Carrier IQ: Hero, Villain, or Just in the Wrong Place?
Owners of Android smart phones were astonished to learn that an application they knew nothing about is running on their phones. This application by Carrier IQ is hidden from users of the phones. It collects and sends lots of information to the phone's service provider (Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T, and others) without ever letting the user of the phone know. So Carrier IQ is clearly a villain, right? Well, it's not that simple.
Like most tools, Carrier IQ isn't evil any more than hammers, automobiles, and guns are inherently evil. Hammers are essential in building homes but they can be used to kill someone. Similar cases can be made for cars and guns. And for Carrier IQ.
The villains here are the carriers who purchased the technology and installed it on their customers' phone without either the permission or knowledge of the customers.
I see a class-action lawsuit lurking in the wings. Class-action lawsuits are seriously flawed and I don't much care for them because the injured parties usually get something like a $10 credit on future service while the law firm that filed the suit makes millions. But the class-action lawsuit does provide some significant pain for the party that caused the problem.
Actually, the ambulance chasers are ahead of me. After writing the previous paragraph I used Google to check it out and found that several class-action suits have already been filed against Apple, Carrier IQ, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, HTC, and Samsung.
The carriers say the software is used only for network diagnostics and, scrambling for a shield, manufacturers say they added Carrier IQ only because the carriers asked them to.
Research in Motion (RIM, the Blackberry folks) are providing instructions to uses who want to remove Carrier IQ from their phones. RIM says the application shouldn't be there. That it did not install Carrier IQ and that it gave no one permission to add it.
But it's there on some RIM devices.
The instructions from RIM show that Carrier IQ software was installed on Android phones from T-Mobile. AT&T and Sprint have admitted using Carrier IQ. Verizon denies using the application.
Just In Time for the Christmas Spending Orgy
Apple's new store at New York City's Grand Central Terminal is open. There was already a store on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street and another on the Upper West Side but now commuters can easily stop at the Apple store with the classiest chandeliers. It's times like these that I wish I was in NYC but we'll have to make do with some borrowed images.
This is the new Apple store in Grand Central Terminal. It's in a balcony one flight up from the main floor. Note the chandeliers. They alone rate a "Wow!"
The windows at the left include glass walkways that connect the offices that are on the north and south sides of the upper floors.
Source: Freshness Mag
The windows had been painted over with black paint during World War II and the paint wasn't removed until about a decade ago.
It's hard to imagine a classier location for an Apple store. Even the store on Fifth at 59th pales by comparison and the Genius Bar is reported to have more than 300 employees.
Source: International Business Times
Before the Apple Store at Grand Central opened, black barriers blocked access but note the display that mimics the arrival/departure boards at Grand Central.
Source: Apple Insider
I really wish that I had been able to provide my own pictures to illustrate the new store because Grand Central Terminal is one of my favorite locations. CBS used to have studios in Grand Central and the rumbling/vibration of the trains caused problems for early video cameras. CBS eventually left GCT and moved to Black Rock; now the former studios are tennis courts. But, once again, I digress.
This is actually Apple's fifth in Manhattan and joins about 300 stores around the world as places where Apple Fans can congregate, commiserate, and spend money. If you're in Columbus and you hanker for an Apple store, take a trip to Easton or Polaris. (Yes, Columbus is the only Ohio city with more than a single Apple store.) If you're reading or listening to the program from some other location and want to find the store closest to you, here's how: http://www.apple.com/retail/storelist/.
The store is large by Apple's (or anybody else's) standards at 23,000 square feet with lots of tables where prospective buyers can play and two Genius Bars for technical support. Because this store is located in one of the world's busiest transportation hubs, the Apple store offers 15-minute express classes on Apple products.
Wow! This almost makes me wish I was an Apple fan-boy.
No Whine Before Its Time
Some people like to whine but I'm not particularly interested in listening to them. Some say that Microsoft Word is badly designed. The same is true for Powerpoint and Photoshop and InDesign and .... Well, the list goes on and on and on.
I've been around the software business long enough to know that no program is ever perfect but that those who take the time to learn how to use the tools spend a lot less time complaining about them. If you've encountered the adage that the poor craftsman blames the tools, you know what I think about this.
Some people want to do nothing more than whine. Online services don't have a lot of patience with these people.
On the other hand, those who have a problem and describe is as "{A program} did X and I can't figure out how to make it do Y instead," are generally welcomed.
I've been there. I've done that. I didn't get a T-shirt but I did get an answer.
Don't let your frustration take over. I once posted what I thought was a reasonable explanation of the problem I was facing with a Microsoft website but I did it in a "cute" manner and the cuteness was misunderstood.
Fortunately a long-time subscriber described his confusion to me. I then posted a revised question that omitted the smart-ass commentary that I thought people might enjoy. Those who read the question then understood what my problem was, replied with helpful information, and allowed me to resolve the problem.
So when you're posting a question about something your software is doing that perplexes you, it's important to ask yourself if your goal is to whine and annoy the very people who can help you or to resolve your problem.
In an Election, This Would be a Landslide
SodaHead, the self-described "web’s largest opinion-based community", says most respondents to one of its surveys says the National Transportation Safety Board had the right answer when it recommended banning cell phone use by drivers.
