For those who don’t know, Chatroulette is the latest form of social media—social voyeurism. You sit (or not) in front of your PC’s webcam. You appear in small box on the lower left of the screen. On top of you appears a blank black box. Press F9 and you’re put in contact with a random stranger (literally named stranger). You can romp through these one-on-ones with complete strangers and move on to the next whenever you get the urge.

Chatroulette

Of course there are rumors about Chatroulette. While I only encountered one in the act of masturbating in front of his webcam, it was the topic of conversation for most of the others.

At four in the afternoon East Coast time, I found myself transported to bedrooms in Wales, the UK, and Australia. Impassive young men stared blankly into their webcams.

Stranger 1: I swear this guy just had a photo of himself as a place marker. I don’t know if he would have showed his face if I’d been more his type, but I got no movement—not even an eye blink in response to my friendly waving.

Stranger 2: A sweet 20-something in a tie-dyed shirt and big headphones. Willing to talk. Said he liked to chat but that there were far too many naked guys jerking off in front of their cams for his taste. When I said it was time for me to move on, he teased that “he liked older women and that I should stay a while.“ It was my Mrs. Robinson moment on Chatroulette.

Strangers 3 and 4: They whipped right past me before I even knew what hit me. They must have decided that they didn’t care for my looks before I even registered their presence.

Stranger 5: Had a really cool LCD projector in his room. I thought that he was standing in front of an outdoor billboard. Not too cool on my part.

Stranger 6: A guy who looked a bit closer to me in age. He was from France. Then my phone rang. It was my daughter, who is probably older than most of the guys I’d been talking to. I felt totally weird and told the Frenchman I had leave.

Stranger 7: Wow a girl…at least I think it was a girl. She vanished so quickly all I saw was a waiflike body and some shoulder-length hair.

Stranger 8: Finally, the moment I’d feared but also sought out, arrived. Eight clicks into Chatroulette and I had my first naked masturbator. The camera was nowhere near his face; his pants were down around his knees. I had the feeling of interrupting something very private.

According to the Huffington Post, Chatroulette is 13% pervert, 89% male, and 47% American. Well, two out three ain’t bad. I did not meet an American (or one who would ‘fess up to being an American) in my Chatroulette travels. I met no people of color, no Asians.

I won’t be going back to Chatroulette anytime soon. In comparison, it made what little I can remember of the singles bar scene seem like an enlightened place. Without reading too much into my sub one-minute encounters, there was something sad.

And now that I’ve learned that Chatroulette maps, a mashup that lets you locate the people you’re talking to by tracking the location of their IP address, can put your photo on its big board, that’s enough for me. Voyeurism in the name of research is not my game.

This week, I spent some fun time with Panasonic’s new line of 3D TVs. Resplendent in its 3D glory was the 50- and 55-inch VIERA VT25 Full HD 3D Plasma. It was a crowd pleaser, but it also made me all too aware about how little we know about optimal 3D viewing. Start asking a few questions about the effect of 3D viewing on our bodies and brains, and you discover how little anyone knows—especially when it concerns the bodies and brains belonging to children.

The www Eye Test

3D TV may turn out to be the de facto screening test for certain vision impairments. It turns out that not everyone can experience 3D. According to research, between 5% and 10% of Americans suffer from stereo blindness. They cannot see the depth dimension of 3D programming. Some can still view the 3D as 2D. Others find that watching can lead to headache, eye fatigue, or motion sickness.

In a recent press release, The College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) suggested that 3D content could be used as a sort of nationwide screening system for visual problems. “Research has shown that up to 56% of those 18 to 38 years-of-age have one or more problems with binocular vision and therefore could have difficulty seeing 3-D,” said COVD President Dr. Carol Scott, optometrist from Springfield, MO, “and about 5 to 7% of children have amblyopia and cannot see 3-D at all.”

A Kid’s Eye View

For the foreseeable future, watching 3D TV or movies will require special glasses, and everyone in the family needs a pair in order to watch. Most TV sets at retail are demonstrated with adult-sized glasses. These fall right off a kid’s head, making movie watching a pain and 3D game playing downright impossible (as kids are constantly pushing their glasses back into place). Plus, kids’ eyes are closer together than adults, so they really need to have kid-sized glasses.

