by Larry Magid

At its F8 developer’s conference in September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that users would be able to display data from apps on their Facebook Timeline. Partners immediately launched a handful of apps, including one that tells your friends what you’re reading on the Washington Post, but for the most part users were left to wonder what else would be forthcoming.

The wait is over. At a small press event in San Francisco (the first Facebook presser I’ve attended that didn’t feature Zuckerberg), the company unveiled the 60 new apps that are now integrated with the Timeline.

The idea is to display your activity with the apps directly on the new Facebook Timeline for your friends to see. Some of these apps are primarily on Facebook but others interact with mobile apps from the same publisher.  For example, if someone downloads Foodspotting to their smart phone and takes a picture or rates a meal they’re having at a restaurant, that picture and rating can immediately appear on their Facebook Timeline.  Likewise, if you’re using Gogobot to plan a trip, all the details of that adventure can be shared on Facebook with anyone you choose. You can ask questions such as “what should I do on Maui,” and your friends can clue you in.

Rotten Tomatoes allows you to share your thoughts on movies you’ve watched and learn about what your friends are watching. You can post movies you want to see which can trigger a conversation or maybe even help you find someone to go see it with.

Other companies with new apps include Foodly, Ticketmaster and Pinterest.

All this is possible thanks to Facebook “open graph,” which is a set of application interface tools (APIs) that allows developers to create apps that share user activities back to Facebook.

In a blog post about the new apps, Facebook’s Carl Sjogreen said “There will be apps for all types of interests, as more apps will launch over time. Whether you love snowboarding, gardening, hiking, or knitting, or something else, there will be an app for you.”

Users are required to authorize the application and determine who they want to share with. Even after you start sharing you have access to controls that let you limit the audience further.

Facebook users can add apps by clicking here.

Visitors to Google.com see a blacked out logo and a link to an online petition

Knowing that Wikipedia would go dark for 24 hours in protest to SOPA and PIPA, I took the precaution of printing it out last night. Just kidding. Wikipedia is huge. I wanted to say just how big it is, but when I went to Google to look up “size of Wikipedia,” most of the relevant results directed me to articles on Wikipedia which, of course, is dark for the day.

Google didn’t go dark but it did black out its logo and has a link to “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!” with a link to an online petition.

What are SOPA and PIPA and why are people upset?

This is all because of two pieces of legislation: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and its Senate companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).  The purpose of these bills is to make it harder for sites — especially those located outside the United States — to sell or distribute pirated copyrighted material such as movies and music as well as physical goods such as counterfeit purses and watches. Even most of SOPA and PIPA’s strongest opponents applaud the intentions of the legislation while deploring what it might actually accomplish.

Although its sponsors have said that they would amend the bill, as currently written, SOPA would enable the U.S. Attorney General to seek a court order to require “a service provider (to) take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site.” Until this weekend, one of the ways to do that would have been to cut the DNS (domain name server) records that point to the site, but that provision is likely to be removed after the Obama administration weighed in on the issue over the weekend, saying “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small.” The administration also echoed concerns raised by a number of security experts, including some anti-malware companies that the bill could disrupt the underlying architecture of the Internet.

The White House statement coincided with sponsors agreeing to remove the DNS blocking provisions. Still, the bill could require search engines like Google to delete any links to the sites.

These are not partisan bills. SOPA and PIPA have proponents and opponents on both sides of the aisle.

The bill would require sites to refrain from linking to any sites “dedicated to the theft of U.S. property.” It would also prevent companies from placing on the sites and block payment companies like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal from transmitting funds to the site. For more, see this blog post on Reddit.

The problem with this is that the entire site would be affected, not just that portion that is promoting the distribution of illegal material. It would be a bit like requiring the manager of a flea market to shut down the entire market because some of the merchants were selling counterfeit goods.

The bill would also cut off funding by prohibiting payment services from cooperating with infringing sites.

Opponents say it would create an “internet blacklist.”

As CBSNews.com said in its analysis, there are existing laws, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) that require operators to remove specific infringing content. SOPA and PIPA would go after the entire sites.

Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley

These bills have pitted the entertainment industry against the technology industry. “Hollywood” has a legitimate interest in protecting its intellectual property. Not only are profits at stake but so are jobs. Thousands of Americans make their living by dreaming up content and selling it to the world and piracy does in fact take money out of their pockets.  Silicon Valley has invested billions in creating companies that freely distribute information. While Google and every other Silicon Valley company must respect copyrights, they thrive on helping people find what they want. If, suddenly, every web site that had links to other sites had to worry that they could be in violation of the law by linking to a “banned” site, it could put undo pressure on these companies. There is also worry that SOPA and PIPA could be abused and lead to censorship for purposes other than intellectual property protection.

Are the protests having any effect?

