Update, 1:15 p.m. PST, December 24: Santa is currently arriving at Pinsk, Belarus.
Last Christmas Eve, Jeff Martin found himself forced to explain to a Canadian general why, when Santa Claus passed through Toronto that night, Google Maps had placed the city in the United States.
Martin, then a senior marketing manager in Google's Geo group, was part of a huge team of people involved in the joint U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command's annual NORAD Santa tracker program, a long-running effort to provide children the world over a live view of Santa's progress as he and his reindeer deliver Christmas presents.
In 2007, Google signed onto the project as a technology partner, and since then, has been incorporating NORAD's data on Santa's whereabouts into special 2D Google Maps and 3D Google Earth representations.
And that's where the trouble began.
NORAD is now actively tracking Santa, and will do so until 3 a.m. on Christmas Day.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Inexplicably, as Santa made his way through Toronto that night last year, the mapping software began identifying the city as being in the United States. Instantly, NORAD Santa's dedicated Gmail account "just lit up" with messages from irate Canadians, Martin said, and quickly, the Google team fixed the problem.
But not before Martin's run-in with Canadian Lt. Gen. Marcel Duval. "He said, 'I understand that you have a new American city,'" Martin recalled. "It was a slightly tense moment for me, standing in front of a three-star general explaining to him why one of his cities had been designated as a United States city."
Is this Santa Claus?
All joking aside, NORAD has been taking its Santa tracking project seriously for decades. But it actually began in 1955 with a wrong number.
One morning that December, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD, the Continental Air Defense Command--NORAD's predecessor--got a phone call at his Colorado Springs, Colo., office (see video below). This was no laughing matter. The call had come in on one of the top secret lines inside CONAD that only rang in the case of a crisis.
The ad that started it all.
(Credit: NORAD)Grabbing the phone, Shoup must have expected the worst. Instead, a tiny voice asked, "Is this Santa Claus?"
"Dad's pretty annoyed," said Terri Van Keuren, Shoup's daughter, recalling the legend of that day in 1955. "He barks into the phone," demanding to know who's calling.
"The little voice is now crying," Van Keuren continued. "'Is this one of Santa's elves, then?'"
The Santa questions were only beginning. That day, the local newspaper had run a Sears Roebuck ad with a big picture of St. Nick and text that urged, "Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct...Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night."
But the phone number in the ad was off by a digit. Instead of connecting with Santa, callers were dialing in on the line that would ring if the Russians were attacking.
Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook, and softening up, Shoup grabbed a nearby airman and told him to answer the calls and, Van Keuren said, "'just pretend you're Santa.'"
Indeed, rather than having the newspaper pull the Sears ad, Shoup decided to offer the countless kids calling in something useful: information about Santa's progress from the North Pole. To quote the official NORAD Santa site, "a tradition was born."
From that point on, first CONAD and then, in 1958, when NORAD was formed, Shoup's organization offered annual Santa tracking as a service to the global community. A phone number was publicized and anyone was invited to call up, especially on December 24, and find out where Santa was. Manning those phones over the years have been countless numbers of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel and their families, and for many people, turning to NORAD to find out where Santa is became something to look forward to each year.
Phones and e-mail
These days, of course, a single red phone isn't enough to handle the demand for the information. In fact, said Joyce Frankovis, the public affairs specialist who runs the Santa tracking program for NORAD these days, there were fully 1,275 people involved in the project in 2008, and there would have been more had there been more room for them.
Frankovis explained that most of those people are volunteers who come in to NORAD's Colorado Springs headquarters on Christmas Eve to answer phone calls and emails. And it's a good thing there's so many, she said, because "Literally, when a volunteer puts the phone down after they get done with a call, it's ringing again."
All told, she said that each volunteer handles about 39 calls per hour and that in 2008, the team used 100 phones and 25 computers to handle 69,845 calls and 6,086 e-mails from more than 200 countries. Most of those contacts happened during the 25 hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 through 3 a.m. on Christmas that the operations center (see video below) is up and running.
Most people, Frankovis said, just want to know where Santa is. And so the volunteer answering the question will look up at the big screen on the wall at the operations center and see where, on the map that is integrating geographical information from NORAD with Google's mapping service, Santa is at that moment.
"NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa--radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets," reads the NORAD Santa Web site. "Tracking Santa starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On Christmas Eve, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.
"The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth's surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Amazingly, Rudolph's bright red nose gives off an infrared signature, which allow our satellites to detect Rudolph and Santa.
"The third tracking system is the Santa Cam network. We began using it in 1998, which is the year we put our Santa Tracking program on the Internet. Santa Cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras that are pre-positioned at many locations around the world. NORAD only uses these cameras once a year on Christmas Eve. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.
"The fourth system is made up of fighter jets. Canadian NORAD fighter pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15 or the F-16 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph."
Still, despite all that, "Santa is hard to track," said Frankovis. "We actually never know which route Santa's going to take. So it's just a matter of using that high-tech equipment to track him."
Technology is also playing an increasing role in how NORAD publicizes the program. Frankovis said that after taking over the project earlier this year when her predecessor retired, she decided to begin using a much wider collection of social and online media for promotion. As a result, the NORAD Santa tracker now has presences on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and TroopTube.
Google's Martin said that his company--which, like all the corporate partners in the program, offers its assistance at no cost to taxpayers--has dozens of people working on helping to track Santa. Those people provide technical consulting and server provisioning for the NORAD Santa Web site, as well as helping put together YouTube videos, information for Google Maps and Google Earth and, soon, a new service that will allow people to use their mobile phones to track Santa on Christmas Eve.
All told, Martin said, the Web site had 8 million unique users in 2008, who visited the site 15 million times, accumulating tens of millions of page views and more than 10 million map views. Those numbers were up about 45 percent from 2007, he added.
Martin also said Google helps out by providing and monitoring a Gmail account for the program. And it was there that one of the best messages he can remember came in just a few days ago.
"I have been good," a girl named Stephanie wrote to Santa. "But my brother Christopher is mean to me. Take him and leave the presents, please!"
Martin said that, clearly, many of the kids who send emails think they're reaching out directly to Santa. "We'll write back and say we've forwarded their message to Santa at the North Pole, who's preparing for Christmas Eve."
Of course, not everyone believes in Santa. Frankovis said that some callers--especially towards the later part of Christmas Eve when maybe a little bit too much egg nog or a Canadian grog called Moose Milk has been drunk--dial in to have a little bit of fun.
But for those who question whether there really is a Santa at all, Frankovis said the volunteers answering the phone have a simple answer: "'We believe, based on historical data and 51 years of NORAD tracking information, that Santa Claus is alive and well in the hearts of people throughout the world."
Col. Shoup and the e-mails
Last March, Shoup died, said Van Keuren. But in the years before his death, she and her family would take the retired colonel back to Colorado Springs each year for the Santa tracker training. "They would introduce him and he would say a few words," Van Keuren said. "So that was a big thrill for him."
In his later years, Shoup "was not as sharp as he used to be," she said. But his days overseeing the Santa tracker program were still near and dear to his heart. She said the NORAD folks had printed out a sheaf of emails kids had written in and gave them to Shoup as a reminder of what he'd started back in 1955.
"For the last weeks of his life, he carried them around in his briefcase like they were top secret papers," Van Keuren said. "Those were just precious to him. I'd read them to him over and over."
Google Voice may not have made it onto the iPhone yet, but the service has still managed to attract more than 1.4 million users.
In a story posted Friday, BusinessWeek is reporting that Google Voice has grown to 1.419 million users, 40 percent--fully 570,000--of whom use the service every day. The information comes from documents in which Google responded to questions from U.S. regulators interested in whether the search giant is improperly blocking calls to phone numbers in specific rural areas of the country.
But while the information about the number of users of the service was included in the documents Google handed over, they were not meant to be made public.
"Though the number of Google Voice customers was redacted in the version that was made public, BusinessWeek reviewed the information in the redacted sections," BusinessWeek reporter Arik Hesseldahl wrote. "'We had intended to keep sensitive information regarding our partners and the number of Google Voice users confidential,' Google said in a statement to BusinessWeek. 'Unfortunately, the PDF submitted to the (U.S. Federal Communications Commission) was improperly formatted.'"
Hessedahl added that subsequently, the FCC has replaced the first letter on its site with one in which the information originally intended to be redacted has been blacked out.