Most of what’s available for 3D-viewing kids are those chintzy blue and red cellophane-like inserts into cardboard frames—the kind that come in cereal boxes or in the 3D of yesteryear. A few vendors like Samsung design kid-sized 3D glasses with active shutter LCDs, just like mom and dad’s. Active shutter glasses—the current state of the art—are battery operated and the lenses are coordinated to lighten and darken in synch with the 3D content. While adults have enough visual experience to understand and compensate for depth of field and spatial representations, who knows what kids are seeing when they look through 3D glasses and what effect it will have when the glasses come off.

Despite the unanswered questions, the majority of 3D content being created is family content.  Movies from Disney, Fox, and Pixar, nature shows from National Geographic, cartoons, and blockbusters like Avatar were made for family viewing, yet, it’s hard for a parent to know whether the glasses are comfortable and the image appears as it should for the child.

Best Practices

Most researchers believe that there will be a set of best practices involved with watching 3D. For one thing, you’ll want to sit a bit closer to the TV than you would in a 2D world. You might also want a slightly brighter TV, since part of what the glasses do to create the image is lighten and darken the glasses’ screen.

Whether 3D turns out to be the norm for viewing or whether it will be the cause of one big worldwide headache remains to be seen. In gauging reactions from 3D viewers who comment on forums, it’s clear that for some 3D is enthralling, for others just nauseating. The more research we do, the more pleasant the experience will be, and for parents that means understanding the effects of watching 3D on kids’ visual development.

Natal uses "you" as an input device.

You’ve probably heard about Project Natal by now. It’s Microsoft’s “secret” project that lets you use your body as the input device for the Xbox Live. No controllers, no wires, no headgear or gloves. If you liked using Nintendo Wii’s controller to play games you’ll love the freedom and increased capability of using your body.

I recently got to experience Project Natal first hand. Timely because today sources report that we’ll find out all at the E3 Conference this June. A few observations:

First: This IS going to be a really cool step forward in gaming/entertainment and the future of humans as input devices.

Second: Don’t even think about using your tennis lessons. On a cold New York evening a few weeks ago, my colleagues were invited by Microsoft to come over to a nearby loft and play a game called Ricochet. It’s sort of a cross between table tennis and soccer. As balls are heaved at you on the screen (often multiple balls at once) you could swat, kick, or head butt them back at the screen. Natal–which was an add-on peripheral to an Xbox when we saw it demo’ed–tracks your movements and the balls respond to your thwacks. Ricochet showed my body as a shadow silhouetted on the screen (thankfully not true to real body proportions–everyone looks identical). It turns out that Natal was much better at responding when I faced the screen and moved my arms and legs to the side.

While it appears to know about backhands and tennis’ side stance, playing it sideways is not likely to win you as many points. Another game speculated for release includes an interactive story about a boy, Milo, and his camera.

Third: Clear the Area

Reyne Rice, a toy trends expert, got more points than me during our demo session (she faced forward) but she had other, arguably more serious, problems. Rice’s shoe (no laces) flew off her foot in a serious kick and came inches from smashing the screen. While Natal is said to be less dangerous than Wii, which suffers from occasional flying controllers (even with a wristband), it’s best to dress appropriately. No flying clothing.

Fourth: Beyond Blue Screen

Those who’ve followed gaming, animation, and filmmaking know about bluescreen technology where background images are projected onto a blue screen and the actor or weatherman interacts with the graphic. There were many early attempts to use bluescreen technology involving a player interacting with a game image on the computer screen. Natal is much more nuanced, recognizing all sorts of gestures, and reportedly it will recognize voice inputs as well.

Observation Five What the Tech!

As any good geek would, I asked the Microsoft PR folks a few tech questions and got very little in the way of satisfying answers. The Natal unit is currently shown as an add-on peripheral. It’s a horizontal box smaller than a DVD player. Clearly, the box holds a combination of digital camera and motion sensors. As best I could tell, there was a green camera light and a red one in the unit, which suggests two cameras that do some sort of 3D magic. Intrigued, I discovered that the cameras probably work together, one to capture the image and the second to give it depth.

Once a 3D picture is compiled, software magic takes over. Basically, Natal knows about various skeletal systems (height and body type) and knows about the kind of movements its games cause people to make. At PixelSumo, geeks can get a more in-depth explanation. And, at PopSci, you’ll get a good sense of the amount of processing power it takes for you to thwack a ball with your head. Staggering.

