Month: May 2010

While it is sadly just a gallery art project, I’d still like to have one of these floating around my house. 

Should hoverboards ever become reality I will buy one. And promptly get very, very injured. 

Heck, this may inspire me to build my own art demo. Where are my HappyMeal toys from he 80s? I think a small hoverboard was included back in the day… 

As the market cap of Apple surpasses that of Microsoft, another Evil Empire is at it again: Yankee Stadium has banned the iPad, apparently as a security hazard.

As a member of Major League Baseball who’s Advanced Media division is the leader is mobile and Internet technology among all sports leagues this is shocking an embarrassing for the Yankees.

The MLB app on the iPad is even better than those on the iPhone and Android. That larger screen real estate does amazing things. But Yankee stadium has a ban on laptops and believes that as a laptop the iPad is a non-starter.

While personally I can’t see bringing an iPad or my laptop with me the next time I head to Fenway Park, an outright ban of those devices is just foolish.

Should tablet computers (and possibly the man purse to hold them) become the norm stadiums would have the ability to push out content – the day’s program, a scorecard (there’s already an app for that), exclusive content from MLB.com or the local columnists written for the game. Imagine an interactive queue system to check the lines at the food courts.

In any case, the Hudson Valley Renegades are trying to grab a few minutes of fame: free tickets to fans with iPads.

In what is rapidly becoming the barrier between tech A-lists and the average folk, Facebook’s latest feature rollout (or privacy rollback) is stirring emotions throughout the 400 million member kingdom of Mark Zuckerberg.

By way of charts showing the expanded reach of Facebook content, the terms of service being watered down, and security holes allowing private chats to be viewed by anyone, Facebook has become the sieve of the Internet. Facebook is the digital equivalent of the oil spill in the Gulf; like BP, Facebook claimed to be in control and as users have found out, that was stretching the truth a bit.

The reaction has formed an Anti-Facebook movement of sorts with people looking for alternatives or a way out. Many people prominent in the tech industry have be adamant that now is the time to leave, even if pulling out of Facebook isn’t as simple as one would like.

·      Googlers like Matt Cutts have left.

·      Leo Laporte has deleted his account.

·      Baratune Thurston has decided the best way to deal with Facebook is to reign in his profile and friend lists.

·      Robert Scoble has taken the view that if Facebook wants everything to be public, he’ll open his profile up and only include those things he doesn’t mind being public.

·      Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis has issued a direct message to Mark Zuckerberg saying Facebook needs to wake up and grow up on the issues of security and privacy.

This is not the outcry of the average Facebook user who got an account to trade sheep with their friends, these are the bellwether technology folks, the early adopters of exactly this sort of stuff saying they are moving on. The industry insiders and the well informed. It has taken a while but the evolving privacy issues in the State of Facebook have begun to make people reconsider the value of the service.

I liked the newsfeed when it first came out. The newsfeed took information that was already accessible from my friends’ profiles and put it on the front page. I could see their updates without checking each profile individually. Great idea. Taking away the requirement of a college address? It changed the service, by allowing outsiders in. Allowing my picture or pictures of my friends to be used in ads? Getting creepy now.

Each time Facebook has changed to be more public I’ve cut back on what I share. Until recently I didn’t care about movies or books I like being on my profile, but now even those are gone. I’ll admit to anyone that my favorite movies are Empire Strikes Back and Return to Oz, but I don’t want to go to Fandango or IMDB and have that filled in advance because it was in my Facebook profile.

Is Facebook going to fall because of this? No. It has over 400 million users and counting, growing far faster than people are leaving. But Diaspora raised $173,000 as of this writing (they were looking for $10,000) to build an open source social network. It won’t be perfect but it will be an alternative with a spotlight. Back in the day no one thought Facebook could become more popular than MySpace (or AOL even further back in the day). Like Mikey Rourke’s character said in Iron Man 2 “If you can make God bleed people would cease to believe in Him.”