The disposable Android - Securing All Androids Proves Tricky - Technology Review

Fixing phones properly requires hardware makers to create their own updates incorporating Google's fix; they test those updates and pass them on to carriers, who also test the fixes before pushing them out to customers. Apps for Android devices, including ones developed by Google, could be updated through the Android Market, but system software has to be updated through the carrier's channel.

via technologyreview.com

Android is a great model for adoption, but less so as these complex software artifacts become broadly spread, and poorly maintained.

On the other hand ... for the handset manufacturers, this is a not a completely bad thing -- they'd likely prefer that you throw it away and get a new one.

Indeed, for many people, it will be easier to discard the current phone, and purchase a new one without the limitation. Today this is relatively expensive -- tomorrow much less so. A cheap, disposable access point. Interesting times.

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Mashing the table and the surface to get chatty coasters - Tech Review article

Coaster to coaster: Jack Weedon demonstrates his communicative beer coasters with Sara Smith, another student from Newcastle University’s Culture Lab.
Credit: Newcastle University

Communications

Let Your Coaster Do the Talking

An interactive surface encourages conversation by letting coasters communicate.

• Tuesday, December 7, 2010
• By Duncan Graham-Rowe

Once the hallmark of lonely barflies, playing with your beer coaster could actually help you socialize, thanks to a smart bar surface that brings ordinary coasters to life.

The coasters communicate by sending messages across the surface. The messages are meant to act as icebreakers between bar patrons, says Tom Bartindale, who invented the coasters with fellow postgraduate student Jack Weeden at Newcastle University's Culture Lab. "It's a starting point for an actual conversation," Bartindale says.

via technologyreview.com

Great thinking in this prototype around embedding smarts into specific context. Check out the full article at http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/26833/?nlid=3855&a=f

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Phones that Know Their Users by How They Walk - interesting

Smart Phones that Know Their Users by How They Walk

Biometric security is obtrusive--unless it's on all the time, analyzing your gait.

Your smart phone is a hideous liability that renders you increasingly vulnerable to a host of fraudulent activities...

The problem is that unlike your bank's website, you use your phone throughout the day, which makes tapping in a password over and over again so impractical that few users bother to lock their phones in this way. ...

For passive biometrics to work, the more measures of the "youness" of you they can gather, the better. ...

Gait analysis is a tried-and-true method of passive biometrics, your gait being a very individual and hard-to-imitate trait.

via technologyreview.com

I love this alternative 'context' based security for mobile devices.

It raises some interesting practical questions ... What happens on those rare occasions when one is actually doing some work, at a desk, for a couple of hours? Would you need to get up and walk to answer a call?

Would your doctor (or health insurance) insist that you use this?

Check out the original for more details. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25767/?nlid=3518

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Cybernetic body upgrades - iArm (via @nambor)

via iarm.de

Our shiny cybernetic future?
Does it run Windows?

Great piece by http://iarm.de

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Nice insight on telcos driving Andriod success (TechRepublic.com)

Google Android began with the greatest of intentions — freedom, openness, and quality software for all. However, freedom always comes with price, and often results in unintended consequences. With Android, one of the most important of those unintended consequences is now becoming clear as Google gets increasingly pragmatic about the smartphone market and less and less tied to its original ideals.

Here’s the dirty little secret about Android: After all the work Apple did to get AT&T to relinquish device control for the iPhone and all the great efforts Google made to get the FCC and the U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700 MHz auction, Android is taking all of those gains and handing the power back to the telecoms.

via blogs.techrepublic.com.com

Good article from Jason Hiner, on Android is becoming a way for telcos to regain/retain carrier lock-in. Lovely illustration of market dynamics.

Worth a read: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=5855#

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Sledgehammer for privacy? Change Your Name to Escape Google Permanent Record

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has a great way of making public statements that are at once frank, unorthodox, thought provoking - and a little frightening. This weekend The Wall St. Journal ran an interview with Schmidt that offered tidbits like that on a wide range of topics. One statement in particular, that Schmidt thinks teenagers should be entitled to change their names upon reaching adulthood in order to separate themselves from the Google record of their youthful indiscretions, is something worth stopping to take note of.

via readwriteweb.com

It's revealing that the privacy solution from Google is to 'change your name'. The obvious question one might ask, is exactly how long this might work for if taken up by a significant proportion of people?

I would expect substantial competitive pressure for search engines to find the match. And indeed to force it to the front of the queue, much like the extremely frustrating google auto-correct option on possible mis-spelling. "Did you mean:"

In any case, read the original article for more info: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_ceo_suggests_you_change_your_name...

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C.K. Prahalad - constant focus on weak signals - great quote - great article

Every one of my research projects started the same way: recognizing that the established theory did not explain a certain phenomenon. We had to stay constantly focused on weak signals. Each weak signal was a contradictory phenomenon that was not happening across the board. You could very easily say, “Dismiss it, this is an outlier, so we don’t have to worry about it.” But the outliers and weak signals were the places to find a different way to think about the problem.

via strategy-business.com

A wonderful quote from Prahalad, he of the bottom of the pyramid, and core competencies. I recommend checking out the whole interview at http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00043?pg=all.

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