Shutting down Wikipedia for a day or blacking out the Google logo won’t stop these bills in their tracks, but they have raised an enormous amount of awareness about the issue. As a result, it is likely that these bills will continue to be amended and, though they may pass in some fashion, they are likely to be quite different than they were when first proposed.

This post appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on January 16, 2012

by Larry Magid

As I walked around the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, I was struck by how the mobile phone is taking over as the hub of our physical lives.

Nowhere was that more obvious than at LG’s booth, where they were pushing home appliances, including refrigerators, washing machines and even a robot that lets you use a cellphone as a command and control center. It was also obvious at the Belkin and Schlage booths, where they showed products that let you use a cellphone to lock or unlock your front door from anywhere on the planet. Craftsman, meanwhile, showed a garage-door opener that sends you a message if you forget to close it. There are also companies that allow you to use a smartphone as a TV remote control.

Ford has multiple smartphone apps that work with its new line of cars, including ones to help you find recharging stations or see how many miles per gallon you’re getting on your hybrid. There also are apps to remotely lock or start your car.

This highlights how mobile devices are actually more useful than PCs.

It was 11 years ago that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs declared the Mac a “digital hub,” the control center for all our digital devices and the repository of all our data. In 2007, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates told CNN that “We’re making the PCs the place where it all comes together,” again stressing the role of the PC as the device for storing data and controlling your other devices. Now we’re storing our data in the “cloud,” and accessing it from our mobile devices as well as our PCs.

The move toward mobile makes sense for a lot of reasons. First of all, mobile phones are ubiquitous. Even in the United States, there are people who don’t use PCs on a regular basis, and most people in the developing world don’t have PCs at home. Just about everyone with a pulse has a mobile phone and an increasing number of us are getting smartphones.

Another reason for the shift toward mobile is that the devices are portable. Most people don’t carry their laptop or tablet around all day, but how many people do you know who go anywhere without their mobile phone? I never go out the door without checking that I have my keys, my wallet and my phone. And the obvious advantage of smartphones is that they have a screen, a keyboard and a speaker to send you an alert and, as long as you have a data signal, you’re always connected to the Internet.

Although it may seem a bit gimmicky, I’m impressed by the vision behind LG’s Smart ThinQ line of connected home appliances that communicate with each other and to the Internet via Wi-Fi and other wireless protocols.

LG smart refrigerator shown at CES (Credit: LG)

It may sound like a joke to have your refrigerator send you a note that your yogurt is about to expire, but if that information is available from your cellphone while you’re at the grocery store, it might be useful. The refrigerator has a screen that lets you enter information about each item as you place it in. Not only can it display what it is, when you bought and when it expires, you can also indicate where in the refrigerator you’re placing it so you no longer have to wonder where you stashed those leftovers. Eventually these refrigerators will be equipped with bar code readers as well as the ability to scan your receipt to automatically determine what you’re putting in. I wouldn’t be surprised if some grocery stores start uploading your purchases to the cloud to be automatically accessed by your refrigerator and oven.

The refrigerator, of course, can communicate with LG’s “smart” oven to let it know what ingredients you have, and can help you cook by finding recipes and programming itself accordingly. The oven can also send a message to your cell phone to let you know when the roast is done. If you’re away, you can switch the oven to warming mode so it stops the cooking but maintain a temperature.

LG’s washers can send a message to your phone or your TV to let you know when it’s time to put the clothes in the dryer. If you’re away from home while your clothes are drying, you can remotely put it in spin mode to keep them from getting wrinkled. If the house in on a smart electrical grid, you can program the dryer to turn on when the utility rates are low.

LG also has a “home bot” vacuum cleaner that has a camera to send remote video of what’s happening at your house. If George Jetson had one of these, he could use his cell phone to remotely tell his dog Astro to get off the couch.

Scroll down for step-by-step instructions to turn off personal search

Earlier this week Google announced that search is going “social,” so that what you find when you do a Google search will be influenced by what your friends on Google+ are saying.  In a blog post, Google said that it’s “transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” In addition to putting your friends posts and pictures front and center in search (subject to the privacy options they chose when the posted it), Google now presents search results based on what your friends are saying. So, if your Google+ friends like a certain restaurant, its more likely to come up higher on a search. And if you search for a person and that person has a Google profile, that’s what’s likely to pop up.

Privacy and antitrust concerns

As the New York Times pointed out, some privacy advocates are concerned and others worry about antitrust issues, arguing this gives Google a competitive advantage over Twitter and Facebook that don’t happen to own a dominant search engine. I’ll leave it up to regulators and Google’s competitors to worry about the antitrust issues

I’m not terribly worried about privacy. To its credit, Google+ has good privacy controls. Every time someone posts, they can determine the audience. It can be specific individuals, people in their “circles” (who they have opted to share with) or the public. Still, there is a contextual difference between finding a post in Google+ vs. finding it in a what may be an unrelated search.

