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Posts tagged Wired

Facebook simplified privacy settings rolled

May30
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Ryan Singel and Fred Vogelstein (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/author/fvogelstein/)  at  Wired report and discuss of new Facebook settings going live (full story at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-debuts-simplified-privacy-settings/ and at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-firestorm-good-thin).

Again: is closing the gates after cows escaped, but could have been a good thing.

What continues to be surprising is Mr Zuckerberg (or his managers) being so superficial: by defending the setting of “available to everybody” as default, Facebook management demonstrates their inability to understand implications of their actions.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-firestorm-good-thing/comment-page-2/#comment-48240 and at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-debuts-simplified-privacy-settings/comment-page-1/#comment-48241

Posted in communication, Economy, Tech, Thoughts - Tagged , , ,

Skype on 3G available

May30
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

John C Abell at Wired (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/author/johncabell/) reports that “[...] 

Skype on Saturday released an upgrade to its iPhone app that allows calls to be made and received under AT&T’s 3G network, but there’s a catch — they won’t be free for very long, even for Skype-to-Skype calls or for people who have all-you-can-eat calling plans with the internet telephony company.

No specific pricing or even timeline was announced, but the release notes of version 2.0.0 (to the right) say this feature will be free only “until at least the end of August 2010, after which there will be a small monthly fee. [...]” (full story at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/skype-over-3g-comes-to-the-iphone-its-not-all-good-news/).

I think that Skype model is not quite new, but follows same path of some free activities for the masses and some paying for the heavy or advanced users.

But I also think that, if the model followed by apple will be the same of Google Voice, Skype will be banned from App Store.

I don’t like this last solution, but I would expect it from Apple.

The only difference that could lead to a different end is that Skype hasn’t got a mobile OS to be fought by Apple.

For the moment.

This post also as a comment at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/skype-over-3g-comes-to-the-iphone-its-not-all-good-news/comment-page-1/#comment-48232

Posted in communication, Economy, Tech - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Zuckerberg opinion on Facebook fail and the ability to say “sorry”

May25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Ryan Singel at Wired reports an interview with Facebook founder and owner Mark Zuckerberg, where ”[...] 

Monday’s statement, Zuckerberg refrained from such bragging and pledged to add more privacy controls. But he did not back off his company’s seemingly perpetual push toward making users share more information publicly.

We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible.

Note that Zuckerberg is not saying that Facebook will get user permission before it shares user information with third parties — as Senator Chuck Schumer and Facebook’s original privacy officer called for — only that it will make it easier to opt-out.

Perhaps designing a better way for users to set how public or private of a person they are will quiet the latest furor — as we’ve mostly seen this show with Facebook before. Launch audacious feature, wait for outrage, sort-of apologize but not, and then mostly continue on as planned. [...]”
(full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-speaks).

I think that all was said (also by me) on this situation. What really makes me think is the complete absence of good sense (and the total being immature on a business point of view) in Zuckerberg words.

Being an entrepeneur and having a good idea, together with being capable of a commercial development of the idea is not enough to be a respected and trusted business counterpart.

Sometimes, when a mistake occurs, saying sorry and pay for the consequences is the most honest way to deal.

But omitting to say “the little magic word” is something that the owner of such a big business is not allowed to do.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/zuckerberg-speaks/comment-page-1/#comment-47711

Posted in behaviour, communication, Economy, Other, Tech - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Again on Facebook privacy

May25
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Ryan Singel at Wired reports that “[...] 

Facebook’s getting lots of advice these days on how to get out of the current jam it’s in over its recent, ambitious drive to put itself at the center of the net by pushing users to be more public.

One of the best is a call from Will Moffat, a San Francisco-based coder who created a site called Openbook that lets searchers see what people have written in status updates that are public to the world. Many of those — try a search on DUI — fall squarely in the category of “too much information.” [...] (full story at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/openbook-facebook-design).

A design is reported at this link http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2010/05/facebook_slider11.gif

Though the solution is intuitive and easy to use, I think that setting privacy through a slider is a little bit too big jump for Facebook users.

This post as a comment at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/openbook-facebook-design/comment-page-1/#comment-47710

Posted in communication, Economy, Tech - Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Polaroid museum

May18
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Priya Ganapati at Wired (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/author/pganapati/), reports that “[...] Last month, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based MIT Museum announced that PLR Holdings has donated a massive collection from Polaroid’s archives. The archive has some fascinating objects. There are boxes of rare Polarized glasses dating from the 1939 World’s Fair, original newsprint sketches by Polaroid founder Edwin Land, a historic bellows camera the size of a filing cabinet and the SX-70 cameras that defined the instant-photography era. Overall, the collection has more than 1,800 boxes containing 10,000 items [...]” (full article at http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/05/gallery-polaroid-archives/).

Either if you are in the 40′s or not, Polaroid has been at least once part of our lives.

I think is like an old granny being always there, and I find very interesting seing a little of the evolution that shaped it.

As I said many times (for example when Kodak stopped producing film), I think that “old styled” photography has many good points I’m missing (immediatness, warmth,…) if compared to digital one. And Polaroid has a great part of this, including the soft colors I really liked.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/05/gallery-polaroid-archives/#comments

Posted in behaviour, communication, Economy, Other, Thoughts - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Facebook open alternative, the solution?

May08
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Ryan Singel at Wired writes an article discussing on Facebook changed role and scope. While discussing, Ryan asks some questions on real role of Facebook and if an alternative not driven by the market should be found (full story at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/).

I think that Mark Zuckerberg’s company that started as a place for meeting and sharing has changed into a cash cow.

This is not, of course, bad at all. What is bad is the will to overcome everything and force users at having unwanted behaviours.

This is part induced by the tons of features available and that only a few masters, and part of how much the informations are spreaded for commercial pourposes.

