It will be Easier Being Green

All they need to do is tie it to your credit card and Al Gore will be able to tax you directly.

Keeping track of your carbon footprint could become as simple as slipping a mobile phone in your pocket: a London-based start-up company has developed software for mobile phones that uses global positioning satellites to work out automatically whether you are walking, driving or flying and then calculate your impact on the environment.

Carbon Diem’s inventors claim that, by using GPS to measure the speed and pattern of movement, their algorithm can identify the mode of transport being used. It can therefore calculate the amount of carbon dioxide that a journey has emitted into the atmosphere – without any need for input from the traveller.

The system’s inventor, Andreas Zachariah, a graduate student of the Royal College of Art in London and chief executive of the Carbon Hero company, said that Carbon Diem is the world’s first automated carbon calculator.

Because it keeps a constantly updated diary of a person’s carbon emissions, Zachariah said that a user can easily track their environmental impact and, if they choose, modify their behaviour to lower-carbon alternatives.

“We’re facilitating people to make little changes and allow those changes to be noted and registered and possibly shared,” he said. “If lots of people realise we’re in this marathon [in tackling climate change] and we’re not running alone, then we actually think people will be motivated to stick to changes.”

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WiFi in-flight on American Airlines - VOIP Update

Less than a week ago, American Airlines announced that WiFi would be available in 15 of their flights (click here for the article). In their press release they announced how much the service called  Gogo would cost and that VOIP services would be blocked. This way they could charge those huge fees for phone calls from their in-flight phones. Just like with all service blockages, they are just a hack away from being unblocked. We see the same cat-and-mouse game being played with the iPhone software updates and the unlocking of so many other smartphones.

The same game is now being played in the sky.

Here’s the abstract of the report where the tool is mentioned.

The workaround, called Phweet, allows users to call friends who are linked via Twitter. Andy Abramson from VoIP Watch says that he recently used Phweet to chat with a friend on an American Airlines flight, and that the conversation was so clear he could hear the flight attendant ordering people to get back to their seats in preparation for landing.

Phweet is a shortURL link to an external directory (for now, only Twitter, though others will be added later), that enables calls between two or more profiles without sharing any additional information between the parties. Using the application to make calls at 27,000 feet is a painless three-step process:

• Go to the Phweet homepage and log on with your Twitter name and password.
• Add the Twitter user name of person you want to connect with, along with a message telling them want to talk. A Twitter update and Phweet URL is sent.
• When your friend clicks on the Phweet URL and accepts, your browser whistles and a Flash widget appears. Click on it to talk.

This is obviously not the last we have heard of this hack or the service… Aircell (the company behind Gogo) claims that the workaround to their blocks can be re-blocked but they also reported that it is up to the airline to enforce the no-call policy during flights.

Having said that, I doubt that a no-call policy can be enforced. For example; someone could activate the service, then the workaround and use their mobile device to talk from the bathroom… Not the same as a public phone booth; but you would not be seen talking into a device, therefore no one would notice whether you are circumventing their service or not.

What are your thoughts?

A cure for the "Twitter Blues"

Do you suffer from the “Twitter Blues” my friends? I am not talking about the blues associated with bi-polarity of Twitter’s operational status. No, I am talking about the “Twitter Blues”. You know… the blues you feel when you realize how much of a couch potato you really are by comparing your activity to that of the people you follow on our beloved social platform.  Are you following hundreds of people whose lives (expressed thru tweet) just seem so much more exciting than yours? Are they constantly traveling the world telling you about all the great and fascinating things they are doing? Is their rapier wit and web-speak bafflingly beyond your vocabulary or awareness? Are you constantly being scooped on every little thing that goes on out there on “teh inteRwebs?”

If every time you read a tweet, you feel like a loser because you just can’t keep up… relax. You can change that right away. Follow one or more of these simple methods and you will feel, well, different anyway, and possibly not as much like the loser you may or may not be. It’s very simple actually and doesn’t cost a cent.

METHOD  1 - LIE 

That’s right. Lie. And the bigger the lie, the better.  Choose one of the two following styles:

Lie in a positive manner. 

Post in a way that makes it sound like the jet-set couldn’t even keep up with you. Load your tweets with sarcasm and attitude that projects the kind of complacency only associated with the powerful. Just make sure you skip the specifics. For example, instead of tweeting something specific and outlandish like:

“Lunch with the Jack White, yet again. B-O-R-I-N-G”,

skip the specific reference and say something like:

“Just landed in San Fran for the conference. The Beluga is a bit dry, but will do”.

There could be any number of conferences in San Francisco in any given month, so that is probable and therefore  believable. The Beluga reference refers to the fact that you are either sitting in first class in the the hi-fi plane you are on, or that you have already reached the hotel and that you are hip enough to know good caviar from bad. In any event, it’s good to leave it a bit vague as that will keep your followers guessing.

[Read more]

Sharemo: sharing is caring… and is big in Japan

From TechCrunch

Swapping sites are nothing new (see Dig N’ Swap), but in Japan we like to trade our junk via our mobile phones. That is what the Japanese social sharing service Sharemo is all about. The site’s ambitious idea is to contribute to overcoming Japan’s throwaway society.

This is how it works: Users can offer any item they don’t need anymore (DVDs, comics and clothes are especially popular) on Sharemo. If the item is useful to another member, it can be rented, used and then relisted. This procedure is repeated until one Sharemo user decides to keep the item. The system keeps track of all actions and allocates points to active members, which can be donated or redeemed to rent items.

Sharemo’s crucial point is the complete absence of money and the reliance on trust among the members. In Japan at least, the concept pans out as expected: Although the mobile site isn’’t actively being promoted yet, Sharemo it already racks up 400,000 page views monthly.

Sharemo is operated by Enigmo, a company setting itself apart from other Japanese web companies by an international mind-set. Their promotion networks rollmio and pressblog are successful outside Japan already, and Sharemo is set to follow suit in the mobile space. Will this concept work outside of Japan?

When I read all the comments below this story posting at TechCrunch, many of them say “this is great but it will never work in America” or “how does the site make money”. Valid points for a business model, no doubt, but they are missing something important. In the social context of Web 2.0, “social capital” can be very important. Sharing lots of items can gain you many points and therefore a lot of capital within the context of the site. The thing we know about Web 2.0 though is that “social capital” can transcend the site that spawns it. It can remain attached to your online persona… and that, my friends, is important.

Not to mention the sheer usefulness and purposefulness of the main goal of the site which I will repeat—The site’s ambitious idea is to contribute to overcoming Japan’s throwaway society. This is a forward thinking concept. I actually think that something like this could take off in the U.S. In “word of mouth” communities, a concept like this makes sense especially as we see ecological issues reaching the public mind-set.

The other thing that is unique about this site is that it has a mobile component that is key. Users can do all of their sharing thru a mobile web site. So initiating a “share” could happen wherever and whenever. Very useful indeed.

I launched the app from the QR code on their standard web site but had some difficulties. I probably do not have the right character set, etc.

The Design of their regular web site, is compelling in and of itself. I can appreciate that.