Monthly Archives: December 2005

CNN is looking at the “10 Best Web Moments.”

These are Spark’s picks as the top 10 moments in the World Wide Web’s short but impressive life. Vote for the one you think is the most significant:

10. WiFi hotspots — wireless Internet connectivity appears in airports, hotels and even McDonald’s.

9. Webcams and photo sharing — communication becomes visual, and inboxes fill with baby photos.

8. Skype — telephony turns upside down with free long-distance calls, Ebay snaps it up in September 2005 for $2.6 billion.

7. Live 8 on AOL — five million people watch poverty awareness concerts online in July 2005, setting a new Net record.

6. Napster goes offline — Regulators close the pioneering music swap site in July 2001 and file-sharing goes offshore.

5. Lewinsky scandal — Matt Drudge breaks the Clinton/Lewinsky sex scandal in 1998. The blog is born.

4. Tsunami and 9/11 — two tragic events set the Web alight with opinion and amateur video.

3. Boom and bust — trillions of dollars were made and lost as the dotcom bubble ballooned and burst between 1995 and 2001.

2. Hotmail — went from having zero users in 1995 to 30 million subscribers 30 months later. It now has 215 million users.

1. Google — redefined search. Invented a new advertising model and commands a vast business empire.

I’m not sure I really think of Hotmail, or Google as a moment, but count me in for Google. The online search engine brought order to the 5 billion web pages out there- and growing. I would have put down Napster for online, rather than when it was shut down. At the very least, Napster showed the power of peer-to-peer networking for information exchange. You can vote for your favorite too!

An Orange County school district’s efforts to integrate technology into students’ lives by urging families to purchase laptop computers is creating a furor among parents who say the pricey obligation is segregating their children into the haves and have-nots.

Nearly 2,000 of the Fullerton School District’s 13,000 elementary and middle-school students carry laptops between class and home as part of a year-old pilot program that expanded this year to four of the district’s 20 schools. It is one of the largest such efforts in the state.

But some parents, already bristling at the tab of public education — from classroom supplies to sports uniforms — are incensed by the need for $1,500 laptop computers.

“That’s not pocket change for anybody,” said Tina Maldonado, a stay-at-home mother with two children attending Rolling Hills Elementary School. “We could buy the computers, but I don’t think we should have to. A public school education is supposed to be free.”

Required laptops first appeared at universities, then filtered down to private schools in the 1990s. Over the last decade, such mandates have emerged at public schools nationwide, sometimes with school districts or state governments picking up the tab. Because California and many of its school districts can’t afford to furnish laptops, the requirement is rare in the state.

Efforts similar to Fullerton’s in recent years have raised similar objections. Del Mar, for instance, nixed its laptop program because of resistance from parents over the cost.

The American Civil Liberties Union said this month that it’s considering filing a lawsuit against the Fullerton School District, arguing that it is violating the state’s constitutional guarantee to provide a free education, and is creating a two-tiered learning environment.

With the number of under $1000 notebooks out there, and even at $500, the $1500 price tag does apear to be rather over priced. After all, it’s going to be out of date every 4 or 5 years. That means that for a child in the 1st grade, they could end up going through 4 laptops for their education, including their college studies. And this assumes that it is not stolen, or doused from a juice box. I can see the parents side here, but on the other hand we need to equip our youth with the tools to function in our society. I think the only solution is more inexpensive computers. How come 3rd world countries can get a computer for $100?
From the L.A. Times.

We all love WiFi networking (look for an upcoming review of some wireless hardware). It has allowed us to use our notebook, and even our handhelds on the internet without being connected with a wire. But the real weakness of WiFi has been range. A few hundred feet away from even a really good router, and the signal is weak which means slow speeds, and dropped connections.

The next generation of wireless networking is addressing the range issue in a big way. We’re talking miles here of broadband thoroughput. This is the latest 802.16e, or WiMax standard, just approved by those excellent engineers over at the IEEE. This could give traditional broadband, provided by cable and phone companies, quite a run for their money. And offerings like Cingular Edge, with their high prices, will fade away.

The catch? You won’t see any of the products until late 2007, or more likely 2008. In my opinion, unlike a lot of other overhyped technologies, this one will be worth the wait.
From Popular Technology.

Increasing broadband at home and restrictive internet usage policies at work haven’t made a discernable dent this holiday season in employees’ penchant for shopping online while at work.

