Exploring the impact of broadband and technology on our lives, our businesses, and our communities.
Color scanning pen
Another gadget from the Consumer Electronics Show that is intriguing is a pen size color scanner. I was pretty skeptical when I read about this; years ago I had a big, clunky, handheld black and white scanner that you could roll across a document. It was awful; no matter how hard you tried, you got blurry, uneven scans. It's main attribute was its price, which I think was a couple of hundred dollars, at a time when a flat bed scanner cost several thousand dollars. Nonetheless, the money was wasted.
But this little pen, which scans in high resolution, 24 bit color, may actually work if the sample scans the company provides are any indication. This scan of a letter is crisp and clear, and the scan of a black and white cartoon is also excellent.
How many times have you read something in a magazine or newspaper and thought, "I'd like to save that?" This little pen is just the right size to make that quick and easy.
Technology News:
Blogging and the incumbent power structure
A Marquette University dental student has had an expulsion reversed after the widespread publicity forced the university to back down.
The dental student foolishly made some short-tempered remarks about teachers and fellow students on his personal blog. The school responded like a three year old with a temper tantrum by kicking the student out and revoking a full scholarship.
But a local newspaper and radio station, along with bloggers, publicized the university's actions.
Aside from the irony of a university trying to censor the exchange of ideas (and everyone apparently agreed the student was foolish), it is much harder to cover up these kinds of actions today. Twenty years ago, the student might have had his budding career ruined because of a single juvenile mistake, and the university would probably have gotten away with the over the top reaction.
Like it or not, our actions are potentially subject to more scrutiny than was ever possible in the past. If your organization or business is faced with accusations (true or untrue), how you respond could become the main story. Too many organizations, like Marquette, have not adapted to the Knowledge Democracy, in which we can all be our own media outlet. Some of us have less power, and many others of us have much more power to influence events.
Technology News:
Knowledge Democracy:
Skype conference phone
When companies start making real products for some other company's service, you know something is going on. Skype is beginning to make real inroads on the VoIP marketplace, and hardware manufacturers think there is money to be made.
XING is a conference phone made expressly to work with Skype and only Skype. Niche market? Yes, but apparently big enough to actually make stuff for it.
I'm not crazy about Skype because it uses a proprietary format, rather than an open standard. But it works, and because it has a business model aimed at making money, the company can focus on quality and good service. In comparison, I tried for a couple of hours to get Free World Dialup, a free, open source VoIP service, working on my computer. I'm sure it does, but the configuration was obtuse and the directions were lousy. I couldn't figure it out, and two hours is about my limit. And if I can't figure out in that time, a lot of other people with a lot less patience probably can't either.
Skype may not be the best VoIP service technically, but it works. And like the old Betamax-VHS war, we know you don't have to be the best to win in the marketplace.
Technology News:
The memory wristband
The annual Consumer Electronics Show is in full swing, and like past years, an incredible and often amusing array of new gadgets are on display. One company has combined the craze for those rubber wristbands with a USB memory stick. I wouldn't wear one because they don't match my loafers, but I suspect they may be popular with teenagers.
Technology News:
Wisconsin mandates open source voting software
The state of Wisconsin has passed a law requiring that all software used in voting machines be open and accessible to the public. This is the right thing to do. Voting is the bedrock of a democratic republic, and how votes are tallied cannot be held close by a private company.
Voting software that is open to inspection by third party experts will be more secure and more robust than "secret" code. This approach has already been show to yield excellent results; in general, open source software like Linux, which has a worldwide group of programmers examining the code, has fewer bugs and security issues than private code like Windows.
What is unfortunate is that most electronic voting machines, most of which are less than a year old, will have to be upgraded or replaced in the next couple of years. Public officials and voting registrars failed to do their duty when purchasing these machines. A broad array of programmers and security experts warned repeatedly that the current crop of machines (two companies have captured most of the market) are insecure and vulnerable to vote-changing. The recent demonstration that votes in Diebold machines can be easily altered (North Carolina) was a wake up call to legislators.
Technology News:
Knowledge Democracy:
Economic development of the future
With a hat tip the excellent Connecting People blog, here is a link to what looks like a great new source of economic development ideas and concepts for the Knowledge Economy.
One of the great things about blogs is that the good ones are typically written by people with a passion for a particular topic, like future-oriented economic development. The short article style of blogs, coupled with the fast scanning offered by RSS feeds, gives you access to a lot of information that has already been vetted and reviewed by someone that knows more than you do about a topic outside your own area of expertise.
One of the problems I see over and over again, especially in rural communities, is a lack of information. Rumor, innuendo, and misunderstandings often get in the way of bringing focus and commitment to a problem. If more community leaders were blogging about local affairs, it would be more difficult for roadblocks to develop. Open discussion of problems is a good thing, not something to fear.
