Monthly Archives: April 2014

Precise Location

This may be a bit too much…

Social media is an important facet of our daily lives, but the trick to putting it to good use is to find the right balance between what you share and what you don’t share. Companies and brands should share everything they want their customers to know. Normal, everyday users should be a little more judicious.

That’s why Facebook’s new tool may be sharing too much. On Thursday, the social media giant will launch “Nearby Friends”, a feature of their app that will allow you to broadcast your exact location to all your friends. Your precise coordinates will be available to anyone who has also opted into this entirely voluntary service.

Turn-On-Nearby-Friends-11

The purported purpose of this service is to help users engage in real life, offline. As with the rest of Facebook, the privacy settings can be customized to your liking, sharing what you like with whom you like. However, this leads into the realm of oversharing. For the most part, I don’t want to know where my high school classmates are, and if I did I’d ask them where they are. In my profile, this feature will probably collect dust, rarely if ever used.

But then what if it becomes a trend to have this feature activated? Because then Facebook knows where you are at all times. And are we sure we can trust these large entities with the minutiae of our daily comings and goings? It’s a small measure of privacy to be sure, but a valuable one as well. Time will tell how this feature will end up shaping the user experience.

What Sparks Our Fire: Awareness of the coming trends, and taking care not to share too much.

Do you feel comfortable with this new feature?

Super Jenga

Next, international disputes will be settled with spirited games of Risk.

Jenga is all about balance, delicacy, and finesse. These are words you normally wouldn’t associate with heavy earthmovers like the ones that Cat builds. However, this video demonstrates the fine-tuned capabilities these machines have, all under the tagline “Built For It”. This is a very clever idea for video advertisement. Everyone knows what Jenga is, and the moment you see that they’re going big with 600-lb. blocks you almost need to watch it, even if you aren’t in the market for an Excavator.

In essence, this isn’t only a decent advertisement but rather a very strong move to rebrand the concept of heavy construction equipment in the public mind. Not only can they push a lot of dirt around, they can finagle heavy blocks to balance on each other.

For more fun check out the “Making Of” video below.

What Sparks Our Fire: Creative rebranding of something we see on a pretty regular basis.

Did this video change your perception of Cat equipment?

Modular Update

Project-Ara-Colors

One of my favorite topics is the possibility of a modular cellphone. The idea that you don’t have to change out your entire device when a part malfunctions or needs to be upgraded appeals to anyone whose phone is increasingly outdated by rapidly advancing technology. The standout favorite in this new genre of devices is Google’s Project Ara, about which the company revealed new details this week.

At a conference for prospective developers, project head Paul Eremenko stated the smartphones should be set to ship in the first weeks of 2015. The Android OS will be updated to support the modular components. The first phone released will be a generic gray, to encourage the user to personalize and get creative with their devices. They will be able to create a custom look with the Ara Configurator, which allows customization of individual modules. This means users can import photos, which the Configurator will use to create a color palate for the blocks, or they can create customized 3D-printed textures. All of these are designed to be easily removed to allow for re-customization.

What Sparks Our Fire: The next generation of smartphones means a little less money spent on the next best thing.

Would you upgrade to an Ara?

 

Power Play

I have an iPhone 4S with a battery that barely lasts five hours. Because of that, I need to carry an extra rechargeable battery with me at all times. It’s bulky and I hate it, on top of which it takes forever to charge, somewhere between 20 minutes to a half-hour, and only to about 50% capacity.

Israeli startup StoreDot plans to use nanotech to solve the charge speed problem. A video released by the company shows a phone going from next to no charge to full charge in slightly less than 30 seconds. It works via nanodots, which are minuscule bio-organic conductive crystals that basically allow a greater amount of charge to pass through them faster than was possible with conventional tech.

The charger is still in prototype, but The Wall Street Journal has reported production is planned for the latter part of 2016. They hope to refine the device, which looks sort of like a laptop charger, for an industry that “is not ready for it,” CEO Dr. Doron Myersdorf said. “We are talking about a new type of materials that can be introduced into different types of devices.”

What Sparks Our Fire: Fast and comprehensive charging technology, helping us to waste less time.

Do you think this will solve the battery issues facing most smartphones today.

What You Need to Know About Heartbleed

Heartbleed-Refresh

Personally, I’m not worried about Heartbleed, the recently exposed encryption flaw that has affected the majority of the internet. I don’t have a lot of important information on the internet except for my Stumbleupon preferences and a very respectable Candy Crush score. However, for those of you with stock portfolios and blackmail photos of local politicians, here’s a rundown of the things you need to be concerned about with regards to your internet security.

Who should be concerned? Everyone who uses the internet for more than funny cat pictures. Estimates are two-thirds of the internet has been affected, and so it’s more than likely you’ve been directly or indirectly affected by the leak. The downside is there’s not really much you can do about it. The damage at this point is done. However, Mashable has made this great list of passwords that may have been compromised. As well, password security firm LastPass has set up a Heartbleed Checker, where you can enter a URL and see if it could have been compromised.

Feeling stressed? Take a break and read this. 

Okay, feeling better now? Let’s continue.

It’s important to wait until a particular website has given the “all-clear” before you change your password on it, because changing the password on a compromised website is like changing the oil in a burning car. Facebook, Google, WordPress, Amazon Web Services and Akamai have all reportedly issued patches for the leak. Otherwise the only thing you should be doing is keeping an eye on sensitive accounts like email and online banking and make sure there are no odd changes.

Still stressed? Watch this.

By the way, who is branding this leak? It has a logo and everything.

What Sparks Our Fire:  Our fire isn’t particularly sparked, but as our valued readers, we feel this is something you should know.

Are you concerned by this breach?