He also reported that another since-redacted section of the documents suggests that Google intends to take its Voice service global and has inked deals with several "international service providers for inputs to Google Voice." However, Google said that no such international services have gotten off the ground so far.
That Google should screw up something so simple as PDF formatting is terrific, from a reporter's perspective. Surely however, its investors, board members, and executives are none too happy with the employee responsible for ensuring that the relevant passages of the documents were blacked out. But, as someone who may not have been too successful at such an operation myself, I shouldn't throw stones.
And in the spectrum of corporate secrets it would have liked to keep to itself, the number of Google Voice users is kind of small potatoes. Somewhere, Larry and Sergey are probably breathing a sigh of relief that that's all that escaped the faulty digital black-out.
So, word to the wise, corporate types: if you have to give the government documents that are going to be made public, pay a little more attention to the way you format your PDFs. A lot could hang in the balance.
The Edge and Bono perform before 96,000 fans during the U2 360 concert Sunday at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)
PASADENA, Calif.--If you were one of the 96,000 people packed into the Rose Bowl Sunday night for the U2 concert--said to be the largest concert ever held here--you were sharing the experience with at least a few other fans off-site.
There's no way to know yet how many exactly, but it's safe to say millions of people around the world were also watching the concert live on YouTube, a potentially server-crashing Webcast that may have been the biggest live-stream yet.
For months, the band has been on tour with its U2 360 concerts. And to top off the grand claims, it has been called the biggest rock tour in history, at least as measured by the size and cost of its infrastructure--more than $750,000 per show, according to Rolling Stone.
Only days ago, the band announced that it would share the Rose Bowl concert live, with fans across the globe. Just before the band came on stage, a roadie calling himself Rocco got up in front of the crowd of 96,000 and said, "Tonight, you are the ones making history," shouting out that those in attendance would be joined by viewers in "North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica."
For its part, YouTube wasn't sharing much about how it put together the live stream. Before the show started, there was some discussion among reporters on hand at the Rose Bowl about whether YouTube would be up to the task of delivering the show to so many people, live, on so many continents. But if Twitter is any judge, the live-stream went off almost without a hitch. More to the point, a Twitter feed set up on the official YouTube U2 page showcased comments in a wide variety of languages from Webcast viewers.
Back at the Rose Bowl, in an effort to rally the capacity crowd, the concert-goers were told why this show was chosen by YouTube: "Because right here is where the greatest singers of U2 songs are....Tonight, we need to hear your voices, and to hear you sing. Can you do it?"
In response, the crowd roared its agreement, and indeed, throughout U2's approximately two hours on stage, there were several emotional moments when U2 leader Bono stopped singing and let the audience take over the vocals. These were truly beautiful and awe-inspiring moments, as there is very little on Earth like the sound of nearly 100,000 people singing together.
Ironically, no connectivity
These days, you can find out what's happening at just about any event by turning to Twitter. But at the Rose Bowl, this wasn't the case. It turned out that there was nearly no connectivity, and so there seemed to be a dearth of tweets sent from inside the concert. Still, because the show was being watched by millions of people around the world, there is certainly no shortage of posts on Twitter about what was happening.
That's an ironic turn of events, though, and not at all what I expected. I thought there would be a steady stream of tweets emanating from the Rose Bowl, and I had expected to send many of them myself. Instead, this highly tech-centric concert was ground zero for a disconnected audience. We were truly "stuck in the moment," to quote one of U2's hit songs, though I doubt anyone wanted to "get out of it."
A YouTube representative did tell me prior to the show that the service was using 24 cameras to film the concert, as well as 24 additional closed-circuit TV cameras. Further, he said YouTube was offering its stream at three different qualities, so that almost anyone could watch, regardless of the speed of their Internet connection.
The YouTube U2 page with the stream of the concert, albeit a rebroadcast. But millions around the world watched the Rose Bowl concert live on YouTube.
(Credit: YouTube)Having YouTube produce such a major Webcast is fitting, given the size and scope of the U2 360 tour. Among its facts and figures are tidbits like this: the 360-degree stage--which allowed huge numbers of fans to watch from behind--featured a 90-foot-tall steel structure, topped by a center pylon reaching 150 feet in the air; the innovative video screen atop the stage weighs 54 tons, is 4,300 square feet when closed, and is 14,000 square feet when opened; the screen itself is comprised of more than a million pieces, including components to illuminate 500,000 pixels, as well as 320,000 fasteners, 30,000 cables and 150,000 machined pieces.
