Jordan's Daily -- Almost!: Mobile phone

Showing posts with label Mobile phone. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

The Smarter the Phone The Bigger the Genie in the Bottle

Recently politicos in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced a ban on email, text messages and web surfing from all BlackBerry smart phones in their country.

UAE placed the ban on Canadian-based Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry smart phones, because they cannot monitor email, text or web browsing, their highly regulated digital universe.

RIM is known for producing one of the most secure networks for any mobile device -- all BlackBerry information is funnelled through RIM’s own highly encrypted and secure servers, unlike Apple’s iPhone and Google-based Android smart phones, which depend on local cell phone carriers for data transfer and encryption services.

Controversy surrounding the state and freedom is nothing new – some of the greatest thinkers of our time have had clashes on their views from the state.

Copernicus faced excommunication from the Catholic Church, when he announced his discovery that the Earth wasn’t the center of the universe as was the populist thought back in the 16th century. Although he was right that the Sun was the center of the universe, and the Earth and all the planets rotated around the Sun, Copernicus was shunned by many – if BlackBerrys existed back then, his would have probably been bugged.

These days, when governments censor digital communications, they do so at the risk of turning back time on their citizens.

Just look at Google’s battle with China over censorship. Google threatened to pull out of China completely, unless the Chinese government backed off.

For most of us in North America, we couldn’t imagine a world without Google – it is the world’s largest Internet search engine.

UAE’s attempts to control BlackBerry communications are just another attempt by an overly powerful government to keep their citizens in the Dark Ages, by keeping technological genies in bottles out of the country.

Government officials in UAE claim they put the ban on the BlackBerry – which takes effect this October – because they can’t monitor email, text messages and web surfing patterns for illegal activities on it thanks to the highly secure RIM servers.

RIM says they are working with UAE officials to minimize the effects of the ban and perhaps have the ban lifted.

Saudi Arabia announced they too are also considering a ban on smart phone communications, and who knows what other dictatorships down the road may do so as well.

There is no word yet from the Chinese government on if they too are planning bans on smart phone communications, however if their recent and very public fight with Google are any indication, chances are they will jump onto the bandwagon.

The problem here isn’t just between private corporations like RIM and governments, the problem here is a global problem of epic proportions.

Yes, here in North America, and much of the Western World, we enjoy freedom of expression thanks to our open society. But isn’t it about time our world leaders took a more aggressive stand against other countries which trump their citizens freedoms?

Isn’t it about time our politicians stood up for the rights and freedoms of those who don’t have freedom to chat, text, email – essentially the freedom to think and express those thoughts?

Our digital world is making it harder and harder for political systems which rely on fear and domination – as it should. Now that we have the technology to break down these barriers, isn’t it about time our political leaders use that as a stepping stone to do just that?

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Canada’s Largest City Running Out of Numbers

According to the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) – the Canadian government department responsible for managing everything communication – Toronto will run out of phone numbers in five years.

The original Toronto area code of 416 is almost completely used up, and the newest area code for the city – 647 – only has about 2.5 million numbers left.
Canadian area codes typically have 7.5 million unique numbers.

So yesterday, the CRTC says that the Canadian Numbering Administrator – yes there is such a thing – is looking into the creation of yet another area code for the country’s largest city.

What gives?

There are about 2.5 million residents in Toronto -- 2,503,281 as of the latest 2010 Statistics Canada numbers to be official. The entire Greater Toronto Area (GTA) which includes the municipalities immediately surrounding the city (including Toronto’s population) is about 4.4 million people.

DO the math – Canadian area codes have 7.5 million numbers – wait a sec . . . the CRTC says we are running out of numbers, yet the population hasn’t met demand?

Guess some people just can’t put down their technological toys – some of us have two or more cell phones. It isn’t all that uncommon to have a cell for work and another for personal use. Some even have a different cell for their car.

