ESkype from Verizon

One unfortunate consequence of my move is that I get very lousy cellphone reception in my house--a problem I never had in the previous two places I lived. Reception is best when the weather is clear (I had actually made a point of checking this before I bought the place--naturally, the weather was perfect those days).

As a result, I have been using SkypeOut--Skype's service where you can call land and cell numbers via VoIP. It's not free, but rates for domestic calls (and even most European calls) are 2.1 cents per minute. I think it works extremely well; I've been using it for all my outgoing calls for the past week and it's worked flawlessly (the only weak link is my flaky Logitech USB headset). The only drawback is that conference call systems don't recognize confirmation codes entered via the on-screen dialer. Doh!

I even tried SkypeIn, which allows land and phone lines to call my Skype. My initial foray (as Judie can tell you) was less than successful, primarily, I believe, because the headset flaked out.

It's all a work in progress, but I'm becoming sold on Internet telephony.

Rate This

If you've ever wondered how your life rated, well, here's your chance to find out. While I prefer the Siskel and Ebert "thumbs up/thumbs down" approach, I managed a 5.5.

The Real Mobile Office

Hmmm:

Ford Motor Co. says it will soon offer wireless mobile offices in its F-series pickups, an option aimed at building contractors and others who do business on the road.

A Ford F-250 Super Duty truck equipped with a mobile office is scheduled to debut Tuesday at the Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas. The annual show isn't open to the public, but it dazzles an estimated 100,000 automotive insiders with souped-up vehicles and the latest aftermarket trends and components.

My question: could you tailgate these trucks and tap into their wireless networks?

Card Sharks

A business card is now no longer a small paper rectangle with contact info, but rather a disposable multimedia device that can store up to 1 GB of audio or video.

The rCard is the size of a credit card (3.5 inches by 2 inches) and just over a tenth of an inch thick. It has its own navigation button and viewing screen and supports AVI, MPEG, MP3, WAV, Flash and Quicktime files. The battery can last for up to four continuous hours of use.

I like the idea: now I don't even have to go to meetings anymore; I can just send my card. This may be useful if only to answer the question one inevitably asks when one finds a business card in one's desk: "Who was this guy again?"

Ah, but wait 'til e-paper business cards hit the streets. Woo hoo!

Mobile Silliness

If you thought people on Segways looked dorky, check out this thing that Toyota came up with.

By the way, I will never forgive Segway for their spelling--now people think the word "segue" is spelled "segway." Grrr.

The Future Ain't What It Used to Be

Wired has some top trends for 2006. I disagree with almost all of them.

"We've done 20 years of adding functionality, and 99 percent of that functionality isn't needed," Pearson said. "There will be an enormous market over the next several years for really simple stuff."

If this were the case, Microsoft Word would be as streamlined as it was a decade ago (and even then it wasn't very). And people love their camera phones (there's no accounting for taste). And seeing how many Blackberries and Treos I saw at a recent conference in NYC, folks like the idea of not having to schlep a lot of devices around with them.

How about mapping programs that show us whether anyone we'd like to see is nearby.

No!

R.I.P. combustion engine

I don't envision this happening for at least a generation--if at all. Once the current gas crisis (if anyone even thinks of it as such anynore) ebbs, it's back to the SUVs. Yes, the 1970s gas crisis (which was much worse than what we're experiencing now) ended the age of the Lincoln Continental and those huge 1970s cars and brought about the compact car craze, but a decade after that it was huge hulking vehicles again. We all have very short memories.

Futurists have been warning about our over-consumptive, pollution- and nonbiodegradable-waste-generating ways for decades. Lately, those warnings are getting more strident

Nah, it'll take some horrible crisis to change anyone's behaviors and I suspect any changes will be short-lived.

At Last! A Laptop for Marlon Brando

Good grief:

Samsung has already shown its upcoming 19-inch laptop to CNET Reviews. The product is expected to ship later this year. Dell, a major partner of Samsung, could easily adopt the large screen format for its high-end XPS laptops. And, LG Philips is also touting its 20-inch LCD displays for laptops.