The incredible expanding screen
The video screen, according to information provided by the band's publicists, is "broken into segments mounted on a multiple pantograph system, which enables the screen to 'open up' or spread apart vertically as an effect during different stages of the concerts."
I didn't think I'd ever seen such a thing before, and it just about made my jaw drop when I noticed it. Already, the screen was a sight to behold, but it didn't seem all that big, especially when I thought back to what I'd seen the band do with video during its U2 3D film.
The U2 360 video screen featured an expansion system that allowed it stretch to a size more than three times what it is when closed.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Well, it turns out I was right: I hadn't seen anything like this before, and neither had anyone else who hadn't been to one of the U2 360 shows.
"The video screen is the first LED screen to be based on a geometric system that allows it to expand in two directions simultaneously," U2 360 architect Mark Fisher told CNET News in an e-mail interview. "Video screens are normally flat panels that track like closet doors, or slatted panels that roll up like garage doors. The 360 degree screen uses a scissor-like motion to expand in two directions. It starts as a solid elliptical ring approximately 20 feet deep, and transforms into form a cone-shaped mesh 60 feet tall."
Fisher added that this is the first time such technology--what he called "transforming geometry"--has been used to "change the shape of a video screen."
And while Fisher said that, in general, the technology behind U2 360 isn't in and of itself new, the way it's being used during the tour most certainly is.
"The show employs a large number of computers and electric motors to control the motion of the screen, and there are large numbers of computer-controlled moving lights," Fisher said. "The video on the screen is also created using powerful computers that 'map' the picture onto the transforming screen. All of this automation and programming is possible because the computers available in 2009 and more powerful, and cheaper, than they were when we created the Vertigo tour in 2005."
Google Earth
Another piece of technology used for the tour--at least in a way that U2's fans can interact with--is Google Earth. Fisher explained that the stage's designers decided it would be fun for fans to see the huge structure on Google Earth.
"So we hooked up with the folks that run the operation, and they agreed to let us put 3D models of the stage into the 3D models of the stadiums where it plays," Fisher said. "The 360 degree stage is turned around in each stadium in six days (and) the models stay in each city on Google Earth for slightly longer."
U2 used Google Earth to give fans a sense of how the stage in its U2 360 tour was built. Here is the London site.
(Credit: U2)On U2's official Web site, the band explained what is going on with the Google Earth project: "If you're following the tour as it moves around...there's a very cool new feature on Google Earth--a model of the 360 stage, in situ, at the venue, about a week ahead of each show."
The site also explained that the model that fans see could be red, green or blue, with each color corresponding to one of three "steel teams" that "leapfrog each other from city to city to build the stage in each stadium."
Fisher also weighed in on the site with the real reason why the band chose to implement Google Earth: "We thought it would be interesting to put up on Google Earth a piece of portable architecture, which is what this structure is," he wrote. "In a way it's got no practical purpose...except that it's fun!"
A scene from the Boston show of U2's 360 show, what has been called the biggest rock show in history. This Sunday's show, at the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, Calif., will be streamed live on YouTube.
(Credit: U2)U2 fans who can't make it to the band's giant concert this Sunday evening at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., don't fret: you'll be able to watch anyway.
The band has announced that it plans to stream the concert on YouTube, and fans around the world will be able to tune in to watch it live.
"The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time," said U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, in a statement on the band's Web site. "As we're (already) filming the LA show, it's the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2--this time U2 can go to them, globally."
According to the BBC, this is not U2's first experiment with live streaming. The band "allowed fans to watch a Boston date of their Popmart tour in 1997 via Microsoft's MSN Web site," wrote the BBC.
In addition, YouTube has also experimented with large live events. Around 700,000 people watched its YouTube Live concert/variety show in November, which was streamed from San Francisco and featured several celebrity acts including pop stars Katy Perry and will.i.am.
U2's current tour, called U2 360, is said to feature the biggest rock show in history, at least as measured by the complexity of the concerts' infrastructure.
