Emergency Call

As I’m writing this, I am keeping tabs on a raging fire in Anaheim Hills, California. My girlfriend is from Anaheim Hills, and her house is three blocks away from the desert / forest / place where the fire is happening. She’s here in New Jersey because she goes to school here, but the rest of her family is still back in California.

As we speak, her address is being told to evacuate. This order is mandatory and it is a pretty scary situation. The fire is now less than a mile away, and there are no firefighters to contain it, because there was a fire in Los Angeles yesterday and they went there to help. All of Anaheim’s firefighters are in LA and cannot reach this fire because the roads are closed. The famous Santa Anna winds are blowing the embers from the fires all over the place and spreading the fire at an alarming rate. To further complicate things, the reservoir usually used to fight fires in Anaheim was drained to help put out the fires in Los Angeles. The houses are basically being left to their own fate.

We are sitting by my computer and watching the live report stream online from KABC in Los Angeles. In the shots coming from the helicopters hovering over the fires, she is constantly picking out places she knows that are close to the fire line and, unfortunately, sometimes consumed in the blaze.

What has inspired this entry is that I am constantly reminded of how dependant we are on our cell phones. Jen found out about the fire on her cell phone from her mom. She then called me and told me about it. She has been on the phone often these past few hours with friends and family making sure they are getting out safely. So far, nothing bad has happened to her or anyone close to her personally.

In emergencies, sometimes our cell phone networks let us down. I can remember on September 11, 2001 all of the wireless communications were shut down. I don’t know if it was because of everyone calling and jamming the lines or if one of the Twin Towers was a pat of the infrastructure, but I could not place a call for a long time that day.

It was such a frightening day and we didn’t know what was going to happen next- maybe there were more attacks is store. The added stress of not being able to contact loved ones was a part of that horrible day that I will never forget.

Even at happier times, cell phones have let me down. I remember being at the Louisville- Rutgers game in 2006, where everyone rushed the field. I guess because everyone was calling their friends to find each other (and to brag to kids who went to other schools) that the network got jammed and I couldn’t make any calls that day, either.

It’s sobering to know that cell phones can not work properly when you need them the most. I hope that people continue to work on this problem and it gets fixed as more and more people ditch their landlines and rely only on their mobile phones.

Since I started writing, the fire has been contained somewhat and Jen’s house looks like it will be spared. My heart goes out to the people who lost their loved ones and their homes. This one hit close to home today.

Shop Online Before Waiting On Line

Just add it to the list of things “phones” can do nowadays: A personal shopping assistant. (Yes ladies, I said your own personal shopper.) For example, Google’s new phone has an application called shop savvy, where the cell phone owner uses the phone’s camera as a UPC bar code scanner. The phone and application can identify the product within seconds.

Then, it can go online and quickly scan through numerous online stores that sell the same product. It can display what the same item is selling for online and in other stores, too. The providers say that this application could potentially save its owners so much money that the phones could easily pay for themselves.

Man, I wish I thought of this. On second thought, even if I had thought of this, I probably wouldn’t have even thought that it would be possible to do all that the application does. What a great idea.

It is going to be interesting to see what this means for retailers. Say everyone has this application on their phones in the next ten years. Whenever someone buys something, especially anything over twenty dollars, they will be comparing prices to stores all over the world. Theoretically, the actual stores can become simply test drives.

Let’s say that someone wants to buy a TV. They will go down to the local electronics super store, and find one that they really like. Then they’ll scan the UPC symbol and find out the best price possible. Now, what are the odds that the best price in the whole world for that television set will be at that particular store? I would think that they would be very, very low.

It then becomes a question of convenience. Is the price difference enough that it’s worth leaving the store and leaving you investment of the time and money and gas it took you to get there? That’s going to be the deciding factor as to whether or not you buy your TV from the place that you saw it, or go to where the internet says has a better deal.

I’m sure that this new application will not be used for all purchases, say printer paper or fast food cheeseburgers. These purchases are matters of convenience and personal taste. But for bigger purchases that are expensive and where the buyer does not have substantial experience in purchasing a certain kind of item, this application will be extremely valuable.

