As we mentioned previously, Obama’s desire to retain his Blackberry has caused a bit of a security concern.
This is mostly due to the fact that Blackberry devices rely on using RIM’s own server and software, which limits how much control the NSA has over the information.
C|Net had pointed out that there are some interesting mobile devices, such as the Spectera Edge, running their own software (on a Windows Mobile platform, interestingly enough) and are NSA approved.
Most of the Inter-Web (ourselves included) speculated that this would most likely be the President’s mobile email companion of choice. However, according to Robert Gibbs, President Obama is indeed keeping his RIM Blackberry, but will be limited to personal communication only on it.
I suppose if it is not sensitive information relating to the government, the President can do whatever he wants. However, as an international public figure, I’m sure there will be many potential hackers who will find his personal life just as interesting. We already saw that Verizon employees were caught snooping on the not-yet-elected Presidential Candidate at the time.
Personally, I agree more with Randy Siegel, an MS Enterprise Mobile Strategist (who works on federal government projects), who expresses concern over this decision:
“We wouldn’t want the casual musings … of the most important person in the world being intercepted by others”, even if considered trivial.
As the conflict in the Middle East continues rockets fired by Hamas continue to fall into the Israeli city of Sederot where countless of innocent victims have 15 seconds to find shelter and or find their children and loved ones. Mobile Technology is now being used to rally people around the world during those 15 seconds.
The city is paralyzed as Terrorist Hamas groups target children’s schools and places of public gathering like supermarkets and stores. The economy is in ruins and besides worrying for their lives teh people of Sederot are beginning to worry about their economic stability and putting food on the table.
Jews all over the world are sending aid. But there is little that they can do (physically) to help anyone in Sederot during the 15 seconds after the sirens go off.
For this reason The National Council of Young Israel has set up a service called SMS SEDEROT or (Solidarity Message For Sederot). When the Tzeva Adom (Code Red) siren in sounded in Sederot (or any Israeli City) SMSSEDEROT will send you a text message that will read:
A Kassam Rocket has just been launched at Sderot. You have: 15 seconds to read Psalm 130. 15 seconds to give to charity 15 seconds to call the UN , the WHite House, your Senetors and Congressman 15 Seconds to pause and pray for the people of Sderot.(WHen you sign up you get to choose which reminder you want)
Whether you are religious or not it is not hard to imagine the power of such a text message. Wherever I am I know that at that moment people in Sederot are fearing for their lives. And I can pray with them or feel solidarity with them. Either way, I am with them.
To hear an interview with SMSederots founder click here.
Click here to sign up.
My good friend Ken Bank’s from Kiwanja.net has written a phenomenal article for publius.cc, the syndicated project of Harvard’s Berkman Center For Internet & Society. You may remember the name because we first wrote about Ken’s FrontlineSMS mobile solution here on PDF several years ago. The article, titled One Missed Call, examines the mobile development world as it relates to the grassroots, NGO’s and non-profits of the world.
Paralleling Aderson’s “Long Tail ” Bank’s discusses our tendency to aim for the big and sexy when it comes to mobile solutions. According to Bank’s this type of cutting edge technology is therefore only available to the resource rich NGO’s. Bank’s sees a Mobile divide on the horizon. His solution? Look toward the Social Mobile Long Tail
I strongly believe that we need to seriously refocus some of our attention there to avoid developing our own NGO “digital divide”. To do this we need to think about low-end, simple, appropriate mobile technology solutions which are easy to obtain, affordable, require as little technical expertise as possible, and are easy to copy and replicate. This is something I regularly write about, and it’s a challenge I’m more than happy to throw down to the developer community.
The rest of the article discusses how as a result of this developers tend to ignore the “low hanging fruit” of using technology to enhance communication. This of course brings up, as an example, SMS.
I do not want to give away the entire article here but its very well written so I wanted to draw it to your attention.
Ken understands and taps the true nature of mobile technology. That its not about this or that campaign sending SMS alerts. The true power of the mobile medium rests in the people that use that medium and the developers that develop it for that.
In the US they are not such a big deal. But in the rest of the world the word cell phone and Nokia are often said under the same breath. The Finnish company has 40 percent of the world market. That means 1 in every 4 phones sold in the world is a Nokia phone. In emerging markets its almost always the only phone you will find.
Now Nokia wants to put the power of being the number one phone distributer (and camera distributor) in the world to some good use. Yesterday, Nokia announced its contest, Calling All Innovators, encouraging developers to design applications that could help better society.
The categories of entry are broken down into ECO-Challanges, Emerging Markets and a basic Technology Showcase.
This is a fantastic idea and one that is long overdue since the folks at Mobileactive have been chatting this kind of stuff up for over three years now.
My hint for building any mobile application: When it comes to social change and politics mobile technology is not a persuasion tool but a mobilizer of the already persuaded.
More at World Changing.
After a long hiatus abroad and working on a new project, I came home this August to a barrage of inquires regarding the usage of mobile phones in this year’s election. While I had been following all of the news enthusiastically, I had very limited access to my US text messaging abilities and thus could not take part in what has been going on first hand.
This does not mean that I do not have my thoughts which, as someone removed from the process for a while, I hope may be somewhat refreshing.
Despite all of the hype surrounding the text message party planning at the DNC , or Obama’s text to screen or VP text announcement, it is important to realize that mobile phones have been used politically before with a far greater viral reach and, in the end, impact…
Many of you might not know or remember but I was on a panel at CTIA about mobile technology and politics. While the panel was not recorded here is a video of me being interviewed after the panel by BNET TV.
Voting in California couldn’t be anymore taxing on the voters. Tomorrow on Super Duper Tuesday, California will not only vote on the presidential primaries but also Propositions 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, and 97.
Day to Day this morning jokingly explained the state of voting in California:
In California, voters need to go to night school to be informed. Or swallow a mouth full of dextrin, drink a pot of coffee as you pull an all-nighter, cramming for the civics test you’ll face at the polls tomorrow.
Even though I have a college degree, democracy in the State of California is overwhelming and above my head.
The LA Times saw a need for help and has posted a page where voters can read up on ballot measures, mark their votes, and text their plans to their mobile phone or email. That way, when they are in the booth, the can decipher which intuitive is for a gas tax and which is for Indian gambling.
A month ago my friend Ken Banks of Kiwanja launched a competition that encourages grassroots NGOs in developing countries to submit ideas on ways they could use text messaging in their work. This can be in health, human rights, the environment, activism, education or whatever. The best four entries will win laptop computers, Nokia phones, GSM modems and $1,000 in cash, courtesy of a range of sponsors which include Hewlett Packard, Nokia and Wieden+Kennedy. I think its a worth wile cause on many fronts. Visit www.ngomobile.org for more info via http://www.saidia.org/2007/09/18/ngos-going-mobile/http://whiteafrican.com/?p=748
Just the other day I was talking with some colleagues wondering why there where never ever “Bushism” ringtones that become widespread. I mean, there have been cases of people making Bush blunder ringtones, but the real question is why political ringtones have not caught on and why no one is standing up and trying to distribute it on a mass scale.
Well just in time for the 08 elections, Ringtones08.com is hoping to make Ringtones the new bumper sticker and lawn sign. Simply put RingTones08.com is a free site that user the power of myxer.com to let anyone upload and download ringtones about the 2008 election. Thats a key element, not only will they create and distribute election teemed ringtones but they will also let you, or anyone (i.e a campaign) use their site to upload ringtones of their own for viral distribution.
As we mentioned previously, Obama’s desire to retain his Blackberry has caused a bit of a security concern.
