Seven Problems With the New iPhone
The other day I came across this little number by Christopher Null of Yahoo!, discussing seven legitimate issues with Apple's latest version of the iPhone. And there's in-fact more than that.
A while back, I talked about whether waiting for the newest run of Apple's showpiece mobile device was worth it. But that focused mainly on some favorite alternatives, while Null delves into the details of the iPhone's shortcomings.
Highlighted are the cost (roughly 160 bucks more over the next two years), the wimpy 2 megapixel camera, a battery you can't replace, no MMS capability, no ability to stream live TV, and limited storage space. And as one heady commenter pointed out, there's an eighth pretty annoying problem; no memory removal or expansion. In a world of SD and micro-SD-ready options the iPhone is inexplicably lacking, again.
These issues, standalone, may not be deal-breakers for some. But combined, how can they not be? Especially for the kind of money Apple expects us to shell out.
Fix My Street!
I had a great time at the Personal Democracy Forum earlier this week since I met wonderful people and learned about interesting projects.
The whole point behind PDF is to discuss how technology can help individuals participate in the political/governing process and improve governments' ability to serve their citizens. While attending the Design Principles for Online Democracy panel discussion, Tom Steinberg of mySociety in the UK discussed various projects that his organizations have done for the British government.
In my opinion, the coolest project so far is fixmystreet.com. On this site people living in Britain can report sections of road that need repairs or attention. These problems can run the gamut from potholes to "fly tipping" (Brit-speak for "littering"). Local governments can then use this site to determine where they need to deploy their employees to make repairs or correct problems. Further, this site allows the public to make sure that the problems reported are corrected.
I think that this is a marvelous idea. This site enables citizens to work directly with their local governments to ensure that important tasks are accomplished, and that makes fixmystreet.com a great example of what PDF is trying to accomplish — use technology to improve government.
Skype Delivers Elizabeth Edwards Despite Weather
Elizabeth Edwards spoke to guests at the 2008 Personal Democracy Forum about how the internet is influencing the world of politics. But it was husband John that later stole the show with his surprise (even to him) appearance.
Continue reading “Skype Delivers Elizabeth Edwards Despite Weather” »
Hyperactive Mark Pesce at the Personal Democracy Forum
Another one of the presentations that I’d like to highlight from the Personal Democracy Forum is the one by Mark Pesce, who is currently an honorary professor at the University of Sydney. I was glad that Pesce decided to make the trip because his speech was by far my favorite of the two-day forum. A great written version of the speech can be found on his blog here, so I will save you the summary and simply discuss the fun facts that I found most intriguing.
Continue reading “Hyperactive Mark Pesce at the Personal Democracy Forum” »
The Bivings Group to Launch New ImpactWatch Product Lines
<cross posted from our ImpactWatch blog>
Since its launch in 1999, our ImpactWatch media monitoring platform has been focused on serving the enterprise market. The product has been aimed at organizations that receive a high volume of coverage from both traditional and online media, require a large number of employees to access the data ImpactWatch collects and need high-end reporting and analysis of coverage. Due to its robust feature set and flexibility, ImpactWatch remains a great solution for these types of enterprise clients.
But in showing ImpactWatch over the years, I’ve run into a lot of people who love ImpactWatch’s interface and base tool set, but who don’t need all of the advanced features we’ve built into ImpactWatch over the years. They were looking for an elegant and affordable way to manage and report out on their media coverage as opposed to an enterprise level media tracking platform.
In an effort to provide these folks with a product they can use, we are in the process of rolling out two new ImpactWatch product lines that will enable the IW to serve the needs of organizations of all sizes. Specifically:
- ImpactWatch Basic – Aimed at groups that get a limited amount of coverage (approximately 1-50 clips a day) and only need for a handful of people to access data.
- ImpactWatch Professional – For organizations with a higher volume of coverage (50-100 clips a day) and who need a few dozen people to access the system.
- ImpactWatch Enterprise – This is our current system, which is aimed at organizations with a high volume of daily coverage (100+ clips), a large number of users and that need access to some of ImpactWatch’s high end reporting features.
I know this is vague, but we are in the process of a big development push and aren’t ready to talk about all the details yet. Check the ImpactWatch blog for updates on our progress and look for us to roll out the new product lines later in the summer.
We’re excited.