It is going to be another driver of competition among businesses, because only the very cheapest sellers will do the vast majority of the selling. That’s good for us in the long run, because it will lower the price and prevent illegal price gouging and artificially high prices. I hope that it does not lead to unpleasant business practices, however.

Stores, who are already at a disadvantage because they need to pay for facilities and property taxes when online retailers do not, can start to scrimp on quality of customer service, employee salary and benefits and other things around the store.

It will be interesting to see what this latest technological development will do to businesses.

Big Brother is at It Again

My friend Scott (not his real name) (and who isn’t me I swear) got a very scary call this past week. On Tuesday, his cell phone service provider, Verizon, called his home phone number. Scott, who lives at school, obviously did not pick up the phone at his house, but his father did. The woman on the other end of the line asked a very strange question: have you been receiving pornographic pictures on your cell phone?

You can imagine Scott’s father’s reaction. First, he was flabbergasted and enraged that someone would suggest such a thing. They finally figured out that the messages were sent to Scott’s phone (he’s on his family’s plan.) Verizon then informed Scott’s father that they would have to hold on to the “evidence” and they were not exactly sure what would be the result of this investigation. Scott may be charged with a crime. Right now it’s all pending. So the final situation is that Scott’s father found out, through his cell phone provider, that his son was being potentially charged with a felony.

Scott’s father did what most people would have done. He called up Scott and proceeded to chastise him and say on more than one occasion how dumb he was. He was also extremely worried about the potential legal problem ahead. Imagine Scott’s surprise to hear from his father, who heard from Verizon, that he knew all about the messages that were sent and now he was potentially going to jail.

Here is Scott’s take on the story. He was talking to a young lady from his hometown who goes to school out of state in South Carolina. They were flirting back and forth, and they exchanged some lewd pictures via text message that they both thought were private. Nobody was forced to do anything, and both were consenting, legal adults. And now, because of that, he is a possible felon.

Can I just say “what the hell is going on?!?!?!?” Where does Verizon get off reading and viewing their subscriber’s text and picture messages? Those things are private. Everyone who has a Verizon account should know that Verizon looks at messages that are sent on their network. I am a Verizon customer as well, and this scares the crap out of me.

I suppose that the reason all of this is legal is because the messages are sent on their network, meaning that they are property of Verizon wireless somehow? I’m not sure. But this news also implies that Verizon actually employs people whose job it is to browse through a random sampling of picture messages and see if they can find anything bad in them. Why would they do that? What’s in it for them?

In this article, (http://news.cnet.com/Police-Blotter-Verizon-forced-to-turn-over-text-messages/2100-1030_3-6221503.html ) the author states that Verizon does in fact keep an archive of all text messages sent and received, in addition to looking though their subscribers’ picture messages. They will also turn their records over to police who do not even have a warrant for the evidence.

This development is very scary. You can certainly believe that I will not send anything even close to being controversial on my phone anymore until this mess is sorted out.

Addicted to Blackberry?

I was very pleasantly surprised when I was doing research for this week’s topic. When I searched for “Blackberry Addiction” on Google, the first text article that came up was from The Daily Mail, the British newspaper. In that (and a good number of other articles) was mention of research done at “New Jersey's Rutgers University School”, led by Professor Gayle Porter. I thought that was wonderful that research being done at my Alma Mater and place of present study was so highly respected that it was invoked across the pond, even though “university school” is a funny name.

The reason that I am interested in Blackberry addiction is this: Many of my peers, who nearly all are college students without pressing jobs or family concerns, have Blackberries. Why could they possibly need such an annoying, expensive device? There is no need to constantly check email- at school a computer is never more than a few minutes away, and the vast majority of people have personal computers and internet connections in their houses or dorms.

The research and the article claim that people are, in fact, addicted to email on their cellular phones. Sinead McIntyre claims in the article that “Blackberry email devices can be so addictive that owners may need to be weaned off them with treatment similar to that given to drug users, experts warn.” This obviously is a serious threat to mental health of the user and those around them.

Other commentators online have said that Blackberries have actually liberated them. They say that instead of checking email from a computer, they are able to do it at their leisure. This allows them to better sort through spam and unimportant email. Interestingly, they also report that the device forces them to cut down on the length of emails they send because it is difficult to type long messages.

