Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

Story at Gizmodo.

Palm execs went out of their way at CES to point out that the Palm Pre is not an iPhone killer.

Check out the high-quality Palm Pre presentation video at CES here.

My friend Jonathan Spalter, chairman of the Mobile Future Coalition and CEO of Public Insight, served as chief information officer at the United States Information Agency during the Clinton administration and has written an insightful op-ed piece for the San Jose Mercury News about Obama and that BlackBerry that may have to go to the tech bins at Goodwill.

“As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take power, sadly one of his first acts as president may be to power down his beloved BlackBerry smart-phone. Why must the leader of the country that created the Internet, e-mail and various other advancements, be forced to forgo modern technology?
The primary concern cited is the Presidential Records Act, which requires all presidential documents to be put in the official record. This is a worthy goal to be sure, and Obama, who was widely acknowledged as one of the most technologically savvy candidates during the campaign, has been an advocate for governmental accountability, transparency, accessibility and efficiency. Still, the strictures of this act should not deprive our president — or our nation — of the benefits of his BlackBerry, to which he has been joined at the hip.

While the president is required to furnish to the national archives logs of telephone calls, and copies of all correspondence and papers, electronic and otherwise, our nation’s archivists have no need for concern that smart-phones can circumvent these rules. BlackBerry One would be fully compliant, as all phone logs and text and e-mail messages can easily be saved on government servers.

Discretion required

The trickier issue has to do with the security of the president’s cell phone. Hackers have listened in on cell phone conversations and downloaded smart-phone data. For situations when the president needs to discuss sensitive or classified matters, mobile and wireless engineers and the U.S. intelligence agencies have designed and deployed ingenious encryption algorithms for use on dedicated mobile platforms for his use. When it comes to his everyday use of his personal smart-phone though, the president, like the rest of us, simply will need to exercise good judgment and discretion about what he says and what he sends.

Obama’s effective use of technology platforms like the smart-phone is important for other reasons. He plays a vital role as a champion of progress and innovation. What signal would it send to international technology markets, and our own citizens, that the U.S. president is “off the grid?” The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently established that Hispanics and African-Americans are driving data usage on mobile phones and using wireless handsets as portable personal computers. It is ironic that Obama would promote policies increasing access to mobile technologies, but personally would be restricted in their use.

YouTube president

This is not the first time that our nation’s presidents have had to contend with an often technophobic culture in the federal government. In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes, despite strong misgivings from the White House telegraph office, installed the first telephone. The Clinton White House prevailed in a debate with the State Department allowing him to e-mail birthday greetings to the president of South Korea, rather than using snail mail.

President-elect Obama’s team has already initiated a march to technological progress — his weekly “radio” addresses to Americans have also broadcast on YouTube. Obama will also be the first president with a laptop on his Oval Office desk. By firmly embracing technologies like the smart-phone to engage people around the world, more efficiently manage his administration, and even occasionally check Chicago White Sox box scores, Obama will advocate a new era of transparency and innovation in American governance.”

Moving towards ‘feels free’ while further devaluing music.

A press release arrived within the email pile today and it trumpeted this – Nokia launches pioneering ‘Comes With Music‘ digital entertainment service. New service offers customers unprecedented freedom and value. EMI Music, independents and music publishers join offering.

Let me take a deep breath here……ok. There’s nothing but hyperbolic exclamations here. I have to ask, why does the music industry continue to shoot itself in the foot? And why, via their mouthpiece the henchmen of the RIAA, do they continue to whine over falling music sales when they happily embrace giving away music? Perhaps the labels and publishers were happy to receive bucket-loads of cash to license their music in return for allowing Nokia to train young folks in the art of always getting music for free!!?

Nokia announced the debut of its pioneering Comes with Music digital entertainment service, which offers consumers a new way to discover and enjoy music. Customers who buy a Comes With Music device will be able to explore and enjoy a diverse catalog of music of international and local artists with unlimited access to millions of tracks for a year, keeping the music once the year is over and revolutionizing their digital music experience.

Dear Nokia, consumers have been discovering and enjoying music for years, for free, via the internets. That’s why music sales are down. It’s nice to see that you are helping to make more free music available to these consumers though.

“Comes With Music sets a precedent for consumer value and convenience that the rest of the digital entertainment industry is already copying,” said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice president and head of the Nokia entertainment and communities business.”

Consumer value and convenience = internet. Otherwise that’s just marketing double-speak.

“Trying out a music recommendation is spontaneous as customers can download without worrying about the cost of an album or a track – the freedom and simplicity of the service is unparalleled.”

See above.

Comes With Music gives you unlimited access to the millions of tracks in the Nokia Music Store and the music is all yours to keep – because it’s not a revolution unless you get to keep your music.

WOW!

“With the launch of Nokia’s Comes With Music, fans now have a new avenue to find and enjoy music from EMI’s catalogue, and our artists have a powerful new way to reach their fans,” said Douglas Merrill, president, digital business, for EMI Music. “By encouraging music discovery in an innovative and consumer-friendly environment, Comes With Music will continue to push experimentation in the digital music industry.”

Experimentation in the digital music industry – fancy that? Only 10 years too late…

The winners here are Nokia [enhanced phone sales] and music lovers [more free music]. The losers are musicians and songwriters [believe me, my royalties on digital sales are miniscule] and the record labels [training kids to get music for free is so 1998...]

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb posts that Microsoft has hired danah boyd, who Marshall says is – “probably the most high profile academic in the world focused on the emerging web and its social consequences.”

boyd (who only uses lowercase when typing her name) is a leading expert on how the next generation is using social networks. She caused a ruffle when she concluded in a report that “The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other ‘good’ kids are now going to Facebook. …MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, ‘burnouts,’ ‘alternative kids,’ ‘art fags,’ punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm.”

She spells out her own thoughts on joining Microsoft Research New England here.

One thought re Microsoft and its compulsive obsession with the desktop…aren’t the next generation of social networkers supposed to be surfing exclusively via mobile devices?

I was reading a report today from ComScore Media Metrix about how American and European mobile users are accessing maps from their mobile devices. No surprise that the iPhone is the leading device in the USA with the Nokia N95 and N70 leading the way in Europe. More interesting was the data on Mode of Transport Intended to be Used when Accessing Maps. As you’ll see in the grid below USA mobile users lead the way in use whilst driving in the car, come last in using their devices whilst traveling on public transport and last again in use whilst working out. Whatever the data means it does point to the fact that we drive more and use public transport less than our European counterparts. Or perhaps it’s a demographic issue?