notifications and previews of messages arriving on your BlackBerry

judging by the filename of the photos as they were sent in to us, we're thinking it's going to be branded the inPulse smartwatch

The Blackberry watch isn't made by Research In Motion and is not a Blackberry-branded device. It's being manufactured by inPulse and was designed specifically for use with BlackBerry Smartphones.

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Blackberry Storm 2 Review Roundup: New Smartphone 'Isn't Our First Choice' (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

2009-10-15T08:30:09Z

*See photos and video below*

Research In Motion's Blackberry Storm 2, an upgraded version of the infamous Blackberry Storm, has been unveiled and Verizon has announced a release date of October 28, 2009.

Early reviews of the new Storm 2 suggest that it's an improvement on its predecessor, with an enhanced touchscreen -- but it doesn't look likely to displace the iPhone or other touchscreen smartphones.

CNET says,

As is, the BlackBerry Storm 2 is certainly an improvement over its predecessor, but it wouldn't be our first choice for a touch-screen smartphone.

Laptop Magazine says it's "really more like a do-over than a sequel" and TechRadar writes that the Storm 2 is "very much an improvement over the original Storm, but it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary."

Crackberry explains that the Blackberry Storm 2 is a relatively modest update on the previous model that isn't overly ambitious:

It's clear that Research in Motion's thought process here was simply to build a better BlackBerry Storm. They weren't thinking about building an iPhone killer or worrying about what Palm is up to with their Web OS or what the next wave of Android phones might look like. RIM looked at the original BlackBerry Storm, assessed where it was great, where it was good, where it was bad and where it was ugly and they fixed it.

The touch capabilities of the phone have definitely been improved, early reviews report.

The buttons at the bottom have been changed to "soft keys" (in place of physical keys), and the phone contains new SurePress technology that makes the screen more sensitive, less "wobbly", and more responsive to multitouch pressing.

PC Magazine says:

It's capable of registering two presses at the same time, such as when holding Shift while pressing a letter key. The final result: localized haptic feedback that feels natural. The screen doesn't wiggle around in its perch anymore. Going back and forth between the two Storms, I could type more accurately and more quickly on the new screen--starting from the very first sentence. You get real physical feedback. It's still a little stiff, so prepare for cramped fingers after extended typing sessions.

The phone also comes with Wi-Fi, a camera, GPS capabilities, more memory, and the newest Blackberry OS (version 5).

However, PC Magazine reports that the Storm 2 has "unimpressive Web browsing and [an] underpowered camera."

Walt Mossberg also notes that the Blackberry Storm 2 browser is still "inferior to Apple's, Google's and Palm's," but the touchscreen is big step up from the previous Storm model:

The screen now stays still when tapped, providing tactile feedback electronically instead of mechanically. This allows for faster, smoother typing.

The Washington Post on its touchscreen:

One interesting thing to note: RIM studied the way people typed on touch keyboards, and found that, while typing quickly, they often briefly held down two keys at once. The Storm 2's keyboard mimics that by having both keys respond when you press them, thus making typing faster. And of course, the keyboard has RIM's excellent SureType predictive-text entry, which facilitates speedy typing.

According to a Verizon press release, the Blackberry Storm 2 will be selling for $179.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate.

See a short video of the Blackberry Storm 2 hands on from EnGadget:

Kate Kelly: Why Our 21st Century Keyboards Retain Vestiges of the Past

2009-10-13T10:14:16Z

We punch short messages into iPhones and Blackberries and use touch typing methods to write longer missives on computer keyboards. After two to five years, these devices are all considered hopelessly out of date, yet these technological inventions employ a keyboard that was designed for reasons that were applicable to the late 19th century, and the keyboard has changed very little since then.

The design of the keyboard was patented by one of the inventors of the first typewriter, a fellow named Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer who lived in Milwaukee, who worked with his friends Samuel W. Soule and Carlos Glidden, to create a writing machine. A patent for the fellows' invention was given in 1867, but Sholes kept tinkering with the keyboard to overcome the continuing problem of the typewriter keys jamming.

In the original design, the layout was in ABC fashion, but this system wasn't working efficiently. Amos Densmore, and educator and brother of Sholes' main investor, conducted a study of letter pairings and came up with information that led Sholes to create what we now know as the QWERTY keyboard (so-called for the first 6 letters on the top row of letters on the keyboard), which was added to his patent for improvements on the typewriter in 1878.

