Even though Google has insisted on user’s privacy, it has been exposed that privacy in Google Buzz is totally ignored and this is becoming a big issue these days. People can see some of your contacts with whom you’re communicating frequently. The problem is that Google tries and makes experimentation first, and don’t consider the predictable problems and postpone the response and solution.

The speed of technologies evolution has been growing faster and faster day by day. Nowadays companies are in a hurry to create new services and provide them as fast as possible and quicker than others. Then the privacy issue, which is one of the most considered issue by users, is really easy to be ignored. And also we don’t have to forget that the convenience and the risk are almost on the same surface. For instance, the concept of Google Buzz is that you can see your friend’s information and activities very easily and simply just by clicking Buzz. However, the consequence is that it just expose the user’s information even though the users never wanted.

Nowadays our personal information seems like a hostage of these big companies such as Google. The danger of leakage of our information is all up to these companies… They have to realise that they’re treating a huge amount of user information and be always aware of it. And also they should be conscious about it even when they’re in hurry to launch new services. It’ll be really difficult and complicated to make a good balance between the compliance of personal information and pursuing new technologies and services. However, it should be strongly protected and observed no matter what.

This is my last post on Future Centre blog. Thank you very much to everybody for supporting and giving me this opportunity of learning…

Square is a credit card reader for iPhone and it enables individuals, not targeted to big businesses, to make payments using iPhone, iPhone application and a small card reader dangle which plugs into iPhone’s headphone jack.

The payment process is very simple. You just enter the sum of the price of the payment, swipe the card, and ask customer to sign on the screen using finger. If you and the customer are the member on Square, you can see the photo of this account holder and check who is in front of you and who is paying in real. The buyer can get the receipt via SMS or Email.

Just imagine that nowadays there’re more than 40 millions iPhones all over the world. And this individual credit card payment enables to cover also tiny micro payments which have not been covered by credit card payment, for instance, when you buy some tacos at the corner or buy a rose on the street, and at the moment this kind of tiny transactions are not covered by credit card, just by cash. If the iPhone users start using this individual credit card payment, it can say that this payment revolution will bring a huge change in the market and also it could be the end of the cash…

Nowadays there’re many online data backup services on the web and usually these services are considered as safe, useful, and easy to store all data into the cloud and take them off when it’s necessary. But we must consider that these services are provided by somebody else. Even if you feel safe after you stored your data and information into the cloud as backup, you must realise that these data are not in your hands, these are in the cloud where you cannot reach sometimes. Services are provided by somebody else and if they suddenly close this service? On the internet, everything could be possible…

After the earthquake in Haiti which happened in January 2010, as the phone line collapsed, Haitians tried to discover the fate of their family or relatives by using web and social networks. The major tools are Emailing and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

After that, an integrated mash-up website “Ushahidi” (http://haiti.ushahidi.com/) has been built to provide proper information about missing people, structural risk, lack of water and food, and also contains Twitter, photo tagging, person finder to exchange and provide information. The mapping system contains all the integrated information of the certain area such as Google maps.

Ushahidi made an agreement with local mobile phone operator Digicel and created a short code to which people could text their message. That message is received by “situation rooms” set up in Boston and Washington. A third one will be set up in Geneva to provide 24-hour cover. About 10,000 Haitians have volunteered to translate messages from Creole to English and ask for more information if needed. Other volunteers and experts try to verify the information and put it into the map.

You should have your privacy and maybe you don’t wanna share everything with everybody… Therefore, you even don’t want your boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife to know some parts of your digital shadow… especially your communication history… Actually mobile phone is kinda your portable digital shadow, easy to carry with you but also easy to expose your privacy, and particularly SMS and Email are very easy to be glanced at by somebody else…

There’re some people who try to check your partner’s mobile phone doubting if he/she is talking to any other boys/girls while you’re away in the bathroom or something like that… But if you’re using iPhone, you can avoid this and also prove that your partner tried to… check your iPhone without your permission… using this application… iTrust… Do you trust your partner?

I know it is definitely not a good term to use, but some people who are tired of their life commit suicide to let them free from the troubles and complexities which they used to have in their life… However, it seems like this is not only for the real life, but also applicable for the “digital life”… Maybe some people are already fed up with dealing with social networks spending so many hours everyday to do something meaningless, or simply tired of this kind of unreal world and prefer going back to real society… You can of course just close your account temporary or permanently. But if you want to eliminate all information you have on your several social networks at the same time, it will mean that if you completely want to get out from your digital life, the only solution will be to commit suicide from the digital life… But there is a question, how? Do I have to make elimination processes one by one? Or does somebody do it for me?

