Scream When You’re Lost, Dear Cell Phone

Lose your cell phone? If you have a Windows Mobile cell phone and Mobile Manager, from Synchronica, the answer is easy … and ear-splitting, too.

Synchronica’s mobile-phone management product can remotely lock and wipe data from Windows-based phones as soon as their owners report the loss. Companies can also turn on the “Synchronica Scream” feature.

“On average, it takes only 30 seconds for someone to notice that their phone is missing, compared to an hour for a wallet or purse,” according to Synchronica. As a result, victims should be able to hear their phones scream out for them. Source: News.com

Personally, I need something like this for my DirecTivo remote.

Tags: Cellular, Recovery

Pinger, When You Want to "Ping" a Friend

When I first read the blurb about this, I thought it was a great idea. I use the term “to ping” someone all the time, so I thought the name was great.

What I thought this service did was send a voicemail to someone without making their phone ring. Now that would be great. Instead, you enter their email address into your Pinger account, and from your cell phone (or your browser), you can send a voicemail, which they can then listen to by either logging into the website or by calling a special number from their cell phone.

Once the call is made, Pinger gives you an audio prompt on your phone, at which point you say the name of the person you want to leave a message with. The service uses voice recognition technology from Mountain View-based Tellme to look up information on the person you’re calling.

Next, Pinger asks you to speak your message into the phone. Pinger then sends the audio message to the person’s e-mail account, where it can be listened to at their computer, and to the person’s phone. Source: MercuryNews.com

If you use less than 10 messages a month the service is free. They say that if only 3% of users pay for the service, they will make money.

As I said, a service that directly called a voicemail (somehow) and left a message (somehow) without ringing the phone … now that would be cool. Not that this isn’t cool either, but not it’s what I was looking for.

Tags: Technology, Cellular, Voicemail

Finn Wins Mobile Phone Throwing Contest

I’m sure you’ve wanted to do it occasionally. I sure have. You know, you get a phone call that really ticks you off, or else your cell phone does something that really infuriates you … you want to take it and throw it into the lake or something.

Finland has started a contest just for us … the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championship.

This year’s gold medal went to Finland’s Lassi Etelatalo, who flung a scrapped Nokia unit a forceful 89.00 meters. “I prepared by javelin throwing, I haven’t really practiced throwing mobile phones,” Etelatalo told Reuters. Source: Reuters

Interestingly, competitors could pick any phone they wanted, thus introducing another component into the competition. Would a flip-phone travel further than a candy bar phone? A heavier phone? Should you unfold the flip phone? Maybe a PDA phone?

The phones were all recycled after the event, by the way.

Tags: Recycling, Cellular, Contest

OverheardInNewYork, Tracking N.Y. City Conversations

Overheard in New York is a Web site that has become a sensation, spawned a book and inspired imitators throughout the Internet (such as Overheard in the Office, Overheard in Dublin). It still hasn’t turned a profit, however, and the book hasn’t brought in much money, according to founder and publisher Morgan Friedman.

It all began three years ago, when Friedman overheard a man telling someone on his cell phone: “You asked me how I’m doing, and I tell you — and then you bring it back to yourself. You always do that.”

“I heard that, and I thought this is so funny, and it’s also just like every single relationship I’ve ever had — someone needs to start a Web site to just capture these moments,” said Friedman, now 30. Source: SFGate

There are similar sites in other cities now, such as Nairobi, Dublin, Bucharest and Philadelphia. The New York site is the most popular though. The site sifts through the many submissions and publishes no more than 12 a day, except for Wednesday, which is one-liner day.

I can see why this is popular. For years, I’ve been reading Leah Garchik on the back page of Datebook in the S.F. Chronicle; she always has a small section called “Public Eavesdropping” with basically the same sort of content. I’ve always enjoyed that part of her column.

Tags: Internet, Technology, New York

English Soccer Players Storing Their Children’s Stem Cells

Interesting news: some leading English soccer players are storing stem cells from their own newborn babies as a potential repair kit for any own career-threatening sports injuries. This was reported in the U.K. Sunday Times newspaper.

“As a footballer, if you’re prone to injury it can mean the end of your career, so having your stem cells – a repair kit if you like – on hand makes sense.” The player is one of five who have frozen their children’s stem cells with Liverpool-based CryoGenesis International (CGI), a commercial stem cell bank. Source: Reuters

They have the money to do this, so I can’t fault them, I guess, though most of the people who are storing stem cells in the U.K. are storing them for their children, not themselves. The players, however, definitely want to keep their careers (and their money), so I can see why they’re doing this. I don’t see stem cells as being using for ACL repair or anything like that, so this to me is more hype and hope than anything else. Still with advances coming all the time, who knows?

Tags: Health, Stem Cells, Soccer, Technology, Science

Lithium-Ion Batteries in the News

With the recalls of nearly 6 million Dell and Apple Li-ion batteries, all made by Sony, the focus of attention in the battery world has sharply moved toward Li-ion batteries, how they work, and if they can be made safer.