Biased results

My biggest concern about the change is that it kind of ruins what Google spent so many years building. Google’s well honed algorithms have historically been based on finding the most relevant results based on their “importance.” It’s a complex and secret formula but it’s based, in part, on how many other sites link to it and the ranking of those sites. If a lot of highly ranked sites link to a page, it’s likely to have a higher ranking than a page with few links or even a page with a lot of links from other pages that aren’t highly ranked.  The algorithms aren’t perfect and they can be gamed, but they generally produce results that are at least reasonably objective.

As Mat Honan pointed out on Gizmodo, the problem with social search and personal results is that it biases the results based on the perspective of your friends. If I had a lot of friends who worked for Chrysler and I asked them to name the best car on the road, chances are they’d pick a Chrysler car. But if I asked the general public, I’d probably get a different response. It’s like that old joke Democrats use to tell after the 1972 election, ” I don’t know how Richard Nixon got elected, all my friends voted for George McGovern.” I’m sure many Republicans felt the same way after the 2008 election.

Turn off personal search

Fortunately, there is a way to completely turn off personal search as well a way to see universal results after getting your personal results.

To see general results on a specific search, after the search just click the globe near the upper right corner of the search results page. The will hide personal results.

Click the globe to temporarily disable personalized search for this one search. The person icon restores personalized search

Turn off  personal search for all searches

To turn off personal search for all searches:

1. Go to Google search and click on the gear icon in the upper right corner and click “Search settings.” You need to be signed-in to your Google account to make any changes.

Click on the gear in upper right corner to change search settings

2.  Scroll down to the section marked “Personal results” and click on “Do not use personal results.”

Setting lets you turn off personalization for all searches

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Private browsing

Another option is to do your search using the private browsing or “incognito”option of your browser. When using that option, you are not logged into Google and none of your usual preferences are in effect. Also, there is no record of any searches or activity stored on your machine or sent to Google. Another option is to log out of your Google account.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, which receives financial support from Google and Facebook.

I’m old-enough to remember when Americans looked forward to new car models to marvel at the latest designs, features and oomph thatDetroit engineered into our cars. Those days ended sometime in the seventies when cars — especially American cars — became me-too commodities.

From what I’m seeing at the Consumer Electronics Show, we’re entering a new golden-age for autos. I spent some time with Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Chief Technology Officer Paul Mascarenas during CES (you can read about it as listen to the podcast over at my CNET blog) and I came away quite impressed.

One of the things that impressed me was Ford’s departure from the “not invented here” mentality that has long contributed to mediocre car entertainment and navigation systems. It’s not only an American problem — Japanese and European automaker are also saddled with in-car technology that is obsolete before the first car rolls off the assembly line, let alone after a person has owned the car for several years. Like a lot of people, I keep typically keep my cars for about ten years but I like to replace the consumer technology I use in the car far more often.

By 2022 — when today’s cars are 10 years old — their built-in nav and entertainment systems are going to look mighty old.  Ford’s strategy is allow users to leverage whatever mobile technology they have at the time by building in-dash screens that communicate with smart phones.

It’s not a perfect strategy — even screen technology will evolve and there could be new generations of smart phones that they won’t be able to interact with — but it still makes more sense than building very expensive systems, typically adding more than $2,000 to the sticker price of a new car.

The company has opened a Silicon Valley research center and is collaborating with other companies to deliver better technology. “It’s all about collaboration and partnership and open architecture,” Mulally said in my CBS News/CNET interview. “We’ve watched many people try to develop all their own capability and embed it into the vehicle What we have found is that the most import thing we can do is manage the interface so we can help people be less distracted but more connected.”

The U.S. auto-industry still has a long way to go, but from what I’m seeing at CES, it’s finally moving in the right direction.

Home automation products have been featured at CES, well, ever since there was a CES. I’ve seen all sorts of products like the X-10 modules that turned appliances on and off and dimmed lights and the Insteon system of switches, dimmers and even sprinkler controllers.

These early lines of product have their place — back in the eighties I had about a dozen X-10 modules all over my house — but aside from geeks like me, most people didn’t bother to adapt the technology even though it was affordable and easy to find at Radio Shack.

At CES we’re seeing a number of home automation products that take advantage of the near-ubiquity of WiFi to move data around the house and  smart phones and tablets as controllers.

I spent some time at the Belkin booth looking at their new WeMo line of modular home automation modules. These products are still in development, but they’re quite promising. The devices, which require that you have a home WiFi network, can be used to turn appliances on and off, let you know if you left your garage door open (and let you close it) or respond to motion in the room.