Actually, there is a website called “web 2.0 suicide machine” (http://suicidemachine.org/). It seems like very easy to use. You just put your username and password of the social networks which you want to eliminate forever (at the moment it applicable for Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter) and the system will eliminate all of your information, history, data, everything you have on that social networks and you will never be able to recover it. It will be taken away forever. Once you start the process, you cannot stop the progress and neither the system can do that… So, I strongly recommend you to think a lot about your digital life, social network friends, and all of your information you have put, such as photos, videos, communication, etc. before you commit “digital suicide”…

Facebook can’t seem to help getting itself into a heap of trouble over the the privacy of its 350 million users. In December, Facebook changed its privacy settings to make it easier, for users to control their profiles. The choice was whether to open information to friends, to friends of friends as well, or to everyone. Facebook recommended that for status updates, photo albums and basic information, users should choose the third, and most open, setting, while contact information should be reserved just for friends.

The Facebook founder Mr Zuckerberg, when he appeared on an award, some interpreted his comments as an indication that privacy is over and that the depth of privacy you might have expected.

Here seems like Mr Zuckerberg suggested that privacy is no longer a social norm…

There should not be a clear answer to this issue, because it is true that so many people give away a lot of information about themselves and their activities through Facebook and other services. However, it looks like a majority of people still want to control this information in ways they understand. The problem with the Facebook changes is that most people don’t seem to understand them.

Nowadays we’ve been utilising plenty of web based services and our life relies on them. We can say that it’s impossible to live without these services to communicate with your people, manage your data, information, photos, documents, and so on. However, we’re sometimes struggling to manage these accounts at the same time. It could be possible to forget your user name and password, or just feel lazy to administrate all the accounts you have.

Another consideration will be that we’re sometimes afraid of losing our data and information which are saved on the cloud. We’ve wanted to have some storages in which we can save our digital life besides original web sites. Indeed it exists some web sites in which you can save your emails or photos, such as Flickr, Picasa, Thunderbird, etc. but none of them are integrated into many different services, one corresponds to one service.

How would be useful if there was only one single place in which you can store everything you have on the cloud. For instance, Backupify is providing a place in which you can manage and save many different web accounts you have, including emails, photo storages, social networks, documents storages, etc. It would be a place which reflects your digital shadow you’ve been having in your life.

The 4G Mobile Phone Network is almost available in Scandinavia. Swedish and Norwegians will be the first customers of this service in early this year. 4G mobile phone network is based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology and its downlink data speeds will be 100 megabits per seconds which is ten times much quicker than current 3G networks. However, this 4G technology won’t be available for handsets yet, will be for laptop using dongles. Samsung has already launched a dongle for connecting the LTE network. Ericsson and Huawei have been working to put together the network in Stockholm and Oslo, the network covers the centre of both cities. It expected the boost in speed to drive many novel applications including gaming on the movie and mush greater viewing of video on laptops. Handsets for LTE are expected in mid-late this year.

Tuscany Wines, Prosciutto di Parma, Gorgonzola Cheese, etc. There are so many famous and traditional foods in Italy. These are very well known all over the world and people recognise them as luxury, sophisticated, high quality, safe, and they recognise also additional value for these products. And also think for sure it must be real and authentic products… However, how could we distinguish the authentic products and counterfeits?

Il Prosciutto di San Daniele, one of the most famous Italian ham producer in San Daniele del Friuli, which is located in north-eastern Italy, has started applying RFID tag for verifying product’s authenticity. It can also provide product’s information; such as material information (this case pig) and production process. According to the developer of this RFID technology, the purpose of this tagging is to protect their consumers so that they can see the entire process of production since when pig was born and finally to produced as ham.

Actually this kind of technology is very important to protect authenticity of products and their customers as well. Because nowadays we are even facing on “Counterfeited Foods”, simply said, copy foods. These products don’t have good quality of the ingredients and neither have enough hygienic standards. That is why, this kind of Brand products are required to be protected by technology and proved their authenticity and quality.

But also there are some problem, for example;

1. Price of introducing this technology

It costs 50,000 euro for each prosciutto producers

1. Possibility of counterfeiting even RFID tag

The initial price is actually still expensive for small food producers to introduce this system. That is why the system will have to be more familiar and have accessible price.

About counterfeiting, nowadays plenty of counterfeiting products are produced in some countries and exported as secret and sold in all over the world. The most threaten issue is that more and more these products have been similar with the real one. And also their inside, such as technologies or ingredients, are made as very similar and with less price. It means that it can be possible that even this kind of electronic identification could be counterfeited.

Then, the identification to protect their products and customers could be possible to be a fake identification by counterfeited identification. That is why, it will have to be necessary to identify the identification of these brand products if it is really reliable authentic one or no. Also for the manufacturers, it will have to require to make sure the security of their identifications.