In October I  purchased a 2010 Prius with a basic radio instead of the factory navigation and audio system that would have cost about $2,000 extra.

At first I just used my Android phone, which has Google Maps Navigation and the ability to play audio through the car speakers. It worked OK but is a bit awkward to use in the car, so I decided to upgrade to an after-market system that would be built-into the dash yet be cheaper and have more features than Toyota’s premium entertainment and navigation system.

I held off until I could see the 2011 systems at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where Pioneer Electronics announced one that had all the features I was looking for, plus the ability to access and control an iPhone and stream Internet audio from Pandora and Aha Radio.

A few weeks ago, Pioneer sent me an AVIC-Z130BT in-dash receiver and navigation system to test out for a review and arranged for installation from AMS Car Stereo in San Jose. I’ve decided to keep and pay for the unit because, despite some initial challenges with the user interface, I like its features and versatility. This model, which has a 7-inch touch screen, sells for $1,200, but installation and a custom car kit, steering wheel controller and cables will add to the cost.

If you don’t care about the Internet streaming feature, you can get less expensive models from Pioneer and other companies.

Nice System but Steep Learning Curve

My overall impression is positive, but there was a steep learning curve. Perhaps because it has so many features, I found it harder than it should be to do basic things — like change radio stations. Unlike factory car radios, but typical of after-market units, there are no easy-to-use knobs or pre-set buttons on the front to adjust volume or jump to a radio station. There are small buttons to adjust the volume and skip to the next station, but I had to read the manual (a PDF file on a CD) to figure out how to use them. Like all touch-screen devices, there’s a fair amount of hand-eye coordination needed to tune the radio or switch between audio sources.

Voice Recognition

You can use your voice to change audio modes, control an iPod or iPhone and program the navigation system. But the speech recognition sometimes failed to understand me. Voice works great with the navigation system — tell it the city, street and house number and it almost always gets you to the right place. But when I used voice controls to play “Bob Dylan,” I wound up listening to Beyoncé. You can select music from an iPod by using the device’s touch screen. You never have to handle the iPod itself.

At first I worried about the installation affecting the Prius’ incredibly complex electronic systems. But Kurtis Harville, the manager at AMS, assured me that they could install the unit without having to cut any wires and that, if necessary, they could remove the new unit and put back the factory system. It fits perfectly in the dash and looks like it’s factory installed, thanks to a mounting kit designed especially for my car model. They even connected the factory radio controller on the steering wheel so that I can adjust the volume, change radio stations and switch between audio sources without having to take my hands off the wheel.

I also had an optional backup camera installed, which also works while driving forward. The wide-angle camera is great on the freeway and helps make up for some of the Prius’ blind spots.

The Pioneer system has an impressive number of audio sources. It comes standard with AM, FM and HD Radio with an option for satellite radio. There are also inputs for an iPhone or an iPod, an SD card for up to 16 gigabytes of additional stored music and you can connect a USB flash drive. You can also listen to CDs and DVDs, including discs with compressed music files such as MP3s. You can also watch a DVD movie while the car is in park or via optional rear-seat monitors. And the same Bluetooth connection that lets you dial and accept phone calls can be used to listen to any music stored on your Bluetooth phone.

New to this model is the ability to control audio from Pandora or Aha Radio on an iPhone. Aha Radio offers about 100 stations, including news updates from CNN and NPR and other stations. You can also have the system read you customized traffic reports or — if you really are addicted to social media — your friends’ Facebook and Twitter updates. Pandora provides streaming music from just about any genre or artist. I’m also able to stream live Internet audio from an iPod touch, which picks up a Wi-Fi signal from my Android phone.

Distracted

Despite advances in user interface and voice recognition, I still worry about distracted driving. I had the same concerns with other systems I’ve used, including factory installed units from Ford, GM and Toyota. You still have to take your hands off the wheel and eyes off the road to use some of the features.

Unlike my new dashboard screen, my old car radio couldn’t supplement my rear view mirror, stream live Internet audio, control an iPhone or find the nearest Starbucks. But it sure was easier to change radio stations.

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Apple said “The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.”

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and other executives also talked about the incident with All Things Digital blogger Ina Fried and with the New York Times. Apple admitted that there was a “bug” in the software that kept the file for too long and prevented users from keeping the data from being collected when turning off location services. Steve Jobs insisted to the New York Times that “We haven’t been tracking anybody” and added, “Never have. Never will.”

Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, the researchers who originally found the file on their phones praised Apple for fixing the problems but commented on the O’Reilly Radar blog that “Apple doesn’t address our claim that this reveals sensitive information about your travels. At this point we’re just relieved to get an explanation and a fix.”

Call it what you want, but I had an iPhone with me on a bus trip recently from Boston to New York and as you can see from the map below, my route of travel was tracked. Sure, the phone didn’t report my exact location, but it did give an approximate location which could be used by curious spouses, divorce attorneys, snooping bosses and others with access to one’s phone or a computer synced to the phone to find out where someone may have traveled.  Not shown is a detailed map of New York City which displays my approximate locations around the city during my two days in the Big Apple.  Click here for my previous coverage of the tracking issue.

