Brandon Lee

Google’s New Tool To Control Your Account After You Were Gone

Ever wonder what will happen to your Google account after you were gone? All the transactions, the businesses you had in the cyber mailing, what will happen to those? Because unlike when people are still communicating ‘manually,’ the conversations we are currently having through e-mail will stay intangible unless we actually print them.

What if someone needs them when we’re not around anymore and because our accounts are locked out of passwords, they cannot access such important files?

Well, thankfully, Google now has a solution for this dilemma if eventually the need occurs. The said solution, the ‘Interactive Account Manager’ tool, will ‘control what happens to your account when you stop using Google,’ i.e. death.

Google will send, with the use of this new tool, a notification one month before you desired time (3, 6, 9 months or one year, your choice) for Google to take action on your account. If the user has not responded or reentered your account, Google will notify your ‘trusted accounts’ (you can list up to 10 accounts) and will shared your data with them. The notification to your trusted accounts will look like this:

Or, if you desired not to share your data, Google can delete your account right away including your blog posts, YouTube videos, etc.

April 3

Verizon Collaborates With NYC For ‘Faster Deployment’

One of the world’s biggest broadband and telecommunications companies, Verizon Communications collaborates with the most populous city in the U.S.A. to, according to FierceTelecom, “ test a way to more quickly deploy fiber in the city.”

To use a technique called ‘micro-trenching,’ this pilot program will allow Verizon to carve shallow grooves in the ground to deploy fiber. With hopes to earn significant advantage over Verizon’s competitors, the program will enable the company to sell faster speed Internet services and television service in more parts of the Big Apple.

The program, however, is not exclusive to Verizon as the New York city officials kept the program open for other providers to participate. Also, this venture will be critical for the company as New York city’s copper facilities were damaged beyond repair caused by the Hurricane Sandy.

Clearfield Connections have already used the micro-trenching method to install its FieldShield pushable fiber product at one customer’s tower. “Another area was we were able to install was in streets of Chicago. A deployment (was needed) for that tower that wouldn’t disrupt traffic. …We took micro-trenching technology, (made) a simple saw cut in the sidewalk, laid 10 mm microduct through the trench, and delivered service in a couple hours. We never even closed traffic,” Clearfield President and CEO, Cheri Beranek told FierceTelecom.

March 26

‘Crappy Comments’ Not Allowed On Facebook

Web giant, Facebook, announced that it has implemented a new comments feature that will organize and structure ‘crappy comments’ posted on Pages or high-trafficked profiles on the said website.

To feature the most active conversations atop posts, the world’s most visited social networking site will re-order the threads by relevance to each viewer. A Facebook member may find a particular conversation thread higher if they share connections to participants in a thread.

In a note posted on Facebook, Facebook journalism Program Manager, Vadim Lavrusik stated, ”After months of testing, we have seen how the new feature can improve conversations and be used to start open dialogues with the community.”

This new feature is expected to avoid a deluge of comments especially to the page of celebrities or brands that have hundred of thousands of followers. Such feature is only available on the desktop at the time being.

March 18

207% Growth In LTE Traffic Expected In 2013

The market intelligence company specializing in global technology markets, ABI Research, predicted this Monday that the LTE traffic volumes will likely grow 207% this 2013 by surging mobile applications.

Research associate at ABI Research, Marina Lu, said, ”In developed markets, 4G is rapidly gaining traction. Verizon Wireless, for example, has reported that 50% of its data usage is on 4G LTE.”

According to ABI Research, driving this growth are smartphone applications which put the number of downloads worldwide at 36.2 billion last year, up 88% on 2011. However, it is not just the number of downloads that matters, but the volume of data traffic their use subsequently generates.

“The emergent growth in enterprise apps does have potential. Both AT&T and Orange have invested in enterprise apps, setting up their own in-house service teams,” said ABI Research Vice-President of Forecasting, Jake Saunders.

“Large mobile device screens and 4G data-speeds will stimulate mobile video streaming/downloads to account for 56% of total [mobile data] traffic,” the firm adds.

March 8

first and last

March 5

Samsung Galaxy SIV To Feature “Eye Scrolling”

Samsung’s new smartphone, Galaxy SIV will be introduced this month. According to some reports, the new Android phone the electronics giant is about to debut has a strong focus on software.

Galaxy SIV has an exciting new feature described as “eye scrolling.” This particular Android phone will track the users’ eyes to “determine where to scroll.” The New York Times said that when the users read articles and their eyes reach the bottom of the page, the software will automatically scroll down to reveal the next paragraphs of text.

A Samsung employee gave out such information but refuses to explain what technology was being used to track eye movements. He also did not confirm whether such feature will be demonstrated in the upcoming Galaxy SIV press conference this coming March 14 at New York.

It was just last January when Samsung filed a trademark in Europe (“Eye Scroll” No. 011510674) for the said feature and in the U.S. it was named “Samsung Eye Scroll,” filed in February with the description, “Computer application software having a feature of sensing eye movements and scrolling displays of mobile devices, namely, mobile phones, smartphones and tablet computers according to eye movements; digital cameras; mobile telephones; smartphones; tablet computers.” Also posted by Samsung, without description, though, was Eye Pause.