And part by the stupidity of some people that count over anonimity in order to do and act as they wouldn’t in real life.

When you join a Social network, most of the people think of a “healthy” place to share thoughts and informations or to meet people. But this is the good part, because lot of informations remain there available for most of the people (and companies).

As I wrote in another article, if on top of this the owner (Facebook) of infrastructure isn’t capable of managing it, the result is that everyone of us is subject to the risks of sharing informations and, at same time, brings lot of money to those having access to those datas.

I’m not quite sure that switching to an open source alternative is the solution, but I think that a signal to Facebook should be given.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/comment-page-2/#comment-46354

Posted in behaviour, communication, Economy, Tech - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Polaroid: the return

Apr30
2010 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Charlie Sorrel (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/author/mistercharlie/) at Wired Gadget ad Dvice lab informs us that polaroid is back with a brand new camera using istant developing film (full story at http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/polaroid-lives-new-camera-uses-real-instant-film/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29 and at http://dvice.com/archives/2010/04/polaroid-finall.php. Polaroid announcement at http://www.polaroid.com/products/0/353900/Instant_Cameras).

“[...] The PIC-300 has the familiar snap-and-wait action, spitting a photo from a slot in its top whereupon the internal chemical pack goes to work to develop the image. The camera itself has four exposure settings and an automatic flash built into its ugly, bulbous and toy-like exterior, and runs on four AA batteries or a rechargeable li-ion (all included).

The crying shame is that the photos are smaller than the originals, although they do have that classic shape with the fat (chemical-containing) bottom-border. Similar in size to a business card, the print is 2.1 x 3.4-inches (with a 1.8 x 2.4-inch image) versus the old 3.5 x 4.25 (3 x 3.1 image size) [...]”

I’m curious to see the photo quality, but happy that a small part of my childhood comes back.

I’ve nothing personal against digital photos, but how “sexy” and “human” is to feel the photo paper under the fingers…

How is tasty to find those old photos after some time a little more yellow….

Posted in behaviour, communication, Tech - Tagged , , , , , ,

Show must go on. No!

Feb13
2010 1 Comment Written by hotrao

Marty Cortinas at Wired (http://www.wired.com/playbook/author/martycortinas/) reports as many others the sudden death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili (full article at http://www.wired.com/playbook/2010/02/death-on-vancouvers-fast-track). For italians on Corriere della Sera is reported that in a couple of hours, judges decided that incident was created by luger fault (http://www.corriere.it/sport/speciali/2010/vancouver-2010/notizie/pista-slittino-assolta_a9166686-1896-11df-adbd-00144f02aabe.shtml).

What is really awfull is that opening ceremony was made.

Is not a problem of making 1 minute silence, nor Mr Rogge crying eyes (whose reaction by the way I think is honest).

The opening ceremony had to be stopped, because there’s no olypmic spirit in celebrating with a 20 years old dead in next room.

And even if was an error to cause the death, It’s a little bit suspicious to close the investigations in such small amount of time (maybe to safeguard the 80 millions euro spent?)

It’s so sad having principles so slave to money.

In memory of  Nodar Kumaritashvili (November 25, 1988 – February 12, 2010)

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/playbook/2010/02/death-on-vancouvers-fast-track/comment-page-1/#comment-14

Posted in communication, Sport, Thoughts - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Internet for peace Nobel prize 2010 for and against

Nov21
2009 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Lewis Wallace at Wired (http://www.wired.com/underwire/author/lewis_wallace/) writes an article reporting Wired decision to start a campaign for candidating Internet (means each one of us being behind a PC) for Peace Nobel prize 2010 (full article at http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/internet-for-peace-nobel/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29, candidate site at http://www.internetforpeace.it/manifesto.cfm).

I have contrasting feelings on this action.

Why I’m for.

  • Because Internet is THE revolution of the last two centuries, having shortened distances, freed people and developed a common conscience
  • Because Internet is a media of peace and of peace keeping, permitting people to share thoughts, frustrations, dreams, ideas, hopes
  • Because the Nobel Prize for Peace can, finally, promote internet to a sort of new status of overnational media

Why I’m against.

  • Internet is immaterial and, for itself, doesn’t deserve any merit, because are people underlying that make it a “good” or “bad” media
  • Internet is not only peace.  It has inside bad feelings and habits, like everyone of us.
  • Because there are a lot of people more real than internet that deserve an help both as a prize and as money and associated visibility

At the very end, I decided to support the campaign because I hope, like Obama’s prize was this year, that this candidation will be a signal of hope for our world.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/internet-for-peace-nobel/comment-page-1/#comment-41599

Posted in communication, Economy, Politics, Tech, Thoughts - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Beware of startups. Long live the startups

Oct31
2009 Leave a Comment Written by hotrao

Eliot Van Buskirk (http://www.wired.com/epicenter/author/eliotvb/) at Wired writes an article telling us that “[...] The financial giants of New York City may have crashed spectacularly after betting the world’s economy on worthless home mortgages, but the city is now bursting with technology startups, who just a short year ago wouldn’t have been considered worth risk or attention from the money men.” (full article at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/startups-rise-from-the-wreckage-of-new-yorks-financial-system/).

I think that all those startups are of course a sign of some kind of economy new deal, but we all should be aware in order not to come again back i 2000, where with only an idea and no basis you could become a millionaire.

IMHO consistent and stable growth passes through a selection of which startup deserve to continue and those who don’t.

Not everybody is an entepreneur or is able to be so. Even if you’re one of the best and brightest mind.

This post as a comment also at http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/startups-rise-from-the-wreckage-of-new-yorks-financial-system/comment-page-1/#comment-36186

Posted in behaviour, Economy, Tech - Tagged , , , , , , , ,
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