A map of my trip from Boston to New York courtesy of an iPhone

by Larry Magid

You likely have heard about the intrusion of Sony’s PlayStation Network that affects about 77 million customers. In a  blog post Sony said  ”we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained.” The company also said that there is a possibility that credit card information may be have been obtained as well.

Change Passwords

If you’re a PlayStation Network customer, the first thing you should do is determine if you’ve used the same password with other accounts. If so, change it immediately and — this time — use different passwords for different accounts. One way to create a password that’s easy for you to remember and hard for others to guess is to create a phrase like “I met Susie Jmith in 1992″ and use the initials such as ImSJi#92. Be sure to include some upper case letters and at least one symbol and number. Here are some Tips for Strong, Secure Passwords from ConnectSafely.org

Check Credit Reports

This is also a good time to start checking your credit reports. In the U.S. you can get a free annual credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus atAnnualCreditReport.com.

You can also place a fraud alert at the three credit bureaus:

Experian: 888-397-3742, Equifax: 800-525-6285 and TransUnion: 800-680-7289

Be Careful about Email & Phishing

Because the trove of data includes email addresses, be especially careful about any offers or alerts that come via email. You might, for example, have a higher risk of a phishing attack where someone sends you an official looking email asking you to click on a link so you can log into a site to deal with a supposed security breach or other bogus issue. I wouldn’t be surprised to see phishing attacks to appear to look as if they come from Sony.

Check Your Other Accounts

Also, the thief or thieves likely have access to the challenge questions that Sony stored on its servers which increases the risk of someone breaking into your other accounts. Check all of your online accounts frequently to be sure there is no unauthorized activity.

Talk with Your Children and Teens

Many PlayStations are used by children and teens and this breach affects any account associated with the device, including children’s accounts. This is a good time to have a discussion with your children about basic security including warning them about phishing attacks and bogus email. Here are ConnectSafely’sTips for Smart Videogaming.

For more information, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s page, Recover from Identity Theft

Facebook has just launched Facebook Deals to compete with Groupon and Living Social.  It’s currently only available in five test cities: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco. The companies hopes to expand the test of other cities in the future.

You can sign up to get information about deals via email or search for them online.

You can access Deals from the left side of your home page or by clicking here.

For more see this Facebook blog post.

Yahoo has aquired IntoNow, a Silicon Valley start-up that has a smart phone app (currently works on iPhone with an Android version in the works) that can identify TV shows, commercials and movies based on the sound coming from your TV’s speakers. Once the show has been identified, it can post that you’re watching it on Facebook or Twitter so you can enter into a conversation with your friends about the show.

Here’s CNET’s story on the acquisition and another story from the Associated Press via, of course, Yahoo news.

As you may have heard, Cisco recently discontinued its once popular Flip camcorder. The Flip was a small video camera with internal memory that transferred files to a PC or a Mac via a little USB adapter that “flipped” out of the unit.

It was an ingenious and revolutionary product that, last year, was the top-selling video camera with 26 percent market share. Some analysts are saying Cisco killed the Flip — which it acquired about two years ago — so it could better focus on its core networking business, but, if someone were to do an autopsy on the little camcorder, I have a feeling that the cause of death would be blamed, at least in part, on smartphones.

Just about all of today’s smartphones, digital cameras — and now even tablets and the new iPod touch — have video cameras, and some of them are quite good. And with smartphone cameras, you’re able to upload or email those videos and still pictures without having to connect to a PC. The iPhone 4, for example, has an excellent video camera that makes it very easy to share your masterpiece on YouTube with a single tap to the screen.

As I contemplated the passing of the Flip, I realized that pocket camcorders are not the only product category that’s at risk because of smartphones. Though small digital cameras aren’t yet on the endangered species list, it’s only a matter of time before cellphone cameras are just as good for the types of photos people typically take with pocket cameras. Already, I see many people using their iPhones and Androids instead of stand-alone cameras to snap pictures of their friends.

One reason, of course, is that you always have your phone with you while most people only think to take their camera along for special occasions. But it’s also very cool to be able to take a picture and immediately post it on Facebook or email it to friends.

The portable GPS is also in danger. I have a little Magellan navigation unit in my car that I used to also carry with me on trips to use in rental cars. But I never use it anymore because Google (GOOG) Maps — which is built into my Android phone — is actually better and always with me. Not only has Google done an excellent job with its navigation software but, because it’s connected to the Internet via the cellular system, it always has up-to-date maps, points of interest and traffic information. I recently used it to locate a restaurant that had only been in business a few weeks.

Sure, you can purchase annual updates for stand-alone navigation systems, but they’ll never be as-up-to-date as Google.

The smartphone is even threatening built-in car audio and navigation systems. I recently put a navigation and entertainment system in my car, but to be honest, most of what it does can be done with a smartphone. The ergonomics of smartphones aren’t yet quite right for cars, but the features are all there. You can use most to listen to MP3s and Internet radio and as a navigation system. And the ability to play Internet radio is a big threat to XM/Sirius satellite radio and even AM and FM now that you can listen to thousands of audio sources — including live news radio — directly from a smartphone using applications like Pandora, Radio.com, Aha, AOL radio and apps from media companies.