Anyone who has ever used a manual typewriter remembers that the keys do jam occasionally, but the QWERTY layout permitted a better system for key usage, and it reduced the need for typists to stop to reach in to the machine to unjam the keys.

In 1873 the manufacturing rights to the "Sholes-Glidden Type Writer" was sold to E. Remington & Sons, and the keyboard was slightly modified by the company's mechanics. It is believed that the final design was selected because the words TYPE WRITER can be written using just one row of the keyboard, and this enabled salesmen to impress customers as they quickly pecked out "typewriter."

The original keyboard designed by Sholes lacked most punctuation marks as well as a key for zero and one. Typists were expected to use a lower case l for a one, and an uppercase O for zero. An exclamation point could be made by using a three-stroke combination involving an apostrophe, a backspace and a period. (M, C, and X were also in slightly different locations than today's keyboards.)

At the start, everyone typed via hunt-and-peck, so no one gave any thought to the convenience of the layout. The invention and certainly the popularization of touch typing came about when a Salt Lake City court stenographer by the name of Frank Edgar McGurrin started winning typing contests, which were very popular then. Through McGurrin's continued success, his touch typing method and the Remington keyboard layout he used gained in popularity.

Though the mechanics of a typewriter are long gone and we now have keyboards that instruct computer software, the original layout persists. In 1936 the Dvorak keyboard was patented by August Dvorak, and while it permits users to type approximately 400 of the most common words in the English language with one's hands still on the home keys (as opposed to QWERTY's 100 words from the home keys), two business professors, Stan Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, debunked the theory that was put forward in the 1940s and '50s that the time saved by typists using the Dvorak keyboard would more than make up for the time spent re-training typists who learned the QWERTY system. According to an article, "Typing Errors," co-authored by the professors http://http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_n2_v28/ai_18420079/?tag=content;col1, there is no new system that would realize enough cost savings to merit the use of a different keyboard. Despite the fact that "a" is under our weakest finger, and the most-used letter "e" is off the home row, people adapt, and those who are going to become fast typists will do so regardless of layout.

So here we are with a classic, "The more things change the more they stay the same..."
As you type notes on the keyboard on your Kindle, send text messages using your phone, and work at your computer, just think about the fact that the basic design was the result of the efficiency of mechanical typewriter keys more than 100 years ago. Gotta love it.

If you would like to read about oddities of our work lives of the past, send me an e-mail for a short newsletter on the topic. kkelly@katekelly.cokkelly@katekelly.comm. Put Office in the subject line.

Included is a fast fact about why people who were considering a typewriter purchase (the olden days) always tested a machine by typing "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

The End Of The Email Era

2009-10-11T21:18:12Z

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold--services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate--in ways we can only begin to imagine.

Michael Russnow: Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Laureate: Whatever Happened to Awarding for Deeds Actually Done?

2009-10-09T06:12:37Z

I am generally a supporter of Barack Obama. I voted for him and campaigned in print for his election. However, as I turned on CNN early this morning and saw the news that he'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I actually gasped in disbelief. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube videos were destined to be in overdrive, not to mention the texts on millions of BlackBerrys.

As the 2 a.m. PDT CNN commentator interviewed Norwegian experts and past Peace Laureates, just about all of them repeated the obvious: Obama was being honored for the hope of what he might accomplish as opposed to what he has actually achieved.

The Nobel Peace Committee has been accused in the past of trying to make a political statement, and perhaps, because they admire Obama and his groundbreaking presidency, in addition to his earlier anti-war statements and recent speech to the Muslim world, they are, by this action, hoping to jump start his ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why else give him the honor now? Whatever one might feel about Obama, he has not earned this singular award. Few American presidents have received it and of those who have it was bestowed after they'd been engaged in something special. Theodore Roosevelt had helped to negotiate peace in the Russo-Japanese War. Woodrow Wilson had tirelessly worked for the creation of the League of Nations -- a struggle that was blamed for causing the serious stroke he suffered, which left him disengaged in the last years of his presidency.

Jimmy Carter received the Peace Prize after he left office, but in the wake of huge achievements monitoring worldwide elections and in his efforts with Habitat for Humanity, building homes for the poor.