I would hesitate at calling these things "laptop" (or actually using them as laptops) unless you never want to be able to conceive or bear childen.

Department of Internet Irony

Got this e-mail message last night:

I'm unable to get an Internet connection to send report to you.
Will try again in the morning.

Think about it...

Long Time No Blog

As I was in the process of moving, I was in "e-mail blackout mode" as Internet access existed at the old location but not at the new, until Monday. I am now wired (soon to be wireless) and ready to start blogging again.

Consider yourselves warned.

MIA?

Consider yourselves lucky: I am in the process of moving this week and will be light on blogging (or so I say now). Between Thursday and Monday, e-mail access will be sporadic, as Time-Warner insists I can't be entrusted to plug in my own cable modem without parental supervision. I guess I'll have to cruise around my new neighborhood and see if anyone has an unsecured wireless network...

Walking and Talking

From the "Why Would Anyone Think Of That?" file:

Researchers at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have developed a prototype of a cell phone that uses motion sensors to record a user's walking pattern of movement, or gait. The device then periodically checks to see that it is still in the possession of its legitimate owner, by measuring the current stride and comparing it against that stored in its memory.

Some limitations, tho':

wearing high heels, suffering an injury foot and, especially, having a few drinks, are activities likely to set the device off by accident. "You would need to either turn it off before you start drinking or make sure you remember your password"

And if you wear high heels, suffer a foot injury, and have a few drinks all at the same time, the thing may just explode.

Steroid Use and Home Run Hitting

I'm not a baseball fan (but the way college football is developing this season I may decide to become one) but I came across this article from an economist that aims to demonstrate that steroid use by baseball players has not improved home run hitting. In fact:

there have been no fundamental changes in home run hitting in MLB for over 40 years.

Delivery Failure

Return Path, an e-mail marketing firm, has been tracking the deliverability statistics of opt-in e-mail blasts for several years and the numbers just don't seem to improve hugely:

Top ISPs and web-based email providers did not deliver 21 percent of permission-based emails to consumers’ inboxes during the first half of 2005, according to a new Return Path email deliverability study. In 2004, 22 percent of permission-based email was not delivered to consumers’ inboxes.

Remember: this isn't spam we're talking about, but e-mail subscriptions that people have deliberately signed up for.

Score 1 for print. Say what you want about the Post Office, but print direct mail gets delivered more than 99% of the time.

Ooh, Scary, Very Scary

...as Count Floyd would say.

I can't wait until our alarmist media gets their chops on this one (story from Ad Age): an alarmist new book touting all the scary consequences of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification, tiny electronic chips embedded in packaging and other wholesale and retail items to be used primarily for inventory management). That's right, folks: another thing to be Really Really Scared Of, for no real reason--even the title is needlessly Orwellian: Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. Honestly: does anyone think that companies have nothing better to do that track people's every movement? Think about the logistics of handling that much data. How on earth could that ever be useful? As for the government, well, they have a hard enough time tracking a big-ass hurricane approaching the Gulf States.

So what evidence does the author give for the impending Big Brother scenario?

Despite assurances that it has no current plans to track consumer behavior with RFID, P&G filed for a 2001 patent titled “Systems and Methods for Tracking Consumers in a Store Environment,” the book says.

The key words, I suppose, would be "in a store environment." Hmm. A technology for tracking consumers in a store. How terrifying. You mean store managers might actually know where in the store I am? Good! It's hard enough attracting sales help as it is.

I admit I have not read the book (I probably should but I really don't want to) but I have been following the development of RFID a bit and it doesn't sound to me like the chips are powerful enough to do all the nasty things the author asserts. Yes, some have anticipated some modest consumer-tracking applications, but it mostly has to do with inventory managenment and theft prevention, and nothing more extreme than what retailers already do with loyalty programs and discount cards. And I honestly have no real objection to Price Chopper knowing how often I buy ketchup. In fact, I wish stores did a better job of tracking my purchases--it might ensure that the things I want to buy are actually in stock. (Best Buy, for example, has the uncanny ability to determine exactly what it is that I am looking for and go to extreme lengths to ensure that they don't have it.)

