Queries and Quips on Apple (1)

This week with the advent of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch upon us, I posted the following on Google+ and Twitter with brief queries and quips.  Until February this year, I had an earlier generation iPhone, but now I revel in my big-screen Galaxy Note.  I found these offerings to be more of follower products than of trailblazers, hyperbole from Tim Cook notwithstanding. 

iPhone 6 at $200 - 400 with a contract, and iPhone 6 Plus at $300 - 500 with a contract.

Besides Samsung, Huawei and Sony are poised to compete with the latest 'Apples.'

Who will buy Apple Watch, and how many of them? I thought wearing a watch was long passé.

Control functions for the Apple Watch: digital crown (knob) + touch screen.

Watch-making is a $62 billion business, but for now I see Apple Watch competing mainly with other smart watches.

The wearables market is relatively small now, but analysts expect it to grow majorly.

Apple now has a formidable team of design executives: How will Jony Ive work with all of them?

Increasingly Inadequate Mobile Battery

I posted this video recently on Google+ and Twitter, and commented:

Charging mobile devices, while on the go, is truly a nuisance... But this Q Bracelet, hmm, I don't know.

I wonder how well consumers will actually take up this product, but you can probably tell that I won't.  I'm not inclined to wear jewelry, and, Tanya, no, that Q Bracelet is not stylish.  It looks cumbersome and geeky.

Essentially what QDesigns has designed is a band-aid solution to an increasingly inadequate battery.  I imagine there are chemists, engineers and technologists working to improve what has become an indispensable thing for modern day life. Maybe Elon Musk and his staff at Tesla Motors have made good progress. 

By the way, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Note II earlier this year, and its battery is noticeably weakened already.  Charge becomes an issue especially when I use Maps and shoot photos.  I've now taken to charging it two to three times a day, which isn't a problem at my office or home.  But on the go, it takes finesse to conserve juice.

Suspect iPhone 5 Engineeering

My daughter told me that her iPhone 5 battery doesn't hold a charge for very long anymore.  That's not surprising, as she's had this for two years.  She's a very bright, active high schooler, often out and about with practice, events and friends, and my wife and I don't want her walking around with a dead phone.

So I gave her a portable external battery, but she doesn't seem inclined to use it.  Instead I thought to order her a fresh battery.  I was about to order one on Amazon, when I decided first to check the battery in her phone.  I looked at the device, and asked her, "How do you get the battery out?"  "I don't know."  I looked it again, and couldn't figure it out quickly.  So I searched for a how-to video:

   

My first reaction was Are you kidding me?  I watched the entire bloody video, because I was in awe at how cumbersome and ridiculous it was just to open access to the battery.  I decided it was far more convenient for my daughter to work with that portable battery I gave her.

This fiasco of an engineering design aside, she has also had problems with her charger cord.  After the third breakdown, I bought two cords to make sure she could charge her iPhone 5 whenever she needed to.

I see that CEO Tim Cook has things under control over there in the fruit aisle. 

Money Spam Leaked into LinkedIn (1)

There are two kinds of spam:  love and money.  Recently I wrote Skype Troll Steals Dead Teen's Name, which had the makings of a romantic proposal.  Then, this past Friday, the following fund sharing message arrived in my LinkedIn Inbox:

Hello Villejo,

I am sorry to contact you unannounced through this medium. I am Mr. Mohammed Khalil a staff of Barclays bank Dubai, United Arab Emirate and Head of Administration and Government Relations at Barclays Bank PLC UAE. I write you this proposal in good faith hoping that I will rely on you. In 2006, one Mr. Daniel Villejo who has same surname as yours and who has your country in his file as his place of origin, made a fixed deposit for 36 calendar months, valued at $18,400,000.00 with my bank. I was his account officer before I rose to the position of Managing Director now. The maturity date for this deposit contract was 16th of January 2009. Unfortunately, while on a business trip, he died in a deadly earthquake that occurred on May 12, 2008 in Sichuan province of China which killed at least 68,000 people. Since the last quarter of 2009 until today, the management of Barclay's bank have been finding a means to reach him so as ascertain if he will want to roll over the Deposit or have the contract sum withdraw. Since September 2009, when I discovered that this will happen, I learn of his death, so I have tried to think up a procedure to preserve this fund and use the proceed for charity.

Some directors here have been trying to find out from me the information about this account and the owner, but I have kept it closed because, I know that if they become aware that Mr. Daniel is now late, they will corner the funds for themselves. Therefore, I am seeking your co-operation to present you as the one to benefit from his fund at his death since you have the same name, so that my bank head quarters will pay the funds to you. I have done enough inside bank arrangement and you only have to put in your details into the information network in the bank computers and reflect you as his next of kin. I am not a greedy person, so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties My share will assist me to start a charity organization to help the poor and also own a company which has been my dream. Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET. We shall go over the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal email address, mohammadkhalilem@gmail.com.