Former Vice President Al Gore got the prize after years of working for the environment. And whether you appreciated Henry Kissinger's getting the award it was in response to his efforts to effect a peace in the Vietnam War.

So, at the moment, I believe it is enormously premature for Obama to be getting this great tribute, which to a certain extent cheapens the prior recipients and the work all of them performed over so many years.

It is traditional for Nobel honorees to be named a long time after their achievements in the sciences and literature. Indeed, the winners announced this week in other categories performed their amazing work and discoveries decades ago. Obama's designation is akin to giving an Oscar to a young director for films we hope that he or she will produce or for a first-time published author getting a Pulitzer for a book he is destined to write some day.

The time has not yet arrived and circumstances have not yet evolved where Barack Obama is anywhere near the point where he has earned this prize. I don't blame him for this capricious action; it was the Nobel Peace Committee which committed the offense, which no doubt has Alfred Nobel thumping his head against his casket.

I only hope that President Obama takes this honor to heart to the extent that his policies and statements and deeds will someday make him deserving of this singular trophy. However, that time has not yet arrived, and I fear there will be a backlash to this announcement that may well lessen the significance this award has generally meant for well over a century.

Michael Russnow's website is www.ramproductionsinternational.com.

Meredith C. Carroll: Getting Lost in the Land of Twitter

2009-10-07T17:50:13Z

Twitter can now count me among its millions of users. Never one to miss out on a trend that involves naming rights, I actually became a registered Tweeter (Twiddle?) months ago, but didn't really know how it worked or what its purpose was (and still kind of don't) until recently.

This isn't the first time I've prematurely claimed a name online. A week before getting engaged (keeping a surprise under wraps has never been my husband's strong suit), I secured an e-mail address with my future married name. Two months before giving birth I locked one down for my daughter (she'll thank me in 12 years). I registered on Facebook about a year before I actually started using it. The souvenir Arizona license plate with my name on it that I got at the Phoenix airport 23 years ago is still in my possession (which has nothing to do with an online name, but I like my name on stuff nevertheless).

After much thought and minimal research, I finally decided to start following people on Twitter: my husband, Sarah Silverman, Michael Ian Black and Gail Collins (although I realized a few days ago that Gail hasn't Tweeted since Nov. 12, 2008, so I'm not sure she really counts).

I wanted to follow David Sedaris, but when I saw that he was following Kim Kardashian and Ricky Martin, I concluded it wasn't the David Sedaris I had in mind. Not that David Sedaris the writer is necessarily incapable of watching reality shows on E! or listening to Menudo, but if you're a fan of his, chances are you sort of hope he doesn't do either.

Lately there are other Tweeters whose pages I look at somewhat regularly, too. Like the cast of MTV's The Hills (particularly the secondary and tertiary characters). But it's really not cool to admit that, so far be it from me to officially follow them.

From the little time I've spent on Twitter, it seems that unless you're super famous, super infamous, super rich or super funny (like some guy called @S--tMyDadSays), you pretty much have to follow lots of people in order to get lots of followers. Nevertheless, I'd like to be the exception and just keep following my four people (although Gail Collins will likely be replaced soon if she doesn't Tweet anything new) and have people follow me en masse anyway even though I am none of the above.

Last Saturday I decided to follow Barack Obama after seeing he had more than 2 million followers and was following about three quarters of a million people. I figured the chances he'd follow me were quite good (one in three, I thought). But when he didn't jump on my Twitter bandwagon after a few hours I unfollowed him. It was sort of empowering to dump the leader of the free world. This must have been how France felt in 2003.

It's not entirely surprising the president didn't opt to follow me, though. Nine Tweets into my Twitter tenure, I've said nothing witty, insightful or even remotely interesting. I barely even read what I write (except to spell check, of course).

Fifteen people are currently following me. One of them is doing it just because we have the same name. Another, I'm pretty sure, is just following me so I'll click on his porn links. At least three of them don't seem to know me or update their accounts, so I suspect they're following me by accident. My husband has to follow me because that's what marriage is all about (even if the cantor never mentioned it during our wedding ceremony).

It was surprising to me that my husband signed up for Twitter and actually uses it a fair amount since he always claims to be averse to technology (although a Facebook account and a BlackBerry later, he should probably stop saying that). He has a decent Twitter following (or, more than three times as many followers as me). Not that it's a competition, of course. (But as of press time I do have 12 more Facebook friends than he does.)