Some people even have an old style cell phone and a smart phone. They keep their old phone because – well – I don’t really know – but they do – OKAY?!?!?

Why someone needs more than one personal communications device is beyond me. Unless you’re leading a double life.

That might be fun . . . or not . . .

Though we can’t blame the lone mobile phone or our new dependence on the BlackBerry and other smart phones for our overuse of the telephone system.

Many people have more than one landline-based phone at home – say a voice line and a fax line. Some people even get their teenagers their own landline, so that they never have to hear what my mom always yelled at me when I was a kid: “get off the phone!”

Offices and other businesses account for a huge toll in the telephone numbers game. According to a 2007 study at the time, there were 75,500 businesses in Toronto. Each business can have multiple numbers – so an office with a few hundred employees could have a few hundred voice numbers – or more.

And don’t forget facsimile machines. Although instant messaging and email have quickly become the dominant person-to-person communications systems thank to the Internet, most businesses still have fax capabilities. And for every fax machine, there are . . . JUNK FAXES.

It’s remarkable – and sad – that in this day of environmentalism, thoughts of greening the planet, and saving forests by using less paper, some businesses still think the best way to do business is by blasting their unwanted advertising to the masses by fax.

Some business leaders just aren’t very good leaders.

On average, most Canadians have three phone numbers – work, home and cell. So multiply 2.5 million by three, and you get 7.5 million – exactly the number of unique possible phone numbers in a Canadian area code.

Cool math.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Woman Sues Cell Phone Provider for Contributing to Divorce

Only in Canada, eh? A Toronto, Ontario, Canada woman is suing her cell phone provider, claiming her marriage fell apart because the detailed billing on her cell phone account exposed her extramarital affair.

Gabriella Nagy is seeking $600,000CDN for the alleged invasion of privacy and breach of contract, according to documents filed in the province’s superior court.

When Nagy started cheating on her hubby, her cell bill was sent directly to her. But her husband signed up for a bundled plan, and all phone bills eventually went to him, where he found his wife’s lover’s numbers.

What a load of . . . well . . . you know . . .

Not being the cheating type, I suppose I enjoy detailed billing. It helps me keep track of the numbers I call most frequently, so I can manage my calls, call time and other related expenses. It also helps in the event that something is amiss – which can always happen in our technologically driven world.

That said, the question of whether or not the wife’s privacy was breached is a good one. Everyone has a cell phone these days – even kids – though why a kid barely old enough to not play with his food needs a mobile device is beyond me.

Cell phones have become an integral part of who we are. We personalize our phones in more ways than just changing the screen saver and covers. We put our lives in our cell phones – the names, numbers, addresses and birthdays of our friends, family and colleagues. We have our appointments in our cell phones, many – including me – “sync” our phones with our computers, so our contacts, appointments and other personal info is always with us.

So in a sense, we can all put ourselves in the woman’s shoes, and feel for a certain loss of privacy if her cell phone bill got into someone else’s hands.
Does that put the breakup of the couple’s marriage squarely at the feet of the cell phone provider?

Not a chance.

Although the cell phone provider indirectly aided the husband in tracking down his wife’s lover, chances are the couple were experiencing marital problems long before he saw it on paper. Problems in the marriage must have been going on for a while, which lead to the wife’s cheating. The husband was probably already suspicious; otherwise he wouldn’t care about his wife’s cell phone use – unless she was racking up excessive amounts, which we don’t know.

Either way, the woman is simply in denial, using the leaked cell phone details as an excuse in place of the real cause of her failed marriage – the reason which led her to cheat on her hubby in the first place.

We may never know the true cause of the breakup, but chances are, it involved one thing that ironically cell phones are good for – communication.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Texting I’m All Thumbs

You know you’re old when the kid sitting next to you on the park bench is happily typing on her mobile phone with her thumbs as fast as she can talk, meanwhile, you are struggling typing “Hi” using every finger possible.

“How many messages have you sent?” I ask the kid as I continue to struggle with my “thumbing.”

