Internet

Internet — No Comments
8
Dec 06

Data Privacy

I attended a seminar today about data privacy given by Bradley Malin, an assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt.

It was a pretty interesting talk on an interesting subject. You must have heard about the AOL search data scandal this past summer when AOL released lots of search data. One may think that it does not hurt to publicly release anonymous data. Although users were anonymized by using some unique numbers, it didn’t take long for people to personally identify a user by cross-referencing with other public data. In this talk, Malin also emphasized the point that even though data is anonymous, it may still be possible to identify who it belongs to by using other publicly available data, which in his interest is the medical data.

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Internet / Personal — No Comments
15
Nov 06

Schmap Destination Guide

I learned about Schmap Destination Guide when I received an email for a request to include one of my photos posted on Flickr in Schmap Nashville Guide. Schmap is described as a dynamic destination guide. You download a free player that displays an interactive guide complete with pictures and maps of landmarks of a city or a country that you select.

This picture, which I took in the Opryland hotel is included in the Nashville Guide. I honestly don’t know how many people are downloading Schmap guides, but I am pretty happy that my amateur photo is included in the guide. I have downloaded their free player and viewed the Nashville guide. It seems like a pretty interesting idea since it provides a complete solution for learning about important landmarks, hotel picks in different areas of the town and such. There is information about available tours, where to eat, in addition to historical background of the destination.

On the right is a screenshot of their free player with the Nashville guide open and my included picture showing up on the right hand column when Opryland is selected as the region.

I decided to include their little Schmap picker on my sidebar if anyone is interested in playing with it. If you are making travel plans, this may come handy. I have not completely used it and cannot really comment on how useful it would be for travel planning but it sure has strong potential. Let me know if you have ever tried it and liked it.

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[tags] nashville, personal, travel guide[/tags]

Internet / Web 2.0 — No Comments
3
Nov 06

Gmail Offers Google Spreadsheets for XLS Attachments

According to Google Blogoscoped Gmail just started offering to open XLS attachments in Google Spreadsheets. This is very convenient, indeed.

However, what is more interesting here is what the Blogoscoped points at: Google’s strength at locking in the users. It is obvious when you think about it. You are already using Gmail, and once you are inside that application it is way more convenient to use Google’s spreadsheet program to download and open the attachment in any such software. Google already has an mp3 player to play mp3 attachments inside Gmail. One day, they may convert any video format to Google Video format on the fly and offer opening any video attachments in Google Video. I would hardly oppose because it would be convenient.

This got me thinking about lock-ins and monopoly. Microsoft was burned big time and blamed for monopoly and anti-trust when they bundled their browser and media player inside the Windows OS. Competitiors complained this was competitive advantage and users would not bother using any other program. Is Google doing the same thing? I think, in a way, they are. It is not easy to notice at first glance since the platform is different. Google is building a web OS slowly as they offer email, office, calendar, media player, maps etc. They are integrating all their services together as one would expect. How is this different than what MS did? How long will it take before competitors start complaining about Google’s practices?

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Internet — 3 Comments
2
Nov 06

New Gmail Mobile Application

Google announced a new mobile Java application which delivers Gmail to any J2ME-enabled mobile phone. There is already a mobile version of Gmail which is accessible via the browser on the mobile phone. However, this new application brings a richer experience and the look and feel of Gmail. Among the functionality included is search, conversation view, and automatic synchronization with the desktop version.

The completely free application can be downloaded from here. Although the application is free, it is worth mentioning that the service carrier will charge for the internet access through the mobile phone.

Google also announced a partnership with Sprint. According to the press release, Sprint will provide links to easily download Gmail for mobile devices directly from the Sprint PCS VisionSM or Sprint Power VisionSM home page.

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[tags] google, gmail, mobile, technology[/tags]

Internet — No Comments
18
Oct 06

Internet Explorer 7 is Released

Microsoft released the final version of Internet Explorer 7 to the public. It will be interesting to see if the security improvements will be effective. I am also expecting that RSS will see more adaptation as it is now integrated with the browser.

Edit: IE Blog has the announcement as well.

[tags] microsoft, IE[/tags]

Internet — 1 Comment
18
Oct 06

No Fast Internet for Iran

There is no doubt that the internet has changed the world and is continuing to change it. The amount of information is limitless. The information is both good and bad. Anyone who is looking for something either good or bad can access it. This is definitely threatening to some people and countries. We know that China is particularly selective about which information Chinese may access with a censorship policy.

Iran, on the other hand, is taking a different approach and going deeper to find a solution to the problem. Guardian reports that Iran bans fast internet access to prevent the effect of the western culture. According to the news, there are about 5 million internet users in the country. The service providers are ordered to limit the connection speeds to 128 KB/s and they are forbidden to offer faster connection speeds. Looks like it is still not possible for governments to ban internet all together and the way to go is to make it more painful to access the information.

Techdirt points to the words of Homeland Security Secretary about how internet can help someone develop radical ideologies. Is this a sign that governments will start applying RIAA like actions on a different domain?

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[tags] news, opinion[/tags]

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