CC all your emails to Jacqui Smith, instructs protest group

jacqui-smith-cleavage.jpg

The government is rather keen on the idea of creating a massive database that will store all your emails, texts, calls and internet use. It’s an idea that’s understandably raised a few eyebrows, even outside of privacy and consumer-based pressure groups. Even I’m a little alarmed about this one, despite generally not being that fussed about privacy issues.

In protest, some enterprising sorts have created a campaign called “CC all your emails to Jacqui Smith day”. On one day – June 15th – they want you to copy all your email correspondence in to [email protected], the idea being that they get so overwhelmed by a mountain of correspondence, so much of it inane and useless, that they realize it’s a rubbish idea.

Of course, it could backfire. On the FAQ section of the site under ‘is this legal?’, the organizers claim: “This is unclear. You personally are certainly at no risk from prosecution. But it is possible that if the volume of emails crashes the servers, it could be seen as a Denial of Service attack – although there is no precedent for such an attack coming from multiple people sending a small number of emails.”

There’s also a Facebook group, though as the Register points out, they’re fairly keen on keeping all your private data themselves, so you might just want to plump for the email option. Sign up on the website, right here.

“CC all your emails to Jacqui Smith day”

Twitter to be taught to ten-year-olds

kids-on-twitter.jpg

The UK government announced today that it wants to teach Twitter in primary schools as part of a campaign to make online communication and social media part of the national curriculum. Kids will also be taught to use Wikipedia, how to blog, and proper typing skills alongside traditional handwriting skills.

The plans, which also remove the Victorians and Second World War from the primary syllabus, were going to be launched next month, but leaked early in the Guardian. Analysts and teacher groups have cautiously welcomed the moves, though they wonder why current trends are being given so much weight.

Personally, I’m glad that Wikipedia, blogging and proper keyboard usage are being taught – all of those are, for the moment, here to stay. I’m a little confused, though, as to why Twitter has been singled out. It’s not that revolutionary and, even speaking as a heavy user, it’s current prominence in the news is surely no more than a passing media fad caused by high-profile celebrities joining up. Students should certainly understand online communication, but I’m not convinced Twitter is the best way to show them.

What do you think? Tell us on Twitter – and no, the irony of that isn’t lost on me – @techdigest.

Guardian (via Techcrunch UK)

Sennheiser shows off five pairs of sports headphones

sennheiser-mx-85.jpg

Sennheiser, a company with a long heritage in headphone design, has just unveiled five new pairs of headphones that come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and prices. Only one pair – the high-end CX 380 Sport II’s – are noise-isolating, presumably because you often need to hear the outside world, too, when you’re indulging in exercise.

Starting with the low-end, let’s begin at the MX 80s. These are fairly standard earbuds, with a little bit of extra bass and a waterproof and ‘sweatproof’ (eww) design. They’re also pretty tough, and should be able to take a bit of knocking about. £25.

Then there’s the MX 85s which are very similar to the MX 80s but have a ‘twist-to-fit’ system that should keep the buds in your ear a little more effectively if you’re waving your head about wildly, as one is wont to do while ‘sporting’. They cost £35. A tenner for a fit mechanism?

Moving up the range further, there’s the OMX 80s, which are again pretty much the same phones, but with earhooks on them, providing a slightly different way of keeping them on your head. They come with a ‘reflective rear stripe’ too, so you don’t get run over in the dark. Also £35.

Refusing to quit with the different ways of keeping headphones attached to your head, Sennheiser’s also got the PMX 80s, which have an ergonomic neckband to hold things in place, and ensure that just as that power chorus comes in, you won’t get your buds rudely yanked out. They also have the aforementioned reflective strip, and cost £35.

Then lastly, at the top of the range, are the CX 380s. These are more like it – silicon sleeves provide a tight fit for the in-ear design, they’re washable, and have a rather more high-performance driver than the cheaper models. They cost more, though – £50.

My thoughts are that the extra price on these compared to standard models might not really be worth the outlay. It’s only a bit of plastic, after all. That said, I don’t do an awful lot of sport, so if you do, then put me right on Twitter at @techdigest.