“Fifteen,” she says, not even breaking her concentration as she continues texting.

Even in the office, I am starting to feel like an out dated paper weight, as I watch the new generation on the corporate ladder text their way to the top. In meetings, I see these new young people sitting off on the corner of the table, thumbs moving so fast you can see the motion blur.

“One meeting,” I interrupt.

“Uh?” they scoff.

“May we have one meeting, PLEASE?” I scold, as I sternly tell the new kid in the office to stop texting and pay attention.

That’s another thing – attention spans just don’t exist anymore, everyone under thirty these days seems to pre-occupied with their digital devices.

Evrythn is shortened thse dys. SO even if I were to take away the kid’s BlackBerry, I’d never understand what was on it.

The short forms used for texting help the kid thumb her messages lightening quick, but a side effect is she talks the way she texts, so half the time when you talk to her, you haven’t a clue what she just said.

I wonder if scientists have come up with a long horrible sounding phrase for that condition?

If they aren’t texting a friend, tweeting their latest thought on Twitter, chatting on Facebook, then they are fiddling with their MP3 music player, or they are watching a video on their mobile device, or they are shooting a “pic” to send to their buddies.

With their heads constantly buried in their electronic gadgets, it’s a wonder they can see where they are going.

I swear the new kid never looks up from her BlackBerry.

Whatever happened to the old days, when people used to actually talk to each other face-to-face? Those were the days, when you could actually see how the team was doing, instead of being texted emoticons – punctuation marks combined together to graphically represent emotions.

Since when did :) replace a smile?

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Have We Lost that Caring Feeling?

In both Canada and America’s largest cities, on two separate incidents over the weekend, innocent people were left struggling for their lives in public, yet passersby didn’t bother to help. One even took a cell phone photo, and just kept walking.

Last Saturday, a 79-year-old man was robbed by two young men on a busy subway car in Toronto, Canada. He says he called out to those around him on the half-full car for help, but everyone simply ignored him. All he wanted was for someone to press the emergency yellow alarm tape which would have alerted authorities that there was trouble in that subway car, but instead everyone just sat and watched as he struggled with two younger men.

The senior citizen chased after the two thugs, but they got away with his wallet. All the man had to show for his efforts, was a small cut on his nose.

Then the next day in New York City, USA a man went to help a person who was getting mugged. The Good Samaritan was stabbed, and fell to the ground bleeding. Security video shows at least 25 people passing by – one even stopped to take a picture with his cell phone – but no one called 9-1-1 or offered to help the man.

About 30-minutes later, firefighters arrived only to pronounce the man dead – when all he did was try to help a now long gone victim.

If you saw someone in trouble, would you stop to render assistance?
It is easy to say “yes” when asked, but would you really do so if actually facing a life and death situation?

Or would you just stop to watch, snap a few photos for YouTube, and then go about your own business?

It’s a tough call to make – by offering assistance, you could put your own life on the line. But by ignoring the situation completely, you are being heartless, cold and uncaring.

Not to even call 9-1-1 or your local emergency number is ruthless – in most places calling 9-1-1 doesn’t cost anything, so you won’t use up valuable air time.

Perhaps we have become too desensitized to everything, thanks in part to movies and television where violence just happens to be routine? Or maybe we’ve become too fearful of being sued if the aid we render isn’t perfect, in our sue-happy society? Or maybe, we’ve just lost that caring feeling?

You know that feeling you get when you see someone in need, and you feel compelled to stop and help?

Or, maybe you don’t.

Friday, January 22, 2010

End of Snail Mail – Not Quite

Despite the increase in electronic forms of communications over the years, the price of so-called “snail mail” continues to rise in Canada and around the world.

Earlier this week, Canada Post raised increased the price for sending a first-class letter within Canada from 54 cents to 57 cents. Letters to our neighbours in the United States now cost a whole dollar (an increase of two-cents) and all other letters from Canada to any other country on Earth now cost an additional five-cents, for a price of $1.70.