MIT’s Technology Review has an article titled “Safer Lithium-Ion Batteries”. It describes new batteries being made by A123Systems of Watertown, MA, and Valence Technology of Austin, Texas which use a different material, iron oxide instead of cobalt oxide.

According to Yet-Ming Chiang, materials science and engineering professor at MIT and a founder of A123, the cobalt-oxide or related oxide materials typically used in lithium-ion batteries become unstable if overcharged or overheated, which can happen in the case of battery damage or a fault in the manufacturing process that leads to an internal short. The unstable materials release oxygen, oxidizing other materials in the battery, which in turn produces more heat. The cycle continues in a process called “thermal runaway,” which in some cases can lead to a violent explosion. Source: Technology Review

What’s the problem with this? The only problem is the new batteries have less capacity and less runtime. Still, with the focus on safety right now, would we be willing to give some runtime up? I sure would. If I really want long battery life now, I generally take a 2nd battery with me, and I always carry my adapter.

Tags: Technology, Mobile, Laptop, Notebook, Battery, Li-ion, Lithium-ion

Culver City’s Free Wi-Fi Now Filtered

Culver City, CA has installed a program to filter illegal content from their free wi-fi network. It’s not that big a network (10 square blocks). Apparently they were surprised when they found that some people were using their network for downloading copyrighted content.

What gets me is the analysis was done by Audible Magic using their CopySense Network Appliance program (which was what they sold Culver City).

According to reports, the program will not filter legal P2P activity (I’ve used P2P to download Linux distros, for example), but will use a database to only filter illegal downloads. Interestingly, according to Broadband Reports,

The only problem is, last we checked, the hardware is easily bested by encryption and some flavors of basic compression. The latest Bit Torrent clients, such as Azureus, have incorporated encryption to help get around the traffic shaping being done my (sic) a number of cable ISPs.

More worrisome is this just goes to show that any activity you may do on a free wi-fi network, especially one provided by the city, is subject to monitoring. Precisely why I have said you need to be careful when using open wi-fi at a coffee shop. The best thing you could do would be to use a VPN if possible.

Tags: Technology, Wi-Fi, Free, Broadband, Filter, P2P

Verizon Sends Customer Data Spreadsheet to Subscribers

It’s getting so you don’t even have to try to get sensitive data any longer. Heck, they’ll just email it to you. Earlier this week, Verizon Wireless emailed a spreadsheet file containing the names, email addresses, cell phone numbers and cell phone models of 5,000 customers to 1,800 different customers. Apparently the spreadsheet was attached to the email instead of an order form for a Bluetooth headset, which was advertised in the email.

“Verizon Wireless takes the security, confidentiality and integrity of your personal information very seriously, and we deeply regret this error,” the company said in the Thursday e-mail. It said that it has already implemented additional quality control procedures and process improvements to prevent a re-occurrence. Source: News.com

Fortunately for me I don’t have a Verizon account, but if I did, despite the limited nature of the data involved, I’d still be upset. I certainly don’t want my cell phone number getting around like that. And as James Van Dyke, principal analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research in Pleasanton, Calif., which tracks identity fraud said “To commit ID fraud, you must do several things well. This just makes the job slightly easier.”

Tags: Cellular, Security, Technology, Verizon, ID Theft

Afraid of Ending Up Like AOL Searcher 4417749? Get "Lost in The Crowd"

Unfortunately for AOL Searcher 4417749, there was enough info in AOL’s searcher data, released for 650,000 users, to be IDed by the New York Times. If you’re afraid of this happening to you, web developers at Unspam Technologies Inc. have a tool for you.

Lost In The Crowd randomly generates queries to confuse anyone who might look through future search records. Users download a search engine bookmark from Lost In The Crowd before going to the search engine and clicking on the bookmark.
Downloading the bookmark hands the Web cookie for the search engine to another computer operated by Unspam, which runs random searches on the searcher’s behalf, several times daily for up to six months. Source: TechWeb

Unspam CEO Matthew Prince said “Lost In The Crowd” took one week to develop. Here’s my question: just how much extra web traffic would be generated across the world if we all ran this?

From the image above, I haven’t quite gotten lost yet, but you can see how easy it is to stop using Lost In The Crowd if you want.

Tags: AOL, Technology, Google, Search, Security

Mini-Mods … Do They Pay?

As I was playing City of Heroes the other day (really, the only game I play … though I am finally starting to get tired of it), I started thinking about Oblivion. Don’t ask me why. Oblivion’s one of the game’s that have started selling mini-mods … things like the Horse Armor … currently you can find all of them here.

My question … will there come a day when I play some MMORPG game only to find I lose because the guy I am playing against has purchased a mini-mod I don’t have? Or else I could be playing StarCraft 2 (please!) and have the same thing, online.

I can see this as being a real cash cow for these companies, because people will be forced into buying the latest add-ons to compete. Hmmm … maybe I’d better not give them any ideas.

Tags: MMORPG, Technology, Games, Gaming