Samsung NB30

It’s not hard to notice the grooved hard plastic case that can survive a day in a woman’s handbag without being keyed or scratched. There’s a fall sensor (better known to mobile apps users as an accelerometer) that moves the heads away from the hard disk, making recovery from a drop (up to 30 inches) survivable. A lightweight keyboard seal lets the netbook take spills and drips in stride.

The operative word is lightweight ruggedness. This is not a netbook to take with you to the coal mines but, for life’s little coal mines, starting at $370, it’s a great second machine in the household or travel companion for slobs like me. Good video review from Laptop Magazine.

From my perch I see Blackberry’s

First Generation Smartphone Grows OOOOLLLLDD

interest waning; its major strengths are pushed email and a wide variety of phones with keyboards.  If you’d rather type than touch it’s the way to go.

Apple’s iPhone has matured as a fabulous media/entertainment device.  Apple’s own website touts iTunes, HD video capabilities, and millions of apps on its own list of accomplishments.  Yes, it also searches the Internet and well, but…

Google Android’s got search, navigation, and mail at the soul of its machine. Androids ships with strong connections to Google’s apps and services, including App Pack Gmail, Google Talk, Messaging, Voice Mail, Google Maps, Gmail, and YouTube.  Apple’s iPhone can certainly handle the same tasks, but the emphasis is on media–my photos, music, video.

With this logic, my clear choice was the Google Nexus One, but yours might be very different.  (And after Apple’s news that it would go after the Nexus One and other Android phones for violation of patents, I’m getting that cold feeling back in my feet.)

Other reasons I find Google phones appealing:

Less Is More: Apple passed the 150,000 mark for apps developed for iTunes. It could take the better part of a day to sort through crossword puzzle choices.  Android has only 20,000, Blackberry less still. Me, I’d rather have an edited list of best of breed apps than a free for all. I find iTunes offers hundreds of apps for each of my interests, but a large number of them turn out to be underwhelming.

Google Docs: As someone who knows how to get things done in Microsoft Office that even Microsoft can’t do, change does not come easy to me. I find many aspects of Google Docs inscrutable, but as sharing docs amongst devices and collaborators is becoming increasingly important, Google’s got the lead.

Though I expect Google will push its way into the content market (e-books from the Google store, for example, will be able to be read on most computers, phones, or e-book readers), I’m not going the single device route quite yet. My iPod Touch is still the best way to enjoy music, podcasts, photos, and videos.  And my Amazon Kindle is still the best screen format for e-books. But, when it comes to business, my soul is going to Google (at least this year).

The classic example is Ethan Allen.  Enter the term into Search and you’re out furniture shopping.

But all kids really want to know about Ethan Allen is that he was some great Revolutionary War figure from Vermont.

Wading through a cluster of furniture ads is confusing and takes away from the task at hand.  Other examples: Long John Silver, Madagascar (the movie or the place?)

If Google doesn’t want to create a student version they could simply make it one of the options–like Images, News, or Buzz.  A Student option would tailor searches more to academic terms and less towards advertising.

When the homework’s done you can just click back to regular ‘ole commercially funded Google.  School and homework should be given the importance of having a specific search engine optimized for learning not consuming.

Whaddaya say Goggle?  Introduce a study mode or run the risk of slim pickings for the next generation’s workforce.

]]> http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/2010/02/26/why-google-needs-a-student-version/feed/ http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/2010/02/23/should-google-be-doing-more-to-keep-us-safe/ http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/2010/02/23/should-google-be-doing-more-to-keep-us-safe/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:26:37 +0000 admin http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/?p=747 I don’t know about you, but from my vantage point the signs of some virus/malware/bad guy troubles are everywhere. The first whiff came from a note sent by Avast!, a free (for basic protection) anti-virus program with a large user base.

The company cautioned that malware gangs have become adept users of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is the science/art of trying to get certain listings to appear higher up on search results pages than others.  Since most people tend to click on one of the top of the list search terms, the higher your ranking on the page, the more likely it is you’ll be discovered.  Quicker discovery leads to increased traffic to your page.
Let’s say Dave Graveline’s newsletter is ranked higher on a search engine like Google than Dave Graveline’s Auto Repair site. The benefit to our Dave Graveline is that he gets more clicks because his page rank would be closer to the top of the heap.