What I'm really supposed to be doing on Twitter is a bit of a mystery to me. And what I think I'm supposed to be doing I don't think I should do -- after all, there's nothing more embarrassing than an ordinary Joe trying to be pithy and droll and failing. I just keep seeing things on other people's pages like TinyTwitter, Tweetie, UberTwitter, TwitterBerry and TweetGenius, and I feel like a TwitterMoron because I have no idea what any of it means.

The founder of Twitter was the subject of a New York Times piece last week about how he's made no money on the site and is just trying to build its value. I'm pretty sure that's code for he's puzzled about its purpose, too. As far as I can tell, Twitter is for people more sophisticated or popular than me, or for those who really, really want to ensure that if their tree falls in the forest, someone will read about it in 140 characters or less.

Julia Moulden: To Lake, With Love

2009-10-06T12:50:41Z

There we were, two middle-aged, Prada-clad women with great haircuts, sitting in a boardroom. Between us on the table, her Blackberry buzzed relentlessly. She ignored it, I suspect, because her mouth was hanging open. Although I'd been her number one speechwriter for many years, somehow I'd never mentioned what I do in my spare time. Clearly, because she considers me to be so completely urban, she was having trouble picturing me with dirt under my manicured fingernails.

How do I unwind? My bio says it all, "Julia kayaks as often as possible on Georgian Bay".

Georgian Bay is a place as far, far away from the work world as I can get - but is still within easy driving distance of my home. It's part of the Great Lakes, off Lake Huron. And I particularly like to paddle out of Killarney, which is the most beautiful place in the world (a claim I take quite seriously - I've added a note to my will, ensuring that my ashes will be scattered there).

What's so great about Killarney? It's beyond the reach of Blackberries and cell phones. Killarney Provincial Park is where the Group of Seven did much of their painting. It's where the skull of the earth peeks through (pink granite reaches out into the clear waters of the bay). And, even at peak season, it's far from the madding crowd.

I do confess that I have had, as my middle stepson so eloquently put it, "enough camping for my whole life!". So, these days, after putting ashore, I make use of the charmingly rustic facilities at Killarney Mountain Lodge. It's a caught in a time warp, this lodge (check out the 1960s-era Carousel Lounge). And it even has a connection to Jimmy Hoffa.

Life is slow in Killarney. I sleep a lot. Read. Eat way too much home-cooked food. Hike the La Cloche range. Sail, especially under the stars. And paddle. What I don't do is check email or voice mail, or even think too much about what's going on in the busy, busy places I've left behind.

Is it such a stretch to see a woman who loves city life as someone who's also capable of embracing the bush? It seems that this dichotomy has been part of my identity forever. Just the other day my 79-year-old mother told me that when I was a little girl she could dress me up and take me to tea parties with her friends or watch me climb trees with my brothers. Fifty-three years later, it still works for me.

Julia Moulden is on tour, talking about the New Radicals.

Soren Gordhamer: Turn That Off! What To Do If Your Partner Is "Constantly" Connected

2009-10-04T11:38:34Z

You ask a question, and he does not seem to hear it, because his attention is on his computer monitor.

You set aside quality time to spend together, but during it you notice him glance down at his phone to check his messages.

He pays attention to you for short periods, but departs anytime a call comes through on his cell.

He says he will come to bed after doing "just one more thing" on the computer, but he is consumed for hours.

He justifies his actions by claiming, "I have got work to do" but you sense that there is more to it -- that his use of technology comes from an addiction more than a real need.

If your husband (or wife) is like this, you may be living with someone in a growing population of people we may call "the constantly connected."

In some ways, it's an entirely new species, one that has arisen with the technologies of our age, significantly different than the past. The communications tools popular in past years, such as radio and TV, were often communal activities we did with others, had us in a passive role receiving information, and could be limited to one room or area of the house. The new tools of our day, cells and computers, are generally personal (we rarely use a phone or computer together with someone else), interactive (there is usually a back and forth, a giving and receiving of information), and they can easily be carried with us just about anywhere we go.

This new communication, whether it is via a cell call, text message, email, Facebook update, or Tweet, occurs almost exclusively with people not present in one's immediate environment. If your partner can limit this to work, that is one thing; it is quite another if he or she carries it home, unable or unwilling to "disconnect."

