Why So Little Tech News...

So postings have been sparse on my blog unfortunately. There are a number of reasons for this sparsity which includes just a complete lack of time. I have had too many things to do and issues to resolve both at home and work. Plus my son has been racking up the hours on World of Warcraft barring my access to the computer.

To be fair though, I am not convinced that me rewrite technology articles is really useful or relevant. I use Google Reader as an RSS aggregator and reader. It allows me to share articles that I am interested in or find relevant. I decided a few months ago to use that as my platform for sharing articles I feel merit highlighting in technology (and other) news. [OK I' m sorry forgot to mention this before...]

So If you want my hot items on technology either look at my Google Reader Share page or subscribe to the feed.

Are Facebook Apps the New Chain-Mail Syndrome?

I have had a profile on Facebook now for quite a few months (lost track to be honest). At the beginning my activity was simple enough, it consisted of just friends and posting from wall to wall.

After a few weeks, I started getting Facebook App invitations from all over the place. Some even multiple times as different friends invited me to use the same applications. The natural thing to do is to accept those invitations and add the new App to your profile. Now here is the interesting part, and the rant.

The system is conceived in such a way that when you add a new App, it automatically asks you to share it with your friends. You can of course skip this but the natural tendency is to send the new found App to your friends on your list. Now it dawned on me, yesterday, while chatting with some colleagues in Cambridge that this is almost like viral marketing or messaging (or whatever you want to call it). I would even go as far as to say this is almost like the old chain-mail, and chain-email stuff from the 80's and 90's! Remember those things, where you would receive them and in the message it would say, please forward this to your friends and colleagues etc etc etc! I am sure that this was not the original intent of the Facebook creators when they created an API and there are some good things about the extensions that Facebook supports. But...

Think about it! Facebook Apps are doing exactly the same thing right now... Some are even monetary chain-mails (yes some Apps allow you to opt into giving the creator money)! So what, well:

• My question is will this explode into the new viral marketing of the decade...
  
• Are we as humans still not evolved enough to be gullible like that (I am guilty of this)...
• Or do we just need to have this affirmation of our power to share new things and new information with our firends

One Lap or Two?

This is one heck of a long swimming pool! I wonder how long it would take to swim one or two laps. Definitely a good work out!

Photo credit: Spluch

Also seen on Crave.

Thoughts on How to Improve Google Reader

For those who track me on Twitter and know me a little bit, you may have heard me going on about how I would like to see some form of tool that aggregates the articles coming from different feeds. My problem is that there is too much information out there and the fact is that more and more sites are covering the same news or information in general.

So I have been doing some more thinking on my ideas regarding how to improve Google Reader.

My main wish is that it be more intelligent with the feed content. As I previously have pointed out here and on my twitter, many of my feeds carry the same or similar information. My idea is that there should be some form of aggregation of this information. What is required is something similar to this diagram:

That was a simple example where the articles present the same information. The idea is that this should be extrapolatable to information that presents itself differently but is still concerning the same information. Essentially something like this:

Now this not far fetched as Google already does this in News:

Notice how this article presents one story and multiple references to similar or linked stories. This is the kind of thing that needs to be done to the multitude of articles in RSS feeds. It would considerably reduce the amount of entries to read and also cut out the noise!

So Google are you up to the challenge.
Note: The graphics are presented in this attached signed PDF: Thoughts on Improvements to Google Reader Graphics

iPhone Not so Happy for Apple in France = unlocked

It's started! The iPhone is not even officially released yet in Europe and more specifically France than Apple is already facing trouble with its selling methodology.

In fact Les Echos recently reported that Apple has forgotten one fundamental principal that stands in Europe and specifically France today: You can't screw the customer! Consumer law prohibits the sale of any good and service that are dependent on each other in France and some other EU countries. For mobile operators this translates into the fact that they can no longer tie a phone and mobile plan together.

Because of this law, Orange in France the official iPhone carrier, may in fact be forced to sell it without a data plan and carrier lock! Of course this is a big problem for Apple as the current price of the iPhone with «subsidies» is still very expensive and gives no real motivation to buy a locked version... Besides why would you want to buy such an expensive multimedia phone with no 3G+ and no video, when you can buy cheaper and better multimedia phones like the Nokias, Samsungs and others!

France may be the first place where Apple is in fact forced to sell the iPhone unlocked!