The NTSB's recommendation follows a wreck in Missouri in August of 2011. A 19-year-old, who was driving sent 11 text messages in 11 minutes. As he was sending his 12th message, he failed to notice that a truck in front of him had slowed in a construction zone. He was killed when he hit the truck and 2 school buses. A 15-year-old student also died and nearly 40 were injured.
It's difficult to legislate intelligence but a federal ban on using a cell phones or texting while operating a motor vehicle would at least make the rules consistent nationally and would possibly give police better tools to remove fools from the road.
According to Soda Head, 56% of respondents agree with the NTSB and support the ban while 44% do not. This is based on 1057 responses. Soda Head's surveys are as unscientific as those silly "question of the day" surveys on radio and television stations. As any legitimate polling organization will explain, surveys in which the respondents select themselves cannot provide reliable results.
There is an attempt to provide a veneer of legitimacy by listing results based on sex (which Soda Head calls "gender"), age, religion, politics, marital status, number of children, Zodiac sign (Really???), education, employment status, and more. Even height and weight.
After people respond to the question, they're free to provide their own commentary and insults and they do. Posts quickly devolve into insults and personal attacks.
As for the proposed rule, it's certainly well intentioned. But you can't easily, as I've already noted, legislate intelligence. I've seen people driving and putting on make-up. Driving and reading a book. Driving and reading a newspaper. To say that any of these is an utterly stupid action is to state the obvious. But wouldn't any of these actions be considered "reckless operation" already? How does an extra bit of rule making fundamentally change things?
Short Circuits
XXX is Here
After more than 10 years, the XXX top-level domain (TLD) is available. Advocates of XXX say it will be easier for parents and employers to block the entire TLD. Those who are opposed say that creating the TLD legitimizes pornography.
Every new technology has been used for pornography. It's not going to go away anytime soon.
There is no requirement that providers of explicit content to use the TLD; sexually explicit material will still be commonplace in other domains (COM, for example) so the XXX domain appears to be nothing more than a money-maker for registrars.
There's also concern that existence of the XXX TLD will lead to legislation making its use mandatory for sexually explicit material. The problem with that is determining what is "sexually explicit". Free-speech rights and jurisdiction then become concerns.
This isn't new. The XXX TLD was first proposed in 2000 by ICM Registry and resubmitted in 2004 but it faced strong opposition from politicians and conservative groups and people who run pornography sites.
Amazon Continues its Kindle Fire Sale
Maybe that should be the Kindle Fire fire sale. After all, Amazon is selling the things for less than it costs to make them. And they're doing so at the rate of about 1 million per week. The number was large enough that Amazon has broken its own rules about never revealing sales figures.
There have been negative reviews of the device. Lots of them. So the boast may be a marketing/PR reaction to that. The Fire doesn't have a microphone; most other tablets do. The Fire doesn't have a camera; even low-cost cell phones have cameras these days. But the Fire's selling price is $100 or more lower than competing devices that have microphones and cameras built in.
2012 is shaping up to be the year of the tablet with Apple's Ipad, Amazon's Kindle Fire, Google's Android-powered tablets from various manufacturers, and the forthcoming spate of tablets that will be running a mobile version of Windows 8.
Take one tablet and call me in the morning.
Help! I Need the Blues Brothers!
In 1965 the Beatles made a movie called HELP. In 1980 John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made a movie called Blues Brothers. I'm not sure that there's any relationship between the two movies but hang in there for a bit and I'll see what I can do. It might be easier to create a technology angle, so I'll try that first: Both were available from Netflix.
Two of the Beatles are dead (John Lennon to an assassin and George Harrison* to cancer) as is Belushi (to drugs) but that's not the connection I'm looking for. Watching HELP is somewhat like watching movies made by the Marx Brothers: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, and (to a lesser extent) Gummo and Zeppo are frozen in time. So it is with the Beatles and with Belushi and Aykroyd.
*Thanks to everyone who told me that what I wrote originally ("Paul McCartney") was wrong. I have to remember not to trust my memory and always to look it up!
Technology does that. Groucho was always the young smart-ass even in 1977 when, at the age of 96, he died.
To say that HELP! was a great movie would be equivalent to saying that George W. Bush was a great president. (Sorry! I couldn't help myself.) To say that THE BLUES BROTHERS was a great movie would be ... well, never mind.
Even considering 1965 production values, HELP! wasn't a very good film but the Beatles were hot and anything that had their name attached to it was bound to be a hit. A key phrase from the film, "He who wears the ring ...," predates the the Lord of the Rings movie but not the book. Jake and Elwood visited "the penguin" and then got their band back together to raise money for the orphanage.
Having come so far down this road that there's no return, the only technology angle I can think of is to be thankful for the ability to view some of these old films, even the ones that aren't exactly masterpieces of the art. It's been several years since I've watched anything on broadcast or cable television and I can't say that I miss either one.
Habitat for Humanity
I attended a Habitat for Humanity dedication the morning of December 10th and took a camera along. There's no technology angle to this story except that the house was built to be both green and economical.
The pictures I took will be meaningless to you unless you know the people but joy was evident. Habitat builds affordable, quality homes. "It's a hand-up, not a hand-out."
And that seems to be a good way to end the year. TechByter takes next week off but will return with a slightly new look on 1 January 2012.
The author's image: It's that photo over at the right. This explains why TechByter Worldwide was never on television, doesn't it?