Usually the free market determines the costs of goods and services within that market – so in theory, you’d expect the costs of sending physical letters to drop, as everyone – even the youngest of children – use more immediate forms of communications, such as email, instant message, chat rooms, even posting a comment or question on a publicly available Internet forum is faster than the postie.

Ah the postie – traditional Canadian lingo for the man or woman that drudges through the rain, snow, sleet and hail to deliver our letter mail.

Posties are a dying breed in a nation which was in large part built by ‘em. Back in the 1980’s, long before everyone except that creepy uncle no one wants to talk about but does had a computer in their home, the nation’s postal service, Canada Post, introduced something they called “the super mailbox.”

As Canadian cities, towns and villages continued burst beyond their borders, there simply weren’t enough men and women around to deliver the mail. So Canada Post created these giant “super” mail boxes – big honking metal containers housing several independently locked mail boxes, each one belonging to all the residents or businesses on a specific street or set of streets. Now, one letter carrier would simply go to the super mailbox, unlock the back, and put each letter in the appropriate slot for the person or persons named on the letter.

To check your mail, you merely wander up to this mammoth mailbox, unlock your specific slot on the mailbox with your key, and grab your mail.

These super mailboxes began popping up in new residential and business areas from the 1980’s on. The only place letter carriers deliver door-to-door anymore in Canada, are those areas which always had door-to-door delivery, long before the super mailboxes came to be.

But one would expect that even those areas may one day be subjected to the super mailboxes, as technological communications further entrenches itself into our already very wired lives.

Not so according to Canada Post – hence their reasoning for raising the costs to send letter mail. The Canadian Federal government owned postal service says it delivers to about 15 million addresses across the country, with an additional 200, 000 addresses added every year. The government owned company says its mail processing equipment has been stretched beyond capacity, so the additional funds from the rates increases will offset the costs of bolstering its ability to keep up with demand.

The lone facsimile machine has almost completely died a slow death, as it is quicker and easier to just attach your documents to an email message, and click send. You can even send that document via instant message depending on the program, and if that’s not an option, and if you know the person well, you can even send documents directly to their computer over a peer-to-peer application, which lets you connect to someone else’s computer directly over the Internet.
With all the electronic forms of communication becoming more mobile-friendly, you can not only send and receive emails from most mobile devices (like cell phones and smart phones) but you can often send and receive documents, view presentations, and more.

The one thing electronic communications hasn’t replaced, is where documents have to be the original, authentic, or legal forms, with actual signatures. Until that happens, I suppose we’ll still need posties and super mailboxes to deliver our mail.

That, and for all those items we order online on places like eBay and other online stores. Until they figure out a way to send me my new network hard drive electronically, or that cool LCD high-def television – we’ll still need someone to deliver it right to our front doors.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Texting While Driving -- Unbelievable

Canada’s largest province, Ontario, has officially banned talking and texting while driving. Effective this past Monday, the new law allows police to charge drivers fines up to $500 for yacking, texting, or surfing the net any mobile device.

Headsets are allowed provided they are truly hands-free, and you can still use your hands for dialing the emergency number 9-1-1 while driving.

It still amazes me that anyone would try typing out a text message while driving.
Talking on the phone – although distracting – isn’t nearly as dangerous as trying to text someone while behind the wheel.

I couldn’t imagine anyone actually taking their hands, eyes, and mind off the road long enough to type out a text message.

Image via Wikipedia

Until I saw someone actually doing it, that is.

Ironic, the weekend before the new law prohibiting drivers from texting while driving, I see some young kid weaving in and out of traffic, all while texting.

Not to stereotype – though if the lead foot fits – it was a young Asian kid in a supped-up purple and black sports car. It even had those funky purple lights underneath the car – why anyone needs those is beyond me – maybe they hope it will distract other drivers from their poor driving abilities?