SAN FRANCISCO--An initiative in the works from the nonprofit Internet Archive to centralize the electronic distribution of commercially viable books could upend the publishing industry and declaw Amazon.com, an industry analyst said.
On Monday, the Internet Archive, which among other things has been working for some time to digitize countless numbers of public domain texts, showed the first public look at its BookServer project, an initiative its dubs, "The future of books."
Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told CNET News that BookServer is about creating an open system that allows search engines to index books that are available from a wide group of sources. Effectively, commercial publishers, lending libraries and even individual authors would have a way to index their work and offer easy digital distribution under BookServer, Kahle said.
Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, on Monday unveiled an initiative called BookServer, aimed at making all books availble for digital distribution.
(Credit: Internet Archive)Kahle's timing is interesting. Also on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported details on Barnes & Noble's $259 e-reader called the Nook, which will compete with Amazon's Kindle and Sony's E-Reader, a move which heats up the market. More interesting may be Google's announcement last week of its "Google Editions" store, an initiative aimed at offering digital editions of books from publishers with which it already has distribution deals. Google said that should mean about a half-million books would be available initially, either through Google itself, or through sites like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
But it seems the Internet Archive is thinking even bigger than Google.
Kahle said that he's been thinking about such a project since before the advent of the World Wide Web, but that the technology has never been ready. But that's changed over the last 20 years, he said. "We've now gotten universal access to free (content)," Kahle added. "Now it's time to get universal access to all knowledge, and not all of this will be free."
He explained that BookServer is built on the notion of a Web server, and that only a good indexing system is standing in the way of making all books digitally and easily available to consumers, whether they're using a laptop computer, an iPhone, or a Kindle.
Today, he said, publishers, libraries, and others usually turn to outsiders to build them an online distribution system, and that each of those systems stands alone and unindexable. With BookServer, the Internet Archive is hoping that for the first time, consumers everywhere will be able to buy or borrow any text they want while leaving control over pricing and terms of such distribution in the hands of the content owners.
"Right now, they're largely sitting it out or dying," Kahle said of publishers and libraries. "Publishers are not dictating the terms of the distribution of their work. They're handing it over to others...This puts them back in the driver's seat."
And while Kahle imagines that BookServer would by no means result in the end of bookstores or even online booksellers like Amazon, he hopes that publishers and libraries will finally be able to set up their own distribution systems to better compete.
Though it's early days for the BookServer project, which could take several years to complete, Kahle expects that users will first look for what they're looking for on a search engine, ideally something like the Open Library, the Internet Archive's own book search system. Once someone finds the title they're looking for using their search engine of choice, they would be redirected to the publisher's site if they want to buy the title, or to a library's site if they want to borrow it.
"It will be as seamless as buying from a single store," Kahle said, "even though they'll be buying from (a) distributed (group)."
To Thad McIlroy, an electronic publishing industry analyst, BookServer is nothing sort of "incredible."
Amazon may find its business model under attack from efforts like BookServer and Google's recently-announced Editions store, not to mention the new Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble.
(Credit: Amazon.com)"Each time (Kahle) moves in to open up the world, he has a big impact," McIlroy said. "Between (the Google Edition) announcement and (the BookServer) announcement, this changes irrevocably the landscape, and Amazon's shares should go down tomorrow."
McIlrory was exaggerating, to some extent, but it's clear that he believes that Amazon's dominance--both as a seller of physical books and a distributor of e-books--is in serious danger if outfits like Google and the Internet Archive are deciding to take it on.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"This effectively ends anyone's proprietary effort...to close off the system, as Amazon's been trying to do," McIlroy said.
Control back in the hand of publishers
One of the most important aspects of a project like BookServer is that it could, once again, give publishers the upper hand in selling their books.
"The way Amazon is really screwing up the market, creating expectations around (lower) prices, is calamitous," McIlroy said, "and very, very damaging to publishing."
Essentially, Amazon is undercutting book prices and forcing publishers to make harder choices about which books to publish and how to edit them, he suggested. But now, with both Google and the Internet Archive on the job, Amazon may ultimately "be defeated by these two."
And while Google certainly has the might to make a go of its Editions store, it has recently lost a lot of credibility in the book world with the fallout over its Google Book search project. By comparison, McIlroy said that Kahle and the Internet Archive are seen almost universally as altruistic and selfless.