Samsung’s Chief Product Officer, Kevin Packingham said, “It’s an amazing phone.” He, however, declined to give out details about this new phone.

February 27

New Internet Address Suffixes To Be Activated This 2013

The head of an Internet oversight agency said last Monday that there will be hundred of potential internet address suffixes to rival “.com” should be available for people and businesses to use by the end of the year.

First ones to come this mid-2013 will likely be Chinese and other languages said Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) CEO Fadi Chehade. Following “other languages,” within weeks by English suffixes that do not have competing bidders. The names will not be specified until April, however, there are some single-bidder proposals such as “.aetna,” “.cadillac,” “.vegas,” “.quebec,” etc.

Other proposed suffixes (.app, .music, .tech)are said to take a longer time to be approved because multiple groups have submitted bids to run them and must work out disputes.

With last year’s nearly 2,000 businesses and groups submitting bids for about 1,400 different names, ICANN is overseeing the largest expansion of the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s. With the said expansion, businesses and other trademark holder will be able to declare names they want protected for an annual fee of up to $150 per name (starting March 26).

Other issues regarding this matter remains to be resolved. Misspellings and longer suffixes are to be argued. In an interview on The Associate Press, Chehade said, ICANN did not want to restrict free speech or other legitimate uses.

Chehade said ICANN’s initial recommendations are expected in late April, after which the winning bidders will work out operational and contractual details. With the suffixes with multiple bidders, no deadline has been given for which parties must reach agreement.

In addition to that, on Monday, ICANN said it would spread its operations to three locations around the world to cover all time zones. Headquarters will remain in Los Angeles, with hubs expected in Singapore and Istanbul, Turkey, by mid-2013.

February 21

104-Year-Old Woman Wants Her ‘Real Age’ Posted On Facebook

Apparently, Facebook, one of the world’s most visited social networking website, was initially intended for people who are ‘young,’ and ‘gorgeous.’ It seems as though the website creators failed to perceive ‘older’ people wanting to join the discussion in the website they created.

Marguerite Joseph, born April 1908, encountered a problem on encoding her real birth year on Facebook. The 104-year-old woman is legally blind but she loves catching up with her family the modern way. Gail Marlow, Joseph’s granddaughter, reads and responds to her grandmother’s Facebook activities every day.

“Every time I tried to change the settings to the right year, Facebook always came back with an unknown error message and would send us right back to a year she wasn’t born in. I would love to see her real age on Facebook, I mean in April she’s going to be 105. It’s special,” Marlow told Channel 4 in Detroit.

As Joseph’s granddaughter keeps on trying to encode Joseph’s real birth year, 1908, Facebook just constantly shifts it to 1928. However, with all the publicity this dilemma has been making, Facebook finally heard it and released a statement saying, We’ve recently discovered an issue whereby some Facebook users may be unable to enter a birthday before 1910. We are working on a fix for this and we apologize for the inconvenience.”

The controversy somehow took effect on Joseph, from having just 100 friends (before the controversy), she now has 326 friends. And, fortunately, she have been able to post her real age.

February 20

Apple Holds 20% Of U.S. Consumer Technology Revenue In Terms Of Sales in 2012

A raise on Apple’s share was accounted for the company last year 2012. From 17.3% share in 2011, Apple currently has a 19.9% share of sales of consumer technology in the United States.

According to a data released by The NPD Group, a company that provides market information and advisory services to drive better business decisions, with more than 2% increase in Apple’s share, the electronics giant beat out Samsung, its direct competitor.

The top five brand with the most shares in consumer technology are as follows:

NPD

“While sales fell in consumer technology for the second consecutive year, there was an uptick in Q4 which is cause for optimism. After struggles with declining categories, and increasingly saturated markets over the last few years, fourth quarter’s results may be the first sign that even as a mature industry consumer technology can grow again, albeit with a very different dynamic than in previous growth spurts,” said VP of Industry Analysis at NPD, Stephen Baker.

February 11

Atlas V Launched

A new satellite was launched into space just last Monday. The said satellite will “keep closer tabs on Earth’s glaciers, crops, forests and shorelines, continuing a tradition that began four decades ago.”

“Atlas V” took-off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 11:30 AM, local time. Tracked by the mission controllers, the satellite headed southwesterly towards the direction over the Pacific.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. even said, “Give yourselves a pat on the back, shake each other’s hand, hug each other, cry a little bit and then go celebrate.” Bolden monitored the launch from mission control.

Equipped with sensors better and more powerful than the satellites that came before it, the latest Landsat will zip around the planet 14 times a day taking hundreds of pictures that will be beamed back to ground stations in South Dakota, Alaska and Norway.

Atlas V will operate for five years although it is fueled to last for 10 years according to Frank Kelly, Director at USGS Center for Earth Resources Observations and Science in Garretson, South Dakota.

Tim Dunn, NASA’s assistant launch director, said in a post-launch interview on NASA TV that, “Things could not have gone better today. It really was an absolutely smooth countdown.”