But wait--we get to the end of the story:

A second edition of her book due in January links RFID to the “mark of the beast” in the Book of Revelations.

Seriously. OK, so much for credibility. (Reading the user comments on Amazon, the book's fans seem to be Apocalypse fans and the usual crowd that has the date of the Rapture on their wall calendars. Well.)

There are always downsides and unintended consequences to any technology, but lunatic books like this really don't do anyone a service. Whenever we see books or news stories touting all sorts of doomsday scenarios, there are a few things we need to immediately ask: Does the author have an agenda? Do the author's claims make sense from a technological standpoint? Do the author's claims make logical sense?

Yes, there are things out there to be scared (or at least dubious) of. But let's not blow things out of proportion--like the news story I once saw with the headline "Salad: The Silent Killer." If I may quote a Rush lyric, "The things that we fear are a weapon to be used against us."

Saw This One Coming

But then, who couldn't? CNN again:

Podcasting is on the verge of setting off a video revolution and users of Apple's new video iPod can expect a deluge of outspoken commentary, religious sermons and pornography.

Better, Faster, Ruder

From CNN:

A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70 percent questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago. The trend is noticed in large and small places alike, although more urban people -- 74 percent -- report bad manners, then do people in rural areas, 67 percent.
...
Sienkiewicz, whose job requires hours in a car, said she tries to avoid rush-hour traffic because of drivers with a me-first attitude. The most common complaint about rudeness in the poll was aggressive or reckless driving, with 91 percent citing it as the most frequent discourtesy.

I heartily concur. I think our techno-society, with it's "whatever-we-want-whenver-we-want-it," is making us a nation of obnoxious spoiled brats. And don't even get me started on the driving thing; even in the eight years that I've been driving, I've seen courtesy go wa-a-a-ay down, to the point where no one even bothers staying in their own lane anymore (even when they're not on cellphones).

If people get any worse I suppose I can take some comfort in the fact that at least thanks to the Internet I don't have to leave the house all that much anymore.

Take That!

For those who are always at a loss for what to say when called on in meetings, try the Biblical Curse Generator.

Harken, thou wayward winebibber, for you will be whipped with a thousand scorpions!

When Databases Attack

Got a very weird Amazon promotion, the likes of which I hadn't seen in a few years:

We've noticed that customers who have purchased Farscape - Season 4, Collection 2 also purchased The L Word - The Complete Second Season on DVD. For this reason, you might like to know that The L Word - The Complete Second Season will be released on October 25, 2005 on DVD.

Let's compare and contrast:

Farscape:

American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) is flung through a wormhole and comes out in the midst of an interstellar prison escape on the other side of the universe. When the galactic cops (called "Peacekeepers") mark him as the new public enemy number one, Crichton is forced to ally himself with the convicts: hulking warrior D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe), blue-skinned priest Zhaan (Virginia Hey), fugitive peacekeeper Aeryn (Claudia Black), exiled king Rygel (Jonathan Hardy), and Pilot, the giant insectlike nerve center of their living ship, Moya.

The L Word (which, I admit, I've never heard of):

Set in the chic world of Los Angeles, this humor-laced dramatic series explores the lives of a group of lesbians, their friends, family and neighbors. The series takes a smart, sexy and fun look at the hopes, dreams and lives of these people as they deal with things like career struggles, relationships and the pressures of tying [sic] to start a family.

Granted, L.A. is another planet entirely, but still...

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Now I know what to get the niece/nephew when s/he arrives. Only $12.99 from Amazon. Hours of fun! Almost as good as the toystore on 31st St. in Queens that always had, in the window, a little Fisher-Price toy called "My First Fax Machine." Creating the joyless proles of tomorrow!

Sigh

That's it; I'm going to grad school just so I can have a new alma mater to root for:

Syracuse University's feeble offense is relocating rock bottom for a football program in grim freefall.

The University of Connecticut shoved the Orange down a deepening hole with a 26-7 Big East Conference victory at rainy Rentschler Field on Friday night.

The defeat dropped Syracuse to 1-4 overall and 0-2 in the Big East. The Orange has lost three straight and six of its last eight going back to last season.