Today the DataPortability Project announces PortabilityPolicy.org – the result of a 16 month effort that it hopes the industry will embrace. This guest post explains what a Portability Policy is, why your site should have a one, and why you should be looking for them. The author, Elias Bizannes, is the chairperson and executive director of the DataPortability Project.
From time to time, I find myself traveling on the Metro here in Seattle. You see, I’m lazy, and poor, so I don’t drive and I don’t want to bike more than a couple miles. So it’s the bus for me. I use Android’s SeattleBusFinder, which works, but isn’t exactly a UI revelation. If I could use this slick, gorgeous, and practical bus tracker app instead, I’d be much happier (and might even take the bus more).
If you were so obliging as to use the “Mark the Spot” app on your iPhone to tell AT&T where coverage was poor, you may find things improving in the spots you marked. In 60-90 days, anyway.
Just when you thought it was safe to love AT&T again, we have another interesting tidbit about their famous 3G Micro-Cell, AKA the “rip-off box.” As you recall, AT&T’s MicroCell is being marketed as a way to repair bad connectivity in areas with little or no AT&T reception including, but not limited to, basements, attics, Manhattan, and San Francisco. It essentially piggy backs on your own home network to provide data service and voice to your phone.
Reader Matthew just confirmed our worst fears: not only was the pre-order experience at Apple and AT&T a big pile of poopfail, they’ve started cancelling “orders made in error.” Why in error? Well, presumably because things have gotten so fouled with eligibility in their systems that folks are getting knocked out of the pre-order queue.
Thinking of selling your Droid Incredible? If you’re a mob-boss, peruser of the freaky-deaky, or someone who visits websites with sensitive data on their handset, you might want to hold off. Turns out, the Droid Incredible is snapping shots of the sites you visit for use with the built-in Bookmarks widget. That, in itself, isn’t a big deal; there are a dozen traces of every website you visit on just about any device, mobile or not. The unfortunate part is just how hard it is to get rid of these ones.
Oh man! The week is nearly halfway over, and we haven’t had a single edition of Good News/Bad News yet — its been pretty much all good news, all week. What is this, day care? We can’t have you guys getting too optimistic. So, as it goes...
We told you this was coming: Swype has just made it possible for any Android handset owner to download their innovative touch-screen enabled text-input application straight from the website. Which means a whole lot of people can henceforth start challenging that Guinness World Record for speedy textin’ using Swype.
So, for one reason or another, you’ve gotta send your HTC EVO 4G in to Sprint for an exchange. What do you do?
There was a report on the local news here yesterday about students using their mobile phones to cheat in school. My first reaction was, yeah, duh. Kids have been cheating in school since the beginning of time. The tools they use to cheat isn’t all that interesting.