Each device communicates to the Internet via WiFi and can be controlled via any iOS device (the company is also developing Android software) from anywhere on the planet.  A company spokesperson told me that modules can also be programmed to turn on and off at specific times or after a specific amount of time. I’m hoping I can use a module to turn off my Foreman grill after, say, 10 minutes so I stop burning my panini sandwiches.

WeMo wall plug modules will be available in March for $49.99 each. Motion sensors will cost $59.99. No other controllers are necessary as long as you have a home WiFi network.

Belkin expects to launch additional devices over time.

Amid all the giant TVs, connected refrigerators and Ultrabooks at CES are some decidedly low-tech and low-cost products that make life just a little easier.

Magnetic phone & tablet stand

For example, there are all sorts of stands for iPads, iPhones and other smart phones but iOMounts is using very old technology called magnetism to mount your device. It’s a stand with a double-side magnet that lets you swivel your device in any direction. You get a small metal washer with double-sided tape to adhere to the back of your device or its case. Prices start at $69 for a phone stand and $80 for a tablet version. The company is working on a solution for mounting phones in vehicles.

Phone gripper for folks with slippery hands

If you’re as clumsy as I am,  you’ve probably dropped your phone at least once. Here’s a simple $20 solution from Grip-EZ.com. It’s a set of rubberized rings that you affix to the back of your phone or case with its double-sided tape. Stick your fingers through the rings and the odds of dropping the phone go way down.

For watching video on tablets from bed

My wife and I sometimes watch Netflix movies on our iPad in bed (no jokes, please) and our biggest problem — aside from falling asleep while watching — is finding an easy way to prop the tablet up while we watch.  This simple $29.95 iProp solves the problem quite nicely. I’ll have to see if my wife agrees. It can also work on your lap.

Headphones you’ll never forget to take along

I always have my phone with me when I’m at the gym, but I often forget my headset when I want to listen to music while peddling the cross-trainer. And I never have my headset with me if I want to make a hands-free call.  If I had this Rockrah case with “buds and winder,” I’d be listening to sweet music or chatting way  every time because the headset is integrated into the case.  The product, which will  cost $59.95 for the smart phone version, will be available in April.

Belkin WeMo Home Control switch

Home automation products have been featured at CES, well, ever since there was a CES. I’ve seen all sorts of products like the X-10 modules that turned appliances on and off and dimmed lights and the Insteon system of switches, dimmers and even sprinkler controllers.

These early lines of product have their place — back in the eighties I had about a dozen X-10 modules all over my house — but aside from geeks like me, most people didn’t bother to adapt the technology even though it was affordable and easy to find at Radio Shack.

At CES we’re seeing a number of home automation products that take advantage of the near-ubiquity of WiFi to move data around the house and  smart phones and tablets as controllers.

I spent some time at the Belkin booth looking at their new WeMo line of modular home automation modules. These products are still in development, but they’re quite promising. The devices, which require that you have a home WiFi network, can be used to turn appliances on and off, let you know if you left your garage door open (and let you close it) or respond to motion in the room.

Each device communicates to the Internet via WiFi and can be controlled via any iOS device (the company is also developing Android software) from anywhere on the planet.  A company spokesperson told me that modules can also be programmed to turn on and off at specific times or after a specific amount of time. I’m hoping I can use a module to turn off my Foreman grill after, say, 10 minutes so I stop burning my panini sandwiches.

WeMo wall plug modules will be available in March for $49.99 each. Motion sensors will cost $59.99. No other controllers are necessary as long as you have a home WiFi network.

Belkin expects to launch additional devices over time.

(Las Vegas)  One of Lenovo’s CES 2012 announcements is a new Ultrabook called “Yoga” which converts from a laptop to a tablet simply by folding the screen back. In that position the keyboard (which is automatically disabled when the keyboard is bent back) becomes the bottom of the unit.  The device, according to Lenovo’s Stephen Miller is “the world’s first multiposition laptop.”

The device will run Windows 8 and will not be available until Microsoftreleases the upcoming operating system, likely this fall.  There isn’t a Windows 7 version.

The notebook is 17 millimeters thick, which in within Intel‘s specifications for standard Ultrabooks. It’s also touch-screen device which Miller calls “10 finger multitouch.” Each of your fingers could be used to play a separate note on a piano keyboard, for example.

There is nothing new about laptops that convert to tablets but most are designed to swivel.  This one bends.

The cover is solid aluminum and the area around the palm rests has a “textured leather feel.” It’s not real leather, but it feels like it is.

Yoga is one of several products Lenovo announced at the show. The company also showed off its A720, a unique touch-screen desktop machine that also folds back so that it’s screen can be used in a table top positon, which can be handy for some board-like games. That PC, which runs Windows 7, will be available mid-year for about $1,300.

Listen to Larry’s podcast interview about Yoga with Lenovo’s Stephen Miller.

Click here for video of Stephen Miller demonstrating Yoga (apologies for the faint audio)