What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook... for everyone to see.

Once again Facebook has shown blatant disregard for their user's privacy.  In a move to increase their ad revenue, Facebook has made it even easier for others to know each and every thing you do.  This new sidebar ticker feed means that every post you make, every comment you leave, every 'Like' button you press is broadcast to all of your friends in real time.  Do we really need this level of publicity in our lives?  We already have the standard news feed that displays things we are most likely to be interested in.  I don't want to see all the minutia of my friends' lives, and I certainly don't want to have everything I do broadcast to my friends in real time.  This news feed has turned from what was already a pressure washer into a fire hose of information.  We must always be careful how much we are willing to post and share with the Facebook community, especially as it becomes more and more visible to those around us.


Current event for September 27th, 2011:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44677285/ns/technology_and_science-security/

Don't Throw Away Your Wallet

Google has officially released its digital payment service as an app for smart phones. With this new technology a person can pay for just about anything by just waving their phone next to a near-field communication credit card terminal. It sounds intriguing, but looking at it closely reveals that this doesn't fill any need, doesn't provide any further safety, and is really only usable by a small fraction of the population. What are people gaining by being able to wave their phone around instead of using a credit card? The time it would take to start the app is not likely to be any faster than pulling a credit card out of your wallet. And heaven help you if your phone's battery dies right before you need to make a crucial payment. No, this technology doesn't present anything good to society other than a new toy for the rich and the lucky.

(Current event for September 20th:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/09/google-wallet-opens-for-business-visa-gets-onboard.html)

Computer Generated Everything

It comes as no surprise to me that computers are now being made to automatically generate news stories. What does surprise me is the high quality of the content delivered by these computers. If a computer can generate such a well written article for such a low cost, then why do we need humans writing news stories for such a high cost? Sure, the programs might only be able to write baseball stories now, but how long will it be before they are writing stories to compete with the big-name-news corporations? This is really nothing more than a new form of industrial competition. In this case its human writers competing against computer programmers who have made low cost computerized writers. It will be a long time before the competition really gets fierce, but when it does--to the victor belong the spoils.

(Current Event Article: Will Computer-Generated Articles Replace Human Journalists? http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392870,00.asp)

Technology Defines Culture

Entrepreneurs of technical products define our culture, even if by accident.

Technologies throughout all time have redefined the culture that created them. As Neil Postman said, "After television, America was not America plus television." It was a new America. Computers and mobile technologies have had a similar effect on cultures throughout the world. The people who brought these products into the marketplace did so to make a profit. Changing society was usually not their goal. We should remember that not all technologies are guaranteed to improve our lives -- some are only guaranteed to fill the wallets of capitalists.

Hello, World!

This will be a blog dedicated to technical news and events, especially those related to computers in our everyday society. I will also post on book reviews, and other computer related subjects. I look forward to passing along interesting things that I find and the thoughts I have on them. See you all when I publish my first real post!