Sennheiser

OPINION: Why I'm not going back to using Twitter with SMS

twitter-bird.jpg

I’m quite proud to say that I’m old-skool when it comes to Twitter – I’ve been signed up since April 2007. My first tweet? “Watching TV, waiting for my roommate to finish dinner, and then going out drinking.”

Back then I used the SMS system with Twitter. I’d SMS my updates to a central number, and the service would send them back to me by text. When you’re only following a few people, that’s fine. You don’t end up abusing your free text allowance.

But then Twitter, citing financial reasons, withdrew the SMS service in August 2008. Overnight, the gentle buzz from my phone getting Tweets two or three times a day just stopped. I stopped having a reminder to Tweet. As a result, I got a bit lazy and there’d be weeks between my Tweets.

But then something changed. I managed to slip over the tipping point of following enough people saying enough things that it was worth checking it daily, so it found its way onto my bookmarks bar of my browser and that got me back off the edge and tweeting again.

Nowadays I’m following 350-odd people, and I get about three or four updates a minute. That’s fine at my PC – running Twhirl means I can just let those conversations quietly purr away in the background. I’ve also got a client for my S60 phone – Twibble – which sorts me out on the go.

A company called Twe2 launched this week that lets European users get alerts on their phone, in exchange for an ad at the end of the Tweet. Yay! I can get my SMS Tweets back! But I don’t want it.

The idea of having three to four texts coming in to my phone every minute seems ludicrous. The way I use Twitter now – it’s there when I need it, and I can ignore it when I want – is perfect. I get any @replies and DMs emailed to me, and I check my email a billion times a day so I don’t miss them. I just don’t need SMS.

Do you agree? Or are you gagging to get SMS tweets back? Share your opinion in the comments.

Microsoft's SeniorPC Project

seniorpc-project.jpg

As birth rates and death rates both fall off in Western countries, something that we’re going to have to face up to in the future is a rapidly aging population. Microsoft doesn’t see that as a problem – more of an opportunity to flog some PCs, and it’s teamed up with HP to design computers for the elderly.

Three SeniorPC offerings are currently being tested. They’re targeted at an audience who’s never used email, browsed the internet or used a word processor. As a result, the software included on the PCs are special versions that are greatly simplified, produced by a company called QualiLife.

Windows Vista Home Basic is preloaded onto the machines with a ‘shell’ built over it that makes things easier to locate. A very simplistic browser is included too, as well as a simplified email client and the word processor from Microsoft Works, which is simpler than Office’s Word. It’s possibly to disable the simplistic versions of the software once someone gets more comfortable using it, enabling more advanced features.

Some specialist programs are also pre-loaded. A piece of medication management software called OnTimeRX will let users manage their medication, telling them what to take and when. Family members and physicians can access this to check if medication is being taken. There’s also two memory games – Slide Puzzle and Super Word Slide – that help fight against memory problems.

Hardware-wise, the machines come in both laptop and desktop form factors, with one package including a “BigKeys” keyboard, and a “BigTrack” trackball. They’re good for arthritis sufferers apparently. At the time of delivery, Microsoft will also offer training on any included software and hardware, as well as a year of customer support and internet connectivity.

At the moment, these packages aren’t available in the UK yet, just in the States. I’ve got an email in to Microsoft asking how it’s going and whether we’re likely to see the project in the UK in the near future. I’ll let you know if I hear back.

SeniorPC

SleepMinder – home recording of your sleep patterns

sleep-monitor.jpg

How much did you sleep last night? You’ve probably got some idea – six hours? Seven? 10? But you don’t know *exactly*, do you? The only way of measuring that was to go visit a sleep clinic and have electrodes hooked up to your head while you try and pretend you’re at home with your teddy. Pretty soon, though, you’ll be able to monitor your sleep scientifically in the comfort of your own bed.

SleepMinder is a product from a company called BiancaMed. They describe it as a “Non-contact biosensor”, which means that it can monitor your sleep, respiration and other bio-paramaters without relying on sensors attached to your body.

What that means is a little beige box sitting on your bedside table gathering data constantly. From that data, it can do more than just tell you that you’ve been eating too much cheese before bed. Chronic conditions like diabetes, Alzheimers, heart failure and COPD affect sleep, heart-rate and breathing, so monitoring sleep patterns can be a valuable early warning system.