Here’s one way that the wrong folks have been using SEO to their advantage. If Bill Clinton has a medical problem or Tiger Woods decides to offer his mea culpa, you can expect that people are going to search out further news.  Sophisticated malware gangs, savvy to the power of news, know that people will use Google as their main conduit to read more.  There are some variations on the theme: Some create fake destinations that ask for credentials, others have created websites that lead users to a fake message about having been infected with a virus. The message urges them to download new virus protection software in order to clean up things.  The anti-virus software is really a malware program in disguise.  In other words, Internet users just doing an ordinary search or reading online news cane be infected.

According to a note from Avast’s director of Anti-Virus Research, Jindrich Kubec: “This refined methodical approach to SEO manipulation and attack is increasingly popular and likely to keep working unless end users suddenly smarten up and change their willingness to visit unknown or questionable sites, or security firms can work more closely with Google.”

Interestingly page rankings are not just used by malware gangs, they’re used every day by major organizations like the Huffington Post too.  If Huffington notices an unusual spike in traffic to Taylor Swift’s website, they’re ready to fire up their addition to the story.  SEO has been a mixed bag of use and abuse.

What’s to be done?  After following the events of the past weeks I see two possible ways to alleviate some of the problem.  As consumers, don’t let Goggle do the driving.  If you want to see how Bill Clinton is faring with his new stent, then go directly to CNN, The New York Times, or your site of reckoning.  Not foolproof, but it diminishes the odds.  In other words, be proactive about where you go on the web and rely on Google less.

At the same time, Google should be making sure that page rankings have some credibility.  Working with worldwide anti-virus companies to alert them (all equally) regarding abuses and use issues is one of the critical steps in deterring attacks and malicious behavior.  Google has some education available for those interested in optimizing searches on their websites, but getting it to take a larger responsibility for its role as the keeper of page-rankers is a necessity, growing more immediate by the day.

Disclosure:  I spent a day as a guest of Avast’s corporate offices in Prague where some of these techniques were described.

This year’s show feels a little recession strapped in that the toy manufacturers are packing volumes of value into their packages and not designing big expensive toys.

There was a time when plush animals costing thousands were plentiful on the floor.  Today’s show was a bit more austere but amazingly creative, which goes to show you that having less can sometimes be more.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Lego: Lego introduced a new breed of  board games at Toy Fair. Your job is to build the game out of Legos (and decide the rules of engagement) before you play.  It’s a brilliant idea–a twist on the family board game, capturing the love of Legos. What a mashup!  The digerati are awaiting Lego Universe, the company’s huge online world. Most of the games, like Pyramid (pictured here), are priced between $10 and $20.  At the high end, Creationary costs $24.

Mattel: Mattel’s star of the show was a dog collar aptly named Puppy Tweets. Once the collar is placed on the pup, he can send a tweet (or is it a woof directly to Twitter).  The USB collar uses Bluetooth to communicate with Twitter so proximity is important. For $30 it’s pure unadulterated fun–a mashup of pets/gadgets and social media. You can follow your dog and have them make other doggie friends on Twitter. 

E-readers: I wondered when the first e-readers for kids would appear and they have. Systems like Leapfrog’s Tag Reader have been serving the function of e-readers for a long time. Fisher Price announced a super-duper 5-in-1 product called the iXL. It’s a 3- to 6-year-old’s rendering of My First iPod, combining a photo album, e-reader, notebook, game machine, and music player into one crash-proof device.  Price: $80.

TRAKR: One much buzzed about fave on the show floor was Wild Planet’s new Sky Video TRAKR.  At the upper end of the price range ($129), this packed-with-technology gizmo is a toy that looks like a tank/robot.  You control it with a gameplayer-like remote control that has a small LCD VGA-quality screen, joystick, and buttons.  Using simple downloadable programs or even creating your own programs, the TRAKR transmits color video and audio and data.  It can memorize a path to your kitchen or be trained to scare the pants of your mom when she enters your room.  It’ll even have night vision just to make things interesting.

Talkatoo: Of course some of the coolest products are found in the recesses of the Javits Center, usually start-up companies with some very passionate owners.  For instance, there’s talkatoo–a small, colorful pendant that allows for a 30-second voice recording.   For $16 bucks, you can carry your kids’ voices everywhere with you.