Technology News:
The wearable "computer"
The "wearable computer" crowd typically lashes together wierd looking stuff that seems to have come from a bad sci fi movie--elaborate belt packs with wires hanging off them, strange goggles with built in displays--nothing you or I would ever get near.
What's the biggest "wearable computer" in the world? It's the iPod, which was designed with attention to both form and function, rather than as a technology demonstration.
Take a look at these new "computers" that show off technology that has been under development for some time, so this is not imaginary stuff--costs and marketing have not been worked out yet, but these kinds of gadgets are coming.
Technology News:
Thirty percent of households shop online
The New York Times (registration required) has an article on the growth of online shopping during this holiday season.
Two numbers stand out: There was a 25% increase in Internet sales over last year, and about a third of all U.S. households bought something online. And L.L. Bean took more orders over the Web than over the phone, which is a watershed.
I have thought, since the early days of the BEV, and still think that local and small businesses are missing out on this boom. Many have never tried to sell anything online, and others were burned in the go-go dot-com days by the then high expense of online catalogs and the low sales rates.
Anecdotally, I see lots of small businesses doing very well on the Web when they have identified a unique product or service *and* develop a marketing strategy around it.
Economic developers ought to be doing a lot more to help local businesses grow in this area, but still see very little effort being made here.
Technology News:
NSA cookies
There is a tempest in a teapot over the National Security Agency's use of cookies on its Web site.
Let me say first that cookies can be and often are mis-used, and I routinely delete a lot of cookies left on my computer. And the NSA did use persistent cookies, which is against the Federal government's rules.
But having said that, the AP article being published almost everywhere is misleading, and perhaps intentionally so. Here is one example:
"....privacy advocates complain that cookies can also track Web surfing..."
The statement makes it sound like the NSA cookies could be used to see where you have been anywhere on the Web. There is no way to do that with cookies. They can be used to track where you have been on the NSA Web site, but that's all. It is a huge difference. Many sites do use cookies to see where you have been on their particular site. And they often use the cookies to see how often you visit their site, and so on. Companies like Google and Amazon can build extensive dossiers on you by using cookies to figure out what kind of books you like (Amazon) or what kinds of topics interest you (Google). But they can only track where you have been on their site, not on other sites. And they can only store personal information that you have typed in yourself, on some form on that site.
Here is another misleading statement:
"...NSA site created two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 - likely beyond the life of any computer in use today."
The reality is that many sites do this routinely--again, check the expiration date of the cookies Google leaves on your computer. The article tries to attach some sinister meaning to the long expiration date, but fails to provide any evidence and fails to note that many sites (millions and millions, probably) do exactly the same thing.
This site uses cookies because it makes the software a little more responsive and improves the browsing experience. No personal information is stored, and you can safely delete the cookies as often as you like. We don't use the cookies to maintain any kind of dossier on our readers, and never will. As far as I can tell, neither did the NSA.
Lots of private companies use cookies inappropriately, but the article fails to note that. In the case of the NSA, they turned the persistent cookie feature off immediately when it was pointed out to them. I think this was nothing more than a case of a Web site administrator who did not know the rules, and a lack of oversight. The rules for government sites are that cookies should be deleted automatically at the end of the browsing session, instead of leaving them on the computer. It saves a little time to be able to leave the cookie around for next time, but sites work fine without persistent cookies.
Cookies are entirely under your control. I recommend that you review your cookies regularly and delete ad-related cookies (usually obvious because 'ad' appears somewhere in the domain name), as well as Google and Amazon cookies, and any other cookies from sites that might have an incentive to create a dossier on you. Note that some sites use cookies to remember your userid/password information, so if you delete those, you will have to log in. Newspaper sites tend to use lots of cookies.
The Internet is scary only if you don't understand it, and it is unfortunate that some news organizations would rather write a lurid story than to help explain how things work.
Knowledge Democracy:
Economic Development blogging
This new blog is a great example of the potential of local blogging to enhance economic development and to educate/inform local leaders and citizens. This new Blacksburg area blog has a nice mix of job opportunities, economic development news, and leadership issues. It is just what is needed in many local areas.
To make it successful, though, most communities will also need some training sessions to teach people about blogs, RSS feeds, and how to make good use of this new communications styles. Blogs are still poorly understood, and few people, even among the young, can tell you exactly what a blog or an RSS feed is.
Every economic development authority should be running a blog and a series of RSS feeds on a variety of topics, including enterpreneurial news, local quality of life issues, retail/commercial real estate opportunities, business management, and local governance.
How about your region? Are your economic developers using this new medium to communicate more effectively? If not, why not?
Bottom line: an economic development group that is blogging and using RSS feeds sends a strong message to businesses and entrepreneurs who might be looking at the region that the community is technologically savvy and connected. It's a powerful marketing tool. If your economic developers won't do this, maybe you need some new leadership at the helm.
Technology News:
Pages