One thing that made me wonder was that the author of the article defending blackberries was proud that she had not checked her email in the past hour. “That proves I’m not addicted!” she claimed. But she did admit to taking the device everywhere, and even composing emails while walking her dog. I would like to know if she could actually go without checking her blackberry for a period of time.

Another interesting phenomenon is that some Blackberry users are actually proud of being addicted to their devices. At least, they readily admit their perceived need of their Berries and do not plan to do anything about it. Many people refer to these devices as “Crackberries”, in reference to their supposed addictive nature. (Crack is addictive, get it?) Though most use the term “Crackberry” to insult Blackberries, some users have embraced that moniker. I visited the page www.crackberry.com and it proudly heralds itself as “The number one site for Blackberry Users (and Abusers!)

I think that they all see it as a big joke, offering tongue-in-cheek articles like “The Thirteen Steps to Breaking a Crackberry Addiction” and commonly calling other users of the devices addicts. I don’t know about you, but that raises an alarm to me.

Perhaps Blackberries aren’t all that bad. I’ve never had one, so I really can’t say. Perhaps they are a tool that actually makes less work, and not more. But I feel like people are really missing out on wonderful things happening in front of their faces because their eyes are glued to that darn little screen.

Google Phone Set to Make Its Debut

On October 22, Google’s first phone will drop its hat into the ring to compete with the iPhone, the first real challenger to Apple’s domination of the marketplace in that sector.

Unlike the iPhone, which is entirely Apple’s creation, this phone is not entirely made by Google. The software is made by Google, but the company HTC made the phone. (T-Mobile runs the network, like AT&T does for the iPhone) The New York Times reviewer compared it to Windows on a computer; you can buy a Mac and they are all made by the same company, but you can’t buy a “Windows” computer. Just like there are many companies that buy and use windows software, there will soon be many more phones that use Google software in the next few years.

The product has been getting pretty good reviews, and mostly critics think that Google’s phones will keep improving rapidly. You can use all of Google’s programs very easily and it will allow you to download any applications to the phone. It will even allow programs that enable calls to be made over the internet (for free or very cheap), thereby circumventing using one’s T-Mobile minutes. T-Mobile has said they will allow this, which is a refreshing adherence to the spirit of the Google Phone.

This will be an interesting battle between Google and Microsoft. As I said in my previous blog entry, these “phones” are in actuality a completely new sector of the technology market. As two relatively new superpowers battle each other, their two philosophies will determine their fate.

Google subscribes to the theory that the device should be open, and allow any applications to be downloaded onto it. In this sense, the devise is like a true portable computer with no restrictions or firewalls. This allows for great flexibility and innovation, because it allows anyone to come up with a great program for a Google phone. If you have a great idea for an iPhone application, I hope you work for Apple.

Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, is “closed.” The only applications available for download are sanctioned by Apple. Granted, the applications are great and fun (this is Apple after all), but it seems like they may get overwhelmed by Google’s. One could make the argument that this is a battle between quantity versus quality.

In the end, if there will be a clear-cut winner, I believe it will be Google. There will not be enough power behind the iPhone, nor will there be enough of them to compete. Google’s future of many phones with countless applications will subdue Apple. I believe that Google will learn from Apple and make sure that their devices are cool and sleek and desirable, as well as functional. Really, the biggest strength that Apple has in this battle is its reputation for making great portable devices that everyone loves to use. It was also the first one to enter this phone market, beating Google there by almost a year.

Whatever the iPhone does better than a Google phone can quickly be copied by Google because they will have a quick turnover rate. The iPhone will be overshadowed by Google’s wide range of phones and applications, but it will be remembered as the pioneer in this marketplace.

What exactly should we call these things?