TV Hat: Now here’s one that’ll have you laughing and shaking your head in amazement. But no one will be able to see you because you’ll be under the TV Hat.  This sub-$30 hat (or visor) has a tiny pouch for you to insert your iPhone or other video player. Underneath the hood, a prism brings the image into focus and built-in earphones create your own private studio.  As long as you’re comfortable looking like a cross between a Klu-Klux Klan’er and a HAZMAT worker, you will fall in love with the TV Hat–a poor man’s solution to TV glasses.  (Imagine each kid in your car wearing these in the back seat! You might get pulled over for kidnapping!)  Of course it made the worst of show list over at http.bored.com, but it’ll either be the next pet rock or not.

Geocaching: For the family that likes finding its way together, GeoMates Jr. from Apisshere is an entry-level $70 GPS.  It’s filled with 25,000 geocache locations from all over the country. Geocaches are markers or hidden boxes or anything you want that you place somewhere and mark its coordinates on a GPS map.

My Ami: Finally there’s My Ami–created by a mom after giving her kid an iPod and watching it tossed from the shopping cart one too many times. My Ami is a bear that conveniently holds the iPod or iTouch securely and out of harm’s way.  There’s the suction cup version for strollers or car seats and the clamp-on for shopping carts. Advocates of less screen-time for little ones will go apoplectic over this one, but hey, for many moms, it’s whatever it takes to get you through the day.

She’s Computer Engineer Barbie and she sprang to life via the popular vote of consumers all over the world. They voted on what Barbie’s next career should be for the “I Can” Barbie Series.

Never mind that’s career  #125 on the Barbie chart.  But, to add to Barbie’s cred, Mattel worked with the Society of Woman Engineers and the National Academy of Engineers to make sure their creation was emblematic. (Easy to imagine a bunch of female engineers dressing up Barbie isn’t it?)

I’ve never been much of a Barbie lover–even as a kid I was more into decapitation and mutilation than dressing up my Barbies.  And I could make a ton of jokes about Binary Barbie the engineer.

But I won’t. Because if Computer Engineer Barbie could convince one young girl that it’s cool, OK, and even great, then Barbie earned her keep.  Mattel is providing girls with a code to get onto the Barbie website for online game content.  Hopefully, Barbie will be doing more than picking out the office furniture.

By the way, the next runner up? The #126 Barbie is a news anchor.  Both are being unveiled at this week’s Toy Fair in New York City and will be available this winter.

Barbie, all you’re missing is a pocket protector, a cup of Java, and some really unhealthy snacks.

You go girl!

Soon after, when it expanded to include high school students, it dropped the .edu address requirement. It wasn’t too hard for me to backdate my life and get myself a high school account. Today, everyone over 13 can have a Facebook account.

But, as the constituency grew, so did the capabilities and complexities.

Here’s an original Facebook page from 2004.  Notice the pervasive college feel.

Here’s my Facebook page from 2006. Clearly a database of my personal interests. 
Now, here’s today’s latest welcome to my page.

What you should notice: My new page has more icons per square inch than a Japanese schoolkid’s backpack.

First are the three icons on the upper left corner that call out: friend requests, messages, and notifications.  The shades of difference between a notification and a message are lost on me.  I was perfectly happy to check the right side of my screen for the occasional new friend and avoid this icon corner completely.

Number two. The left nav bar can now go on for miles.  It includes the new hallmark of Facebook: apps and marketplace. Not only can I have my own list of apps, I can see which apps my friends use. 

The marketplace is populated by ads and offerings from my friends, friends of friends, and people I’ve never heard of.  I get it. Facebook wants to be the CMU (Center of My Universe) but personally I’d rather see Facebook classic.

Finally, number three: some pretty good privacy. Once you get beyond brainteasers like this one from the privacy setting page: Story on your profile is now controlled by the privacy of the content itself, rather than an additional setting. For example, only people who can see both your Wall, and the Wall to which you posted would be able to see a story about you writing on a friend’s Wall. You cannot completely turn off recent activity stories anymore.   You’re offered a fabulously nuanced degree of control, but the exercise gives reading for meaning a new meaning.

Bottom line:  Like any six-year-old, Facebook is expanding its world, and starting to see things from the other person’s point of view (hence all the customization).  That’s great.  OTH, I miss the pristine neatness of my Facebook of yore.