This kid – probably in his early twenties, if that – was weaving in and out of lanes, passing cars like he were in the Indy 500. He stopped at a traffic light, and I looked over at him, he was talking on one cell phone, while typing something on the keypad of another.

It’s bad enough to be on one phone, but to be using two, and driving like a maniac too boot – I hope the cops caught up with this racer, and took away his purple and black car with the purple lights underneath.

Since then, I’ve seen others texting while driving – perhaps I was more aware of these people since my run-in with the purple speed demon earlier. Saw another young person, texting while driving. She wasn’t racing in and out of traffic, but she wasn’t watching where she was going. She almost ran a red light, stopping very suddenly, all because she was too busy sending text messages on her phone.

Image via Wikipedia

I know the laws in Ontario are new, but I don’t think the fines are large enough to punish those that text and talk on their mobile devices while driving.

Talking, texting, or surfing the net while on a mobile device while driving – is only different from drinking and driving in that one is chemical reaction on our biological systems, the other is just plain stupidity. Well, come to think about it, both are stupid things to do.

Far worse, you are in your right frame of mind for the most part, while using a mobile device – so you should be able to think first about the consequences of using that mobile device while driving. You should be well aware of the dangers involved. Or those dangers should become all the more evident as you attempt to talk, text or surf while driving, causing you to stop using the mobile device, or the car, or both.

Those caught using a mobile device without a hands-free set while driving shouldn’t be fined – they should be removed from the road right away.

Just as in many jurisdictions, if you have a high quantity of alcohol in your system, the police can legally confiscate your vehicle, they should do the same for those found talking, typing, or surfing on their mobile devices while behind the wheel.

If we took away a person’s license, and impounded their vehicles for this dangerous driving, then fewer people would do it, and those that did, won’t ever do it again.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Talk Time Not Drive Time

Canada’s largest province is going hands-free – sort of.

Drivers in Ontario, Canada, will face fines up to $500CDN if they watch, listen, text, type, email, dial, or talk on any hand-held device while driving. This ban includes all cell phones, smart phones, portable video games and DVD players.

The ban on using hand-held devices takes effect Oct. 26, but begins with a gradual three-month public education grace period, where offenders will be sternly warned, but not fined. Repeat offenders may not only be fined, but could also be charged with additional infractions, such as careless driving, which adds more fines, lost demerit points, and the possibility of being tossed in jail.

Hands-free devices are not included in the ban. However, the province doesn’t condone their use, saying drivers need their full attention focused on the operation of their vehicles.

Bravo Queen’s Park – the province’s legislative assembly -- for taking the right steps towards protecting us all.

Image via Wikipedia

Over 50 countries already have banned yacking on your cell phone (or other mobile device) while driving, because statistics show an increase in accidents involving those on these communication marvels. Other jurisdictions which have banned using hand-held devices while driving include Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, and California and New York states in the U.S.A.

A study by the VirginiaTech Transportation Institute says truck drivers are 23 times more likely to have a crash if they are sending a text message, when compared to drivers not “texting.” The study also found that “texting” took a driver’s focus off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds – that’s enough time to travel the length of a football field at about 60KM/hour.

Another study by Clemson University found drivers that text message and use their iPods are 10 percent more likely to accidentally drift into another lane or off the road completely.

There are already far too many bad drivers out on our public roads, giving them the ability to talk – or worse – text message – while driving is no less dangerous than giving a kid a loaded shot gun and saying, “have fun.”

Granted, driving is second nature to most of us, we do it so often, we sometimes forget that it actually involves a lot of muscle control, attention to details, and quick thinking – just to name a few of the many skills we employ while sitting behind the wheel.

And if you believe some of the hype, those radicals calling for cell phone bans while driving compare it to drinking and driving. However that analogy is far fetched, although cell phones distract drivers, they don’t physically change a driver’s cognitive abilities, as alcohol does by slowing the firing of neurons in the brain.