I like the commercial that has been on television lately that opens with a statement something like this: “with all the things these devices can do now, it’s a wonder we still call them phones.” Yes, it sure is. I forget what exactly the commercial is for, but the message is a good one. I remember the first phone my family purchased. I think it was about 10 years ago. It was a hideous, huge black thing that had one single line of black and white display. The only thing that it could do was make phone calls (even that was only sometimes, depending on the service it got.) But we all thought it was amazing. Surely this was the dream: a phone in your car! I think we even called it a ‘car phone’ for a while, switching to ‘cell phone’ a little later. Until I saw that commercial, I never really thought about what we call these little wonders of technology.
But Cell Phones have been calculators, watches and cameras for some time now, and it doesn’t show any sign of stopping the flow of adding applications and tools available. Phones are now being equipped with internet web browsers, Global Positioning devices and digital music players. (Once again, I borrowed those features from a commercial- http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2008/aug/27/apple.advertising)
My question is when are we going to find a new word for phone? That first commercial is right- they do too much stuff to be shoe-horned into the category of mere phones.
Cell phones now have as many as 44 buttons on them to take you to all their content, and now with the age of touch-screen upon us, phones offer unlimited ways of interaction. I really think that they need a new name.
One company had a great chance to do something about it- Apple. Apple missed the boat here. The iPhone was (and is) so revolutionary that I think they could have gotten away with calling it something else rather than a phone with their customary “I’ in front of it. They could have forged a brand that would be synonyms with the product- like Kleenex or Q-tips.
In fact, Apple has already done that with their iPods. The word iPod is now interchangeable with mp3 player, as this article says, [http://www.macworld.com/article/52086/2006/07/ipodsales.html] “analysts say the iPod brand has become so synonymous with the digital music player that when average consumers decide to make the transition to digital music, they look for an iPod rather than consider the iPod product cycle or other MP3 players.” Pod didn’t really mean anything before Apple took over the word.
They could have done the same thing with their iPhones. They didn’t call their music players iMp3 Players. Instead, they pretty much carved out a new meaning for the term “pod.” Maybe something like idevice, Icall. I don’t know. That’s why they pay people big bucks to come up with catchy marketing name. But they really could have revolutionized the industry, putting all compediters who still called the things “phones” obsolete.

My Old Friend- IMeanPhone

I thought of the idea for this blog doing something that I hate: shopping. More specifically, I was shopping for a new cellular phone. My old phone, a Samsung E100, was three years old (about 271 in cell phone years) and it was starting to show some signs of age.
The phone had been a real warrior during it’s time with me. I dropped it all over the place, got sand in it and even once dropped it in a toilet. But it kept on working just fine, telling me when my parents called and showing me when my friends had sent me a message. It was even an integral part of how my girlfriend and I met and stayed in touch over the summer. Believe it or not the battery still lasted a couple of days between charges.
The big problem with my phone was that the buttons had been pushed so much, they were getting worn out. If I was writing a text message, one keystroke wouldn’t register sometimes, throwing off the entire message (i.e. turning “Believe” into “Cegete?” if the phone missed picking up that I had hit 5 to get “L”.) I hope you can see how frustrating this was.
Still it wasn’t easy giving up on my old friend. I kept delaying the inevitable; I had made up my mind to get a new one, but decided to let it still be my phone until the end of the summer. I rationalized that I wouldn’t want to drop a new phone in the sand or have an ocean wave get it wet, but I knew that I was stalling.
After summer came and went, and I finally got the nerve to order a new phone. Sure it’s nice, and has a full QWERTY keyboard and all. But I felt so guilty as I opened the package and saw my old phone lying faithfully on the coffee table in front of me. It was like I had betrayed a trusted friend.
Actually, it felt worse. I felt like my trusting dog was sitting there, happy to see me, when I knew that I was about to put him down for his own good. I can’t believe I’m felt like that, but it’s true. We had been through so much together, and now I was abandoning him for a younger phone with more glamorous features.
I don’t know why I felt so attached- I’ll leave that for another posting. But I know for sure that I rally did like that phone a whole lot.

My friend collects old cell phones to give to charity so people can call 911 if they have to. It’s a great cause, and I know that I should give up my old phone. I even promised my friend that she could have it. But it is sitting in my desk right now because I keep “forgetting” to give it away. Maybe I’ll keep it there for a while. Maybe I’ll get the nerve up to give it away. I’m sure I will soon. Somebody could really use it. It’s kind of like sending your dog away to live on a farm…