And it’s not just listening to radio. It’s creating it too. I know a reporter from a Washington, D.C., station who records and edits all of his remote reports via his iPhone. He no longer carries around an audio recorder or a laptop to edit his reports.

Smartphones and tablets are putting pressure on the e-reader market, which may be one of the reasons that Amazon just announced a cheaper ($114) version of the Kindle subsidized by advertising that appears when you’re not reading books. Portable DVD players are also going away thanks mostly to tablets, which are great for watching video.

The list of upsets goes on. There was a time when just about everyone wore a wristwatch, but now people are using their phones to tell the time. And, although you need accessories to make it work, smartphones can also be used as blood pressure monitors or to keep track of blood glucose.

There is even a smartphone electrocardiogram that fits into a protective case, making this important diagnostic tool available as an inexpensive option for global use. But, while smartphones can be used to diagnose heart problems, I haven’t yet come across an app for performing open heart surgery. For that we might have to wait for the iPhone 6.

Last Thursday I took the 4:00 PM Megabus from Boston to New York. I knew where I was going as did a few of my friends. AT&T has a record of the cell towers I accessed along the way, but they’re not allowed to disclose that information without a court order. However, thanks to a tracking file stored on my iPhone and a recently released piece of software, anyone with access to my phone or my computer can find out exactly where I’ve been.

Tracking software was able to follow me from Boston to New York. The software can zoom in for far more detail 

The presence of this tracking file was discovered by researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden who disclosed their findings on the O’Reilly Radar blog and presented them at the Where 2.0 Conference in San Francisco (scroll down for a video of their presentation)

The pair had been working on data visualization projects including creating a map of radiation levels in Japan and were looking into ways to visualize mobile data when they discovered the file. Allan said that he was looking for data on contact information and “I started poking around backups on the Mac and I stumbled across a directory named location d.” He looked around and found a file called “consolidated.db” which was full of latitudes and longitudes and time stamps and cell IDs. “The file,” added Warden “was a plain SQI file” that was not encrypted.”

Allan said that the phone contained “a year’s worth of data for every cell that we’ve been through since we upgraded to IOS 4.” And the data persists even if you change phones assuming you follow Apple’s recommendation to backup and restore your phone to a computer via iTunes.

Free OS X software lets iPhone users create their own maps

To enable iPhone users to visualize their location data, the researchers created a Mac OS X application called iPhone Tracker that quickly displays your location based on the data from your iPhone backup. Before you download and run the application, you should backup your iPhone via iTunes.

As you can see from my map, there are gaps in the data and there are also data points that are not accurate, but there is enough accurate information to get a good picture of where I’ve been with my phone. Clicking on the map provides additional detail.

It is not clear why Apple is storing this data on the phone. The two researchers don’t know but “one guess might be that they have new features in mind that require a history of your location, but that’s pure speculation.” As long as we’re speculating, perhaps Apple is doing this for quality control or perhaps it was put there by a rogue engineer. Whatever the reason, the only way we’re going to find out is if Apple discloses it. So far, Apple has said nothing about the controversy.

Senator has questions

In the meantime, Senator Al Franken (D-Minn) has written an open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, asking why Apple is collecting this information and “does Apple believe that this conduct is permissible under the terms of its privacy policy?”

In a podcast Interview for CBS News and CNET, Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse President Marc Rotenberg questioned whether “Apple might have crossed the line and violated Federal communications law.”

I’m also anxious to find out and urge Apple to hold a press conference to fully disclose the details behind this mysterious tracking file.

Update: Nate Anderson at Ars Technica pointed out that Apple answered questions about location data collection in a July, 2010 letter (PDF) to Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) but I didn’t see anything in that letter about an unencrypted file that could provide user information to anyone who found (or stole) an iPhone user’s phone or computer. It did say that “Apple maintains a secure database containing information regarding known locations of cell towers and Wi-Fi access points. The information is stored in a database accessible only by Apple and does not reveal personal information about any customer.” That may be true with data uploaded to Apple but obviously, the data on the phone and the user’s computer is not secure.

In the following video, Allan and Warden explain their findings and demonstrate their software.

I’m at Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, California where President Obama is expected to arrive in a little more than an hour.  Already the room is full, mostly with Facebook employees, press and a few local dignitaries.  This is a big day for Facebook and its 26 year old CEO Mark Zuckerberg who will be hosting the event.

Here is a short video.

CNET description of proposed verification scheme

White House proposal (PDF)

White House Video provides simple explanation

Based on the latest data from IDC, CNET’s Eriga Ogg reported that PC sales are down globally by about 3.2%, the first quarter of 2011 over that same period last year.

In the US, said Ogg, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Acer shipments are down but Toshiba and — ironically — Apple PC sales are up by about 10%.

More more, see The ‘post-PC era’ might be closer than we think