I doubt that anyone would seriously debate that we have lost significant freedoms in this country over the last decade, though it is generally presented with a caveat that what has changed was needed for enhanced security. Sometimes this is true, other times it is for the appearance of greater security, and other times it is simply an authoritarian power…
With the new Facebook Timeline it is possible to discover who has unfriended you, which might cause some distress in general. Add to that last week’s ‘National Unfriend Day’ on Jimmy Kimmel’s show and you add to the possibility of being unfriended. But on a holiday weekend there is even more cause for concern: I got a notice that my…
Last night my son came to me with a message some of his Facebook friends had been circulating. He knew that there was a big Facebook announcement last week, but didn’t know if it involved instituting paid service levels. I told him ‘no’ and thought no more. Until this morning, when a post at the Consumerist told me that this…
There are times when the virtual world seems very real. I know that I consider my fellow writers on Gear Diary my friends, even though all of us have not met in person. But there’s a difference between real and virtual friendships, and I recognize the difference. Apparently, for some very orthodox jews, there is no difference, and that’s what…
One of the annoying things about tablets is lack of support for smartphone apps. For iPad users the ‘1x/2x’ screen doubling for iPhone apps is the bane of their existence, and for Android tablet users they often find that their favorite apps simply aren’t available on the Android Market. Facebook is one of the worst offenders of this – though…
Facebook is great in many ways. You can communicate with friends, share pictures, and vent your feelings. But be careful what you say if your rant is about your employer! As more cases appear where people are fired for complaining about work on social media, there’s more precedent for what is and is not ok! Forbes has two scenarios, along…
Are you one of the millions of fans of The Sims franchise? Do you like Facebook games? If so … rejoice, because The Sims Social has arrived! The game will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever played a Sims game: you set up your character, then start doing some basic tasks, and slowly built a life for your…
Three requests I encountered this summer: Scenario 1: Parents make a big purchase, and need to specifically instruct their children not to talk about it on Facebook. Scenario 2: A baby is born, and the new parents ask that no one posts pictures of the baby before they do. Scenario 3: A very private couple gets married, and guests are…
I use Twitter, but there are times when I have to wonder if (or why) anyone cares about my random musings and shared links. Of course, my rationale for using Twitter in the first place is that many of my friends are all over the country (if not the world), and this is a great way to keep in touch….
I’m not one of those parents who is totally panicked by the idea of all the kinds of scary things that are made available by new tech like cell phones, social media, and the like. Yes, there are a lot of scary things kids can access or be sucked into via new technology. But as a guy who spent his…
Although ‘business social’ site LinkedIn started off slower and with seemingly less traction than Twitter, a recent study showed that LinkedIn is now considered the most important social media network, with 60% of respondents saying that having a LinkedIn account is more important than any other social network. Since so many business users of social media carry smartphones, it seems…
(image made via Memegenerator) I once attended a work event where someone explained how he knew the so-called “tech bubble” of the early 90’s was over and done. It was Christmas Eve, he said, and his retired, conservative mother-in-law asked if she should own shares of Amazon.com. As he told it, at that very moment he turned to his wife…
This photograph of the President and his staff watching the assault that eventually led to the death of bin Laden in real-time, is on track to be the most viewed image in Flickr’s history. The emotion on their faces, Secretary of State Clinton’s hand over her mouth and the laser focus of the President Obama’s eyes on the screen say…
Oh the shame – you have to set your relationship status on Facebook to ‘Single’. What will your friends think? How can you possibly cope?!? Fear no more – a new company called Cloud Girlfriend promises to help you out with a simple four-step process: Step 1: Define your perfect girlfriend. Step 2: We bring her into existence. Step 3:…
I admit, I’m not a big Facebook-er. I use it as a necessary evil, not a destination site. But it looks like the folks who brought us the “like” button are taking their insinuation into our lives a step farther; now they’re going to stream video too! According to the Wall Street Journal, Warner Brothers is floating a trial balloon…
It’s a bit shameful, but I still watch “Grey’s Anatomy”. It’s my soapy guilty pleasure! I settled in last night to catch up on last night’s episode, and was surprised to discover that surgeons using Twitter was a big part of the storyline! I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say that even when the jokes were predictable…
Photo courtesy of the The International Business Times When all of Iran seemed to be exploding in the wake of “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s “victory” in the 2009 election, the news was noteworthy not just because a country struggling against authoritarian rule was trying to free itself, but also because of how the news got out: Twitter. Before cell phones integrated…
One of the tools Judie and I made big use of during CES was the iPhone app CardMunch. CardMunch let us quickly snap images of business cards and then added all the pertinent information to either its own address book or the iPhone’s built-in one. The transcription accuracy of the returned information was amazing thanks to the “human factor”. That’s…
Foursquare, that cute little services that lets you check in at a venue to let others know you are there, share and read tips about the place and, if you check in often enough, become the Fourquare mayor of the location, has teamed up with CES this year to make things a bit more fun. Last year we had a…
Communication is an evolving thing. When I was a kid everyone had rotary phones, no one had an answering machine, no one had a home computer, and people quite often communicated via hand-written letters sent over the postal service. If I was taking public transit to see a movie with friends or biking to the tennis courts at the high…
Since the advent of the web there have been sites like ‘Santa Trackers’ and ‘Naughty or Nice’ tests that would tell you about your behavior based on answering some questions. And since these were aimed at kids they would never ask anything that would allow a truly evil path. But what would happen if someone were to analyze your Facebook…