There are so many distractions to motorists – from the traffic around them, to the radio and CD player in their own vehicle, to the numerous signs, billboards, and pedestrians surrounding them.

Add in the ability to check your voicemail, text message your friends about getting together after work, or even trying to pick up members of the opposite sex on a singles dating chat line (as one teenage girl was doing, when she rolled her dad’s brand new four-wheeled drive BMW a few months back) – can you really oppose this new legislation in Ontario?

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Future Now

Yesterday as I was going through my snail-mail, I came across an interesting promotional letter from my telecom provider.

They were advising me that since I subscribed to their home phone service, and digital TV service, that I was receiving a new service completely free – TV Call Waiting.

This new service will display a person’s name and number on my TV screen, as well as on my phones. The feature even allows me to send the call directly to voice-mail simply by hitting a button on my remote control.

Pretty cool tool. It could be annoying, especially if you are glued to the couch watching your favorite shows, but there still is an element of “wow” to this new technological development.

Whether you love it or hate it, the real “wow” factor comes from a little forward-looking thinking. Back in the 1990’s, there was all this talk about the convergence of communications technologies.

The first big convergence brought on by technology was the Internet and the mass media. Television, radio and newspapers were the most popular forms people around the world got their information. As the Internet developed, it became possible to watch live streaming video online, listen to live streaming audio and even to read complete newspapers online – with hyperlinks for additional information. This became known as the media convergence, and many say it sparked a death sen

Image via Wikipedia

tence to for newspapers, because it is far easier and more efficient to watch a video online, than it is to read an entire series of stories in print.

Convergence was the buzz word given to discuss the morphing of television, radio, home theatre systems, phone systems, even your kitchen appliances with computers. Futurists dreamt allowed about a world where you could call home from work, turn on the oven to start your pot roast remotely while checking your messages. Then later that day, you’d arrive home with a nice hot pot roast just waiting for you.

We’ve seen the greatest form of convergence in the mobile telecommunications market. The first cell phones were huge clunkers that often didn’t even have a signal, because cell phone technology was so new and expensive. These days, cell phones are teeny-tiny, and do more than act as phones. Most have cameras in them, some allow you to play music, others allow you to surf the net, send video messages, open Word and other MS-Office documents, you even can use a built-in GPS to tell you where you are, and how to get to where you want to be.

Smart home technology has improved over the years, but it is far from the wild dreams of the futurists back in the 1990’s. But with small technological first-steps, like my telco’s TV Call Display, we’re slowly but steadily moving closer to that automated world.

I’ve had digital cable for years, and as long as I’ve been a subscriber, you can order movies onDemand or Pay-Per-View with a click of a button. Simple point and click, and the movie begins, while the charges appear on my next cable bill.

This two-way form of communications over a cable TV connection was never possible under the older analogue system, and it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

One day, you will be able to order products the same way you can order movies – just by pressing a button on your remote control. Imagine watching some infomercial late at night, and seeing a fantastic product that you want right then and there. All you have to do is point your remote at the cable box, click the button to order it, confirm your order by entering your PIN code, and wait for your new fangled thing to arrive in the mail.

Other cool “wow” factor technologies which we may see from these developments include – of all things – home security.

Many people have wireless home security cameras in and around their homes, and can view these cameras from anywhere in the world over the Internet. There was one incident just this past summer, where a lady called police from work, to report a break in at her home, which she was watching live over the Intern

et.

Many automated security systems will alert the police when something isn’t just right. Imagine having all the doors lock on the inside and outside – trapping the intruder until the local law enforcement agents have arrived.

But where convergence has the most impact isn’t on technology, it is on us. Convergence is affecting our socio-economic world in ways unthinkable back in the 1990’s.
Online social networking sites like Facebook an d Twitter make it possible to reconnect with long lost friends and family, or to just meet completely new people in a non-threatening way.