With such a person, we often feel "secondary," that as a non-digital living person standing right next to him or her, we may be nice to interact with at times yet we know that the person can (and often will) ditch us any moment technology "calls."

How, we might ask, do we better understand and engage such a constantly connected person? As a member of the club, I share my top three secrets below.

1) See His or Her Underlying Desire for Connection

What the constantly connected fear most is disconnection. However, the difficulty is that they view "connection" occurring only through technology. When online or on their cell they view themselves as "disconnected." Connection occurs through technology, not direct interaction.

Rather than fight their need to connect by saying something like, "God, you are so addicted to your stupid Blackberry," a likely more effective way is to help them see that connection can be accessed just as much off-, as it can, on-line. Rather than fight their desire to connect, help them see other ways to "connect." Follow rather than resist their need for connection.

2) Acknowledge the Need for Both Tech and Non-Tech Time

Know that there are likely times your partner really does need to be online or communicating via his or her cell. Honor this and make room for it, but then insist on "non-technology time" as well. Instead of saying, "I don't want you using our cell at home," it is likely best to offer, "Lets set aside 5pm to 6pm for doing what we need to do via our cell or computer, then turn them off for an hour and go for a walk."

It is important to stick by this. If both people bring their cells on the walk, for example, it is an invitation for interruption. It's just too tempting. Take care of whatever you need to with the gadgets, then put them away so that in the non-tech time, you can deepen your connection.

3) Make it About Something Bigger

If we asked people what they felt their true purpose in life was, few people would likely respond, "My goal is to be constantly connected all the time." Most people, if they thought about it, would say that caring for family and friends, being a good husband or wife, and finding a meaningful way to contribute to the world are much more important than any gadget.

Rather than start a discussion with, "Why can you never put your Blackberry down?" a likely better approach is to speak to their deeper purpose by saying, "Lets talk about what is truly important to us, what will matter on our deathbed, and how we can better align our life with that." This way, rather than only trying to stop a certain act, we are helping to broaden the context, so we can then put the technologies we use in their rightful context. You can then explore how these technologies can serve, rather than distract you from, this greater purpose.

Summary

As the signs say in Vegas casinos, "You must be present to win." The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote, "The greatest gift we can give another is our presence." It is only reasonable that that our partner is present for us as well as for those calling on his or her cell, and that this greater gift is adequately shared in a relationship.

***

Soren Gordhamer works with individuals and groups on living with greater mindfulness and purpose in our technology-rich age. He is the author of Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the Creative and Constantly Connected (HarperOne, 2009) and the audio series Meditations for the Constantly Connected. Website: www.sorengordhamer.com

Read more: Technology Age, Family Time, Relationships, Technology Addiction, Communication Problems, Cell-Phone-Addiction, Blackberry Addiction, Living News

Ben Jabbawy: Inside the App -- GPush

2009-09-23T20:58:43Z
The goal of any app developer is to search the iPhone's top 25 list and see his product there alongside the likes of I Am T-Pain, The Moron Test and Tetris. The problem is that with over 75,000 apps, you're twenty times more likely to get into Harvard than make the list. GPush, the app my team and I built this summer, was the first to offer push Gmail notifications to the iPhone. At its peak, GPush ranked 17th on Apple's list.

The idea for GPush came from one of our Entrepreneur-in-Residences at GreatPoint Ventures, Eli Sapir, who was considering switching back to his BlackBerry because the iPhone lacked push functionality for Gmail. Instead, we decided to let the world know that "there's an app for that." A couple of weeks later, we were incubating Tiverias Apps, and with the help of co-founders Yoni Gontownik and GreatPoint Ventures, had a working product that notified users instantly of new email that we submitted to the App Store for approval.

With 40 million iPhone users, many of whom are also Gmail users, we felt the lack of instant or push Gmail on the iPhone was creating such a stir online that surely someone would cover the story. MG Siegler, a writer for one of the leading tech blogs, TechCrunch, had posted on this issue and we contacted him after the submission. To reach the top 25, we would need a lot of positive press, much of which would now depend on MG's review. On August 8th, his review came out, and within an hour, Push Gmail was a trending topic on Twitter. I never really appreciated the beat of the Internet and the value of Twitter until I felt the uproar surrounding our creation.