"You couldn't point to anything that hurt anyone," McIlroy said of the Internet Archive's various initiatives. "Everything (Kahle) has done has been truly helpful. But now, to step into this digital book situation is really fantastic. And yes, Google, they have a real credibility problem of their own making, and (Kahle) does not have that."
If you've ever been driving down the highway and looked at the Google Maps application on an iPhone to see what traffic is like ahead, you may have wondered where the data behind the green, yellow, and red lines indicating real-time vehicle flow come from.
In fact, the data are coming from people just like you: users of smartphones with GPS who, by the very act of driving down the highway, are feeding back information about how fast they're going to Google, which in turn is sending it back to users of its mobile map apps.
Users of the Google Maps iPhone app can get real-time traffic flow data that is based on the passive participation of other users. This is an example of mobile crowdsourcing, something that is a growing trend, especially on iPhones.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Which means, of course, that the application itself is crowdsourced--that is, based on the mutual contributions of many users, all of whom are participating in the product, and without whom, the product would be worthless.
These days, the concept of crowdsourcing--defined by Jeff Howe, who literally wrote the book on the subject, as, "the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call"--is all the rage, and there are no end of well-known examples, especially on the Web: the Netflix prize; Twitter search; public tagging of Library of Congress archival photos; even Wikipedia. Indeed, much of the concept of user-generated content is really about crowdsourcing.
But until now, much of the discussion about the subject has focused on what people are doing on their computers. Yet today, more than ever before, crowdsourcing has gone mobile. As more smart phones have brought ubiquitous Internet connectivity to the masses, more people have been feeding back into the system. And for now at least, nowhere is that more true than on the the iPhone.
"Why do I love my iPhone, which I do," Howe said in an interview. "Because I'm suddenly doing interesting things with my cognitive surplus. All these times (on public transportation)...are great times to contribute to these group efforts. It's crowdsourcing at its most root definition. Crowdsourcing is a perfect coupling of that downtime, of the very fuel that the crowdsourcing engine needs to run."
Today, the iPhone is not the most popular smartphone but it certainly is gaining steam. According to Gartner, during the second quarter of 2009, the iPhone's share of the global smart phone market had soared to 13.3 percent from 2.8 percent a year earlier. To be sure, the BlackBerry--with 18.7 percent share--and Nokia's offerings--with 45 percent share--still lead in total sales, but it's hard to argue with Apple's growth, or with its dominance in the community-developed application market.
"As Apple has so often done," Howe said, "they did it better sooner...crowdsourcing is only as effective as one's reach allows, because it does require either mass participation or at least mass viewership."
The iPhone app by The Extraordinaries allows users to volunteer small amounts of their time for the collective good.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Which is why there is a growing number of iPhone apps--both those that seek to make money and those that are nonprofit--that are based entirely on crowdsourcing, and which without the buy-in by a critical mass of users would be meaningless.
Some, like the traffic feature in the Google Maps app, are subtle about it. But others shout it out: Their developers know that the public has a thirst for this and have specifically made crowd participation a selling point.
Traffic apps, it turns out, are a natural for mobile crowdsourcing. Because of the iPhone's built-in GPS--on the iPhone 3G and 3GS, at least--and the fact that many owners won't go anywhere without their precious device, it makes perfect sense to build tools that rely on user-submitted data.
Some examples are Waze, which relies on users to inform others about traffic conditions, about road construction and about the existence of angry drivers; Trapster, which lets users report speed traps so that other drivers will be aware of them, in real-time; Aha, which mixes both live traffic flow information with location-based identification of things like cafes, bathrooms, and restaurants; and others.
"I think what it comes down to is what this device right now excels at," said Jacob Colker, the co-founder of a company called The Extraordinaries that is leveraging crowdsourcing. "And that is really to use GPS, a camera, and the phone itself."
Yet there are a growing number of other examples, as well.
One is an app from The Extraordinaries itself. Already well-known for work harnessing the collective power of large numbers of Internet users for the common good, the organization has now put out an iPhone app that lets any user participate in a wide range of causes, right from the device.
For example, users can add tags to photos from the Smithsonian to bring more collective context to that museum's huge archives; help create a huge map of kid-friendly places by finding a "playspace" and snapping a photo of it; or help the city of San Diego cut down on water wastage by reporting any city agency watering during the day or ignoring obvious leaks.