“Texting” has become a socially acceptable form of communications, and “sexting” (sending sexually explicit text messages) has become a big problem for parents with pre-teen and teenage kids.

You no longer have to ever go to the office, just work virtually from home, checking email and logging into the network remotely to do your work.
Smart technologies are already making their way into our lives, just not as quickly as those singing the convergence song back in the 1990’s told us they would.

Technology is constantly changing and converging with. It will be interesting in five and ten-years, looking back, to see how far forward we have come.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Why Amber Alerts Don’t Work in Our Information Society

You’d have to be living under a large rock not to know the age we live in is the information age.

We’re all “wired” and completely connected everywhere, to everyone, all the time. From cell phones, smart phones, BlackBerrys and other mobile devices ringing at all hours of the day, to always on email, online chat sites, remote access to work and home networks, there is no escaping the world in which we live.

Television and radio broadcast useful - and more often these days useless - information all day and all night as well. And if you miss your favor

Image via Wikipedia

ite broadcast, often you can catch it onDemand, or via a time shifting channel on digital cable or satellite television. Don’t have those, you may not be out of luck, with Podcasting becoming popular, you can download many shows directly to your mobile device.

With all these levels of technology, it is hard to believe that sometimes, no matter what the information, or how noble the intent of the messenger spreading that information, communications breakdown.

Take a recent case, where police in Canada’s largest province failed to issue an Amber Alert for a missing child. An Amber Alert is the new electronic buzz-term to indicate a missing or lost person, usually a child. Police issue these alerts to the media, and instantly all communications channels screech to a halt, screaming a description of who is missing, where they last were seen, who with, and contact information, in the hopes that someone seeing this will help law enforcement find the missing soul.

In big cities, major highway signs will flash the Amber Alert message, as do most major media outlets on their television, radio and Internet feeds. Print media will run the story in the next edition.

And the Internet - ah yes, the ultimate form of instant communication - becomes the equivalent of a broken telephone.

When I was a kid, I remember being amazed when I was given two Styrofoam cups tied together with string, and hearing the other person’s voice in my coffee cup.

The Internet, for all its awe and power in bringing us closer together is the high tech equivalent of those Styrofoam cups and string.

Every time an Amber Alert occurs, people everywhere take it upon themselves to share this information with their online social networks. People, completely unattached to the actual event, repeat the Amber Alert message to their social networks.

Image by bobster855 via Flickr

In theory, the more people who receive the message, the better the chances of a missing person being found.

But as with everything online, the more removed someone is from the actual events as they unfold, the more garbled the message, until very little of the original message exists.

It is all too easy to just copy and paste whatever someone sends you online, and re-send it to all your friends. But have you ever stopped to think whether the message you received was right, wrong, or even out of date?

I’m on a handful of online social networks, and I’ve seen the same Amber Alert repeated several times - and each time the wording of the message was different. In one instance, I received an online message about an Amber Alert, just as I heard on the radio that local law enforcement had cancelled the very same Amber Alert.

Maybe it is my old school journalistic thinking, a remnant left over from when I was a journalist many eons ago, but whenever someone sends me any sort of news bulletin, I always stop to think about the source of that information. Who the hell is this person, why are they sending me this, and how reliab

Image via Wikipedia

le a source for this particular information is the sender?

Needless to say, when I receive an online instant message from someone named “HotBlonde75432” I’m not going to take much notice of a news bulletin from this person, even if it really is an Amber Alert. This person may have directly cut and pasted the information right from a legitimate news outlet’s website, or typed exactly what they read, heard or saw in their local newspaper, radio station, or television broadcast.

But so long as the anything, anyone, anywhere, anytime Internet is just that - I will usually chuckle at the wanna-be journalist’s attempt of spreading the news, mumble something under my breath about “wondering what ever happened to the news business, don’t these people have better things to do with their lives,” and move on.

