Joy of Gadgets

It seems that politicians like to try and do what’s best for us by protecting us from ourselves. They pass things like seatbelt laws–wear one or we can ticket you. The latest, of course, is the series of state laws forbidding or restricting the use of mobile phones while driving.

The latest salvo in the war against the evil mobile phone says that while mobile phone use has increased over the past 20 years, there hasn’t been a commensurate increase in the number of accidents. Maybe it has something to do with the fact we’ve been talking while driving since before there were cars. Whether it’s a phone or a person sitting next to you, it’s the same level of distraction.

It’s probably a good idea to keep both hands on the wheel while driving, thus the idea of using a headset or handsfree device would be worthwhile. However, I have yet to find a decent headset.

Via Engadget Mobile

There is an ongoing debate about the fact that teachers aren’t real fond of camera phones being in schools because, well, their tirades can end up all over YouTube.My employer, Nokia, has sold more digital cameras embedded in mobile phones than many manufacturers of standalone digital cameras have sold. In fact, the proliferation of digital cameras in mobile phones has caused problems not only for schools, but for business as well, particularly in areas were sensitive information exists. The business are afraid of information leakage, and rightfully so. And it’s even difficult to find phones without cameras. They do exist, of course, and even Nokia is making camera and camera-free versions of some of their business-oriented E-series phones.

I’ve heard the quote from Robert Heinlein “an armed society is a polite society.” Guess what: most of our society is now armed with camera phones. And while we’ve always had nature’s perfect camera: the eyes, what we now have with camera phones is the ability to share what we saw with others very easily. Nokia has tools built-into the Nseries devices that make it fairly straightforward to post what you’ve captured to Vox, not to mention the tool that Vox itself makes available for Nokia handsets.

Unlike guns, it’s not going to be easy to legislate these things out of existence. The camera phones aren’t going away anytime soon and are only getting better. I think the best thing we do is assume that anything we do in front of others can easily be captured by someone and shared with others instantly. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll all act a little nicer towards each other in the process. Polite society, indeed.

As you may have noticed, I’ve slowed down a bit on blogging. Writing hasn’t exactly been flowing freely from my fingertips the past week or so. Not that there isn’t anything going on out there, just nothing I find terribly interesting. I’m also somewhat behind on the RSS feeds. Well, at least my two email inbox are at zero.

There are, however, a few interesting things going on:

• Ted Wallingford is getting his gall bladder removed. Sounds icky.  Like Ken Camp, I’m keeping Ted in my thoughts for an uneventual surgery. I also agree with Ken that Ted needs to live out here in Western Washington. Then the three of us might get to hang out once in a while.
• Racism is alive and well. I hadn’t even gotten to this in my RSS reader, but I found it while looking through Ken Camp’s site for a link. Read this post. Open your mind. Break down the barriers.
• Know how to watch Internet TV? Make a video, win money. That’s the proposal Jeff Pulver has. Of course, it’s also a way for him to get some ads made for his new project called Network2.
• Alec Saunders asks the question we’re all wondering: Where does a Porn Star carry his Blackberry? I’m not going there.
• Space Invaders on Google Maps. Way cool!
• There’s currently a Woot Off! going on. Not that I’ve ever bought anything on Woot. I’d like to pick up a bag of crap, personally. Never know what you’re going to get. Might be fun.
• I’m seeings lots of unveilings of the Nokia N95. Darla Mack posted a detailed box content listing, Steve Garfield videoed the unboxing, and I’m sure there are others I can’t remember.

More later as I sift through the RSS reader some more.

My RSS reader overflowed with interesting stuff to read while I was off the grid. Time to get back in the swing of things:

• FCC Won’t Release Mobile Phone Service Reliability Data: While I see both sides of this, I disagree with the fact that this data somehow endangers national security. My tax dollars paid for this data, let me see it, damn it!
• Working Anywhere: This is one of Andy Abramson’s blogs about, well, working anywhere. I do have to wonder if or how he will differentiate it from Om Malik’s Web Worker Daily, which I have done a couple of guest posts on so far.
• Jajah Adds Advertising: My question: how obtrusive will the ads be? And will the ad revenue offset the cost of terminating calls?
• Henry Gomez: Skype President and Niklas Z’s bitch?: I have to admit, I just love the title of this blog post by Alec Saunders.
• Video Calls Are A Preplanned Thing: This will probably remain the case until SightSpeed improves their IM functionality to be on-par with everyone else out there. (Hint, Hint!) Also, read Andy Abramson’s take on this.
• New And Improved Voxilla Store: Both in terms of look and number of products offered. (Disclosure: I own stock in Voxilla)
• Mobile Wallets in NYC: This isn’t the first time my employer has been involved in an NFC trial in the states.
• PhoneGnome + IPKall: Two great tastes that taste great together. Used them both in this way for a while. Nice to see the PhoneGnome folks write it up all nice and easy like.
• NBC Goes to Web With Uncensored SNL Skit: NSFW, but funny. Well at least I think so.
• Digg Diggs Video and Podcasting: It’s now easier to see videos without leaving the Digg site. Will have to see how this works in the RSS feeds since I almost never visit the site directly.
• Amanda Gate Part II: Why can’t these people STFU? If you don’t know what that means, look it up.
• Sync Nokia N73 with iSync: Hm… may have to try that. Thanks, Ted!
• Gizmo CallIn Goes International: CallIn numbers for your Gizmo Project account are now available in 28 countries. VoIP Girl notes that availability in Canada is somewhat limited, though.
• FCC Drops Morse Code Requirements for Amateur Radio: Bound to happen sooner or later, though morse code does have its place.
• Costco Return Policies: Yes, they are extremely liberal. That alone is the reason I buy electronics there–if they have what I want. That and I get 2% back at the end of my membership year. Considering I give several thousand of my hard-earned dollars to Costco every year for things I use every day, that executive membership more than pays for itself.

More to come…