The first application that BiancaMed is considering putting the technology into is a baby montior. You’d be able to configure it to alert you if your kid stops breathing for more than 20 seconds, for instance. Then there’s the idea of putting it in a mobile phone so that you don’t need a bulky device sat on your bedside table all the time.

And in a worst case scenario, you’ll at least have some evidence for your boss when he’s complaining that you look like a zombie in the mornings. You didn’t just go to bed late, you suffer from sleep apnea – and you’ve got the graphs to prove it!

Biancamed

MyMedia – a very deep recommendations engine

mymedia.jpg

The internet is too big. There’s simply too much stuff on it. In 2006, an estimate of how much put the figure at 40 Petabytes, which is about 38000000000 short novels. There’s a lot more than that today, and Microsoft’s innovation labs are trying to work out the best way of sifting through it.

Recommendations engines can run in lots of different ways. You can look at people’s interests and try and match those up with content, which is a bit of a hassle. You can use the wisdom of the crowd to predict based on what other people have consumed next to each other, which is a bit better.

But what Microsoft is doing takes things a step further – they try and work out your mood, see what other stuff you listen to when you’re in that mood, and predict things that way. They also tap into your network of friends – who you presumably have common ground with – to try to work out what stuff you like.

As with any recommendations engine, the more you put in, the more you’ll get out. Microsoft doesn’t claim, therefore, that this is going to work perfectly out of the box. Instead, it’ll get better the more you use it, and ties in with Microsoft’s massive social network around Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) and Messenger (MSN).

The project’s still at an early stage, so it’s difficult to judge whether the company will be able to pull off something as effective as Last.fm’s music recommendation engine. Let’s hope, though, that something comes off it, and the stranglehold that the media holds over mainstream taste can be eroded.

MyMedia

SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: Logitech G13 Gameboard

Gaming peripherals usually fall into one of two categories – useless or ridiculous. Sometimes both, but there isn’t often something that’s both sensible and useful. That’s why I was mildly startled by the G13, which does what it does very well, and doesn’t look like it was designed by a moron on acid.

Unfortunately, you pay through the nose for that kind of quality. £75’s worth of nose, to be prescise. Competing products, despite not being quite as good, are less than half that price. Perhaps in a few months it’ll cheapen down a bit. I’ll be waiting patiently until then before I make a purchase.

Samsung Lucido, smartphone specs in a midrange phone

samsung-lucido.jpg

This is a sign of progress. Lucido is unashamedly not a high-end phone, but it’s got the kind of features and specs that we’re normally fairly impressed with. Are we in the future or something? I don’t feel different…

There’s HSDPA, aGPS, a 5-megapixel camera with various software goodies like face recognition and smile capture, Bluetooth, an accelerometer, and microSD slot. Best of all, though, is the AMOLED display, which stretches out across 2.2″ of the front of the phone.

The phone measures 114 x 56 x 12mm, and there’s a nice metallic finish to it that you can see in the pictures above. It’ll be available April, but there’s been no price announced yet. Looks rather swish, don’t you think?

(via Trusted Reviews)

iPhone 3G and G1 prices slashed

iphone-g1.jpg

Both O2 and T-Mobile seem to be dropping the prices of their flagship handsets – the iPhone 3G and the G1 respectively. It could signal an inventory clearout for the devices so that the networks aren’t left with hundreds in warehouses when their replacments hit the market.

Rumour has it that the iPhone 3G will be available free on the £35 and £45 tariffs from May. Currently, the 8GB model is free at the £45 price point, and the 16GB one is only available on the £75 a month tarriff. It’s unclear if the new iPhone will be some form of iPhone Nano, or whether it’ll just get an OS enhancement. There’s an Apple event going on this week, so we might know more very soon.

Then there’s the G1. We already know that the G2 is nearly here – it’ll be arriving on these shore in April. In the meantime, though, US retailer Costco has more than halved the price of the handset to just $80 wehn buying a two-year contract.

We don’t know if there are plans for a similar cut in the UK, but given that T-Mobile has lost out on the G2 exclusive to Vodafone, they’ll likely be wanting to lock people into G1 contracts sooner rather than later, so we can expect freebie G1s on contracts that could dip as low as £20.

(via Mobile-Phones and ITProPortal)