So much for spreading the message.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How Technology Mastered Us

Image by mikeleeorg via Flickr

As the phone rings, I get my fingers ready to dial the extension of the person I’m trying to reach. I’m almost always thrown off these days when a living, breathing human being actually answers the phone. When that happens, there is usually an awkward silence, because it’s so rare in today’s high tech world.

“Oh!” I exclaim, “you’re real! I’m sorry, I thought you were a machine.”

Whatever happened to those days – when telephone calls were between two or more living, breathing human beings?

I just got off the phone from that call I was making, and sure enough I get the automated attendant asking me to enter the other party’s extension. I enter it, and after a few rings, I get his voice-mail. I leave a message and hang up. Absolutely no human contact whatsoever -- yet the telephone originally was designed to bring people closer together.

I remember a slogan from an old AT&T television commercial in the 1980’s – reach out and touch someone. The series of commercials won awards in the advertising industry for its moving portrayal showing tearful eyed family and friends reaching out and touching their loved ones over great distances.

That was back in the 1980’s, just as personal computers were starting to pop-up in our homes. And the Internet – unless you were working in some secret American military base in deep cover, or a professor at some big university fighting to make that secret public, forget about it. Home computers in the 1980’s were considered top-of-the-line if they had a hard drive – most only had those big flimsy 5.25-inch floppy disks.

Looking back to those days, it always amazes me as I consider how far we have come.

These days, I know nine times out of 10 when I call someone, chances are I’ll be greeted by an automated voice-mail system. So I instinctively have my 30-second-or-less message ready to go in my mind’s eye, and I know to either enter an extension or wait for the beep.

Technology has trained us well.

The other day I was at a bank machine in the city’s downtown core. An elderly woman who probably didn’t venture downtown too often was getting frustrated at the machine, thinking it wasn’t working correctly, because it wasn’t beeping when she pressed the buttons.

In many large city centres, some banks have disabled the tones given off by their bank machines in outdoor spaces, to reduce crime. Apparently, some people can actually nab your PIN by listening carefully to the tones.

I waited patiently behind this sweet old lady, as she ran back and forth from the tellers to the bank machine, having one of the tellers come out and explain this to her.

The old lady was trained by technology to automatically think that if the bank machine didn’t “bleep” out the numbers as you entered them, the machine had to be broken.

We are a highly adaptive society, and when a new piece of technology emerges, we learn its teachings quickly.

I remember reading about some teenager that won about half-a-million dollars in a contest to determine who the fastest text messager was.

I have one of those smart phones, and it sure has a bigger keypad from the cell phones I’ve had in the past. It is even on that 3G network, so it’s supposed to be fast – though I hear 4G is already on the way.

Even still, when it comes to sending text messages, I’m all thumbs. I use that T-9 predictive text system, which guesses most of the time the correct word I want, based on my typing habits over time. But I still constantly find myself having to erase and start words over again, simply because just as I start to get up to speed, I realize I’m “texting” too fast, and I hit the wrong combination of keys.

But a young kid in her teens – she might have even been in her pre-teens, won a large sum of money, for being able to do this.

She was trained well by technology too. She knew all the short forms commonly used to speed up the process.

That’s the problem with today’s technology – it is making the world a faster, easier place, but we’re losing that human element. We’re losing the very things which make us human, as we ourselves become more computerized, in our constantly evolving high-tech world.

Jordan's Daily -- Almost!

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

The Smarter the Phone The Bigger the Genie in the Bottle

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Canada’s Largest City Running Out of Numbers

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Woman Sues Cell Phone Provider for Contributing to Divorce

Monday, May 17, 2010

Texting I’m All Thumbs

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Have We Lost that Caring Feeling?

Friday, January 22, 2010

End of Snail Mail – Not Quite

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Texting While Driving -- Unbelievable

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Talk Time Not Drive Time

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Future Now

Friday, August 21, 2009

Why Amber Alerts Don’t Work in Our Information Society

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How Technology Mastered Us

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