Last week marked the unofficial start of the online holiday buying season for many retailers, with traffic to retail sites up approximately 9 percent from last year, according to tracking firm Hitwise. More than half of weekday traffic since the Monday after Thanksgiving, according to measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings, has come from workplace internet users.

“It’s as strong as ever,” said NetRatings retail analyst Heather Dougherty. “Once they get over the Thanksgiving hump, they’re ready to do their holiday shopping. Monday, they can’t help but keep it going, even if they’re at work.”

Companies are growing more accepting of the idea that workers will fritter away part of the workday shopping online, according to purveyors of employee internet-monitoring tools. Most employers engage in some sort of monitoring of workplace internet access. But rather than block all shopping sites, employers preoccupied with productivity are more apt to set time limits on access.

“At one time, they were more adamant about not having anyone do any browsing or personal activity over the workday,” said Susan Larson, vice president of threat analysis and research at SurfControl, a developer of monitoring applications. “Now there’s a realization that there should be more of a work-life balance.”

Why do I think we all don’t work for such enlightened employers?

From Wired.

After posting the Yahoo! news, I received a comment from the developer of ZapTXT. These guys do the same thing Yahoo! did, only better. SMS + RSS is ZapTXT’s only game, whereas Yahoo! is trying to play defense, offense, special teams, cheerlead, mascot, and commentator.

My issues with Yahoo!’s new alert system was lack of information. I would receive a text message from a generic Yahoo! address. The body of the message contained only 120 characters of text. I had no idea which website was updated. I was simply informed that one of my registered RSS enabled websites were updated, and given the first 120 characters.

Yahoo!, this is useless. I registered more than 20 blogs and websites in that Yahoo! alert account. Each time I get a message, I have to surf each website to see which is the one that sent me the feed.

That problem is eliminated with ZapTXT. You are given 7 characters to name each of your feeds! Not only that, you can turn off late night messages, so that the 4am blogger doesn’t wake you up when posting to his “what I do at night when everyone sleeps” blog.

I admit it, I have since disabled my Yahoo! feeds and set up an account with ZapTXT for my RSS + SMS needs. You can also have the feeds emailed to you, but that’s just not as sexy as SMS, am I wrong?

The last time I was in Hawaii, this mainlander had a hard time figuring out how to take “The Bus” from the airport to Waikiki. Now the busy folks over at Google labs have a new plan. Google Transit, which is in beta, promises to simplify things. Start with entering your location, and your destination. In a flash, the bus stop closest, the bus times, travel time, as well as walking directions to the bus stop are displayed. There’s even a map showing the route and the price of the fare. This will definitely simplify things next time I venture onto public transportation!

See it in action here.

The fine folks at the Oxford English Dictionary have made their annual decision about a word of the year, and this time around the nod goes to “podcast.” From the press release:

Only a year ago, podcasting was an arcane activity, the domain of a few techies and self-admitted “geeks.” Now you can hear everything from NASCAR coverage to NPR’s All Things Considered in downloadable audio files called “podcasts.”

I’m not so proud of the fact that there might actually be people out there listening to NASCAR on their portable audio player, but different, strokes, right? I suppose it’s not all that visually arresting (turn left! turn left! keep turning left!) and might actually lend itself to the audio alone…except for all that engine noise. Kudos to OED for some great runners-up:

• ICE (stands for “in case of emergency;” put such an entry in your cell phone)
• Lifehack (more efficient way of completing an everyday task, like finding a cheap hotel room)
• Bird flu (*groan*)

Next week I plan on winning the lottery. After making all my loans disappear I am going to Geek My Ride.

I have my own personal preference in how my car is going to get tricked out. Chrome 18 inch rims, tinted windows etc. But having a nice car isn’t only about bling anymore. Today a souped-up car has to bring in technology.

I’ll take my pointers from this Boston team of car lovers. Continue reading →

This is one of the more unique ideas for “new art” that I have come across. The idea is to attach one of those disposable cameras to a box, and to mail it. On the box are the instructions to operate the camera. When it reaches the destination, you develop the pictures, and who knows what you’ll find. In general, it looks like a lot of pictures of inside the post office, with the workers taking a few shots of each other. One challenge is for the camera to not break on its journey. You can see for yourself here some of the shots.
Can’t wait to try this one? Here’s some tips to having a successful photo shoot, postal style!