Have a nice day.

Best regards,

Mr. Mohammed Khalil
mohammadkhalilem@gmail.com

This spammer's command of English is better than most, as its import is pretty clear, but it's shaky enough to make me suspicious (e.g., "I write you this proposal in good faith hoping that I will rely on you").

It's a clever ploy to reference my last name, and no doubt fabricate a person with that same name (i.e., Daniel Villejo).  I hadn't seen this ploy before, but the absence of an honorific (e.g., Mr. or Sir) in his address of me is also suspicious.

The third suspicious point is this:

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The gentleman in the photo looked familiar to me, so when I received a connect invite from him and saw his position and company, I accepted.  But I decided to search for this photo on Google Images  and for this name on LinkedIn.  I didn't find anything on the photo, but I found the following profile.

(image credit)

I think the spammer stole this gentleman's identity, and opened a new profile.

But even if the points in his first paragraph were all legitimate, his proposal in the second paragraph is flatly criminal.  I wonder how many targets he's sent this message to, and how any (if any) took the bait.  It's also possible that this profile and message were fabricated by officials in the UAE, and they're attempting to entrap people as criminal accomplices.

Regardless, this is rather serious shit.

So I removed this spammer from my connections, and reported his message to LinkedIn.

Meditations on Google

How closely is Google really reading your e-mail?

There are complex privacy dilemmas here, but the resolution is simple: Do not engage in criminal activity.

You can see the glass as half-empty, and say that privacy is a thing of the past and everything we post or e-mail is read.  You can see the glass as half-full, and believe that Google & Co. have our best interest completely in mind.  Or you can see the proverbial glass as both, and realize that while it isn't a perfect thing, Google is integral to everyday life and business.  In other words, you can work at relishing the good while monitoring the bad.

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Google is being a model citizen.  Google is walking on a slippery slope.  Or both? 

Federal law requires that electronic communication providers like Google report instances of suspected child abuse when it becomes aware of them, but whether it's legally required to actively search out those cases is another question. Even if Google doesn't see the law as requiring this active scanning of private communications, it appears that it chooses to do so as part of the fight against predators. "Sadly, all internet companies have to deal with child sexual abuse," a Google spokesperson tells the AFP. "It’s why Google actively removes illegal imagery from our services — including search and Gmail — and immediately reports abuse to the [National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]." 

Reference:  Google scans everyone's email for child porn, and it just got a man arrested.

The thing is, Google products, while wide-ranging and amazing, are flawed in places and riddled with bugs in others.  From mangled translations, to street mispronunciations and blogging glitches.  They're there.  So while I do not expect perfection, I worry about Google making errors in identifying online predators: (a) I hope people they nab are actually bad, and (b) I hope people they clear are indeed good.  It would be terrible if they mixed this up.

Hackers' Haven at DEF CON 22

Hackers make up the counter-culture of the digital age, but their couture is positively old hat.

  

A hackers convention may or may not be your cup of tea, but you better pay attention to what they do.

  

 Protecting yourself from hackers may mean shutting off your mobile... or wearing a tin foil hat.

  

Hackers expose flaws in your systems, so you can correct them and protect yourself. 

  

Just in case you were curious about how people pick (conventional) locks, a hacker shows you.

  

The "Wall of Sheep" is a public display of hackers who get hacked at their own convention (hmm).

 

I've known about encryption codes for a long time, and I hope their sophistication has evolved.

Skype Troll Stole Dead Teen's Name

On August 13th I posted the following on Google+ and Twitter:

You probably get peppered with love, money or business spam: Last night I got this on Skype...

So I Googled "Shelby Dwyer": She was a 19-year old who died in a horrific car crash in March 2013...

Good Samaritan describes trying to save Valley teen from crash

Cliff Faraci tried desperately to save Shelby Dwyer, to no avail, and ended up burning both arms... 

 

Man burned trying to rescue woman in car fire

Shelby Dwyer's profile on Facebook is still up, and memories and wishes have kept streaming in...

Shelby Nicole Dwyer

I asked that Skype person a question...

That Skype person must've trolled the internet for a young lady who had died, then took on her name...

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I don't accept Skype invites from people I don't know, and block them if they're trolls.

How do I block or report a contact on Skype?

Shame on that Skype person for taking on the name of a young lady who died a horrible death!

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