Then the wait. According to Apple, 96% of apps are approved within 14 days. For weeks on end, however, the only thing we heard from Apple was that they were testing the app. If they decided to approve it, Apple said, they would notify us. In house, we constantly questioned ourselves and our product. Why wasn't push Gmail offered natively? Yahoo offers push email, as do many others. Moreover, Apple offers MobileMe, an exchange service for email, contacts, and calendar, which costs $99/year. We would undercut the instant email capabilities of MobileMe for only $1.99. As strange as it sounds, our break came when the FCC decided to investigate Apple over their rejection of the Google Voice application. Although never told explicitly, we found it curious that days after the investigation was announced, an app that enhances a Google service on an Apple product was finally approved.

The beat continued. Prior to launch day, MG wrote another article, this one focusing on the FCC investigation against Apple, and marveled at how GPush cut through the crossfire. Twitter feed on launch day read: "Worldwide link here! http://itunes.com/app/GPush http://bit.ly/mZvIS." With help from bloggers around the world and over 9,000 passionate Gmail users on our waiting list, the app was vaulted to the 17th spot for top paid apps within hours. For three days, however, we ran into some scaling issues typical of high demand product launches, and we heard about it in blog posts, Twitter feeds, and well over 7,000 user emails.

The beat rises but also declines, and the entrepreneur's role is often to control the pace.

Five weeks after launch, GPush has successfully delivered over 15 million Gmail notifications, and we now offer support for Google Voice text message and voicemail notifications. Ironic considering Apple flat out rejected the Google Voice application. We're constantly improving the service and have recently submitted our first update, which should hit the app store soon.

Next up? Our second mobile application which will integrate with Evernote's robust optical character recognition engine.

Read more: MG Siegler, Push Email, Tetris, Twitter, iTunes Store, Tiverias Apps, Gmail, Apple, Techcrunch, Mobileme, GreatPoint Ventures, Blackberry, I Am T-Pain, Itunes, Google, Push GMail, Gpush, Tahoo, Technology News

Fortune 's Stanley Bing: There's No Business Like Flu Business

2009-09-23T14:58:47Z
My friend Max is a student of the market, among other things, and is always looking for good investments, so I wasn't surprised when he sent me an article a day or two ago about the newest thing in swine flu prevention. According to Reuters:

The patents, held by VeriChip partner Receptors LLC, relate to biosensors that can detect the H1N1 and other viruses, and biological threats such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, VeriChip (CHIP.O) said in a statement.

The technology will combine with VeriChip's implantable radio frequency identification devices to develop virus triage detection systems.

Shares of VeriChip Corp (CHIP.O) tripled after the company said it had been granted an exclusive license to two patents, which will help it to develop implantable virus detection systems in humans.

This fascinated me immediately. As you know, I have for quite some time posited the inevitability that a host of products and services will one day be implanted in human wetware for purposes of convenience and efficiency. Included in this category of human improvement are, naturally, all cell phones, personal digital assistants and video/audio screens. The jawbone, for instance, would make a terrific antenna for any cellular or G3 transmissions if the proper filiment were subtly inserted beneath the skin there, and the mastoid bone behind the ear could hide a multitude of hardware-related objects and is naturally convenient to touch-based control.

In the near future, then, we are already seeing technology designed to detect and alert health care officials to the presence of swine flu in our midst. It's only a matter of time before every young MBA will be strolling down the street, hands free, chatting with his peers in the ether, reading tweets or screening home-made video on a little, implanted screen designed to pop down out of a fleshy skin above the eyebrow. How much more convenient life will be for those future digital pseudopods! Will the first volunteers for elective surgery please line up?

Read more: Cell Phones, Wetware, Implants, Future Tech, CHIP.O, Blackberry, Technology, Verichip, Swine Flu, H1n1, Technology News

Wall Street Journal To Charge For Mobile Apps

2009-09-15T16:18:06Z
NEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal plans to start charging as much as $2 a week to read its stories on BlackBerrys, iPhones and other mobile devices, expanding the newspaper's effort to become less dependent on its print edition.

The mobile fees will be imposed in the next month or two, according to Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of the Journal's owner, News Corp. Murdoch mentioned the upcoming fees Tuesday during an investor conference in New York.
Read more: Wall Street Journal, Wsj, Mobile Applications, Blackberry, Iphone, Digital Devices, iPhone Apps, Media News