Crowdsourcing can be silly, too. Take the famous Ocarina iPhone app. With that, countless people have used the device to play a kind of flute-like instrument. In and of itself, that's fun but not crowdsourced. But what takes it to the next level is that users can look at a 3D rendering of the globe and see and hear the notes that are being played by other Ocarina users.
That's crowdsourcing in action.
And then there's Yelp, which by definition is crowdsourced. With its iPhone app, the popular tool for letting people rate and comment on businesses, is bringing the power of the collective experience to merchants and retailers anywhere, anytime.
Smule's Ocarina iPhone app lets users play a flute-like instrument and automatically submit their play so that others anywhere in the world can hear it.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)So is the iPhone speeding up the process of taking crowdsourcing mobile?
"I think it's creating conditions for new ideas to flourish," said Colker, "and that's really important. Showing that it is possible, that, yes, I can demand YouTube in my pocket, and I'm going to pull up this app and play flute into it and I'm going to listen to someone playing the Ocarina app in South Africa. It's powerful. It allows people to think in new ways, and to create the kernel for those new ideas to exist, and the conditions for those new innovations to exist."
Every day, Apple is adding more apps to its App Store. And while most do not involve crowdsourcing, an increasing number do. And that seems like a trend that there's little that anyone could do to stop. Nor would anyone want to.
For now, it's hard to say exactly what the next crowdsourced apps will be to come down the pike, but it seems certain there will be an exponentially growing number of them over time. Games will be built that rely on users to locate items in a virtual world; Poetry apps will rely on users submitting their own stanzas; Lolcat sites will depend on iPhone users snapping pictures of cats, slapping funny captions on them, and sending them in; and much more.
In essence, as with the larger app ecosystem, the sky's the limit for crowdsourced apps. And while other smart phones will also have an increasing number of applications that rely on user submissions, the iPhone is likely to stay at the head of the field.
"I think the iPhone itself has done tremendous good for moving technology forward, and as a byproduct, paving the way for new forms of crowdsourcing to exist," Colker said. "And that's what really excites me about the iPhone."
Corrected at 10:16 a.m.: This story originally reported that The Extraordinaries is a non-profit. In fact, it is a for-profit company.
Using smart phones as navigation tools is all the rage these days, what with a slew of applications available for the iPhone and Android platforms that utilize those devices' built-in GPS systems in determining users' real-time location.
One such service is from Waze, which in August released its iPhone app after being available on Android for several months. Waze's service is meant to help drivers figure out where they are and how best to get where they're going, all with the help of a large community of other motorists.
Waze gives users many different views of the road, including this one, in which users' avatars turn into a Pac-Man-type creature when going down previously undiscovered roads.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Among the information that Waze provides are traffic flow, road reports, and warnings about where drivers might run into speed traps.
At DemoFall 09 in San Diego on Tuesday, Waze plans to unveil its latest steps forward, which include rolling out its service on every major smart phone platform (except BlackBerry) and offering, for the first time, voice prompts for directions.
That could be good news for users of, say, Symbian-based smart phones, in cities where AT&T service is spotty. And that's important because even in a city like San Francisco, using Waze on an iPhone--with AT&T as the only service provider--meant being subject to areas where there was a significant delay in information showing up on the screen.
Further, because the service will now be available on other platforms, it means that the overall amount of data available to drivers--via the crowdsourced nature of the system--will be broader. And, because users until now have had to occasionally look at their small screens to see where they need to go, the voice prompts may well mean an easier--and safer--way to get to a destination.
Waze's application begins as a standard turn-by-turn directions tool and also offers a slew of other features, many of which give drivers something fun to look out for as they make their way to wherever they're going.
"At the end of the day," said Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze's community geographer, Waze is "about a community of drivers helping to build this map."
The company is counting on one part being fun for drivers: seeing where anyone else who's using the system is.
That may be fun for a while, but the application is really about making for a better driving experience, and that will rely on a critical mass of users. Rolling out on Android and iPhone first was a good way to ensure a significant number of drivers, especially tech-savvy ones, had access to it right from the get-go. But only time will tell if the new platforms the service will be on will make a difference in producing that critical mass.
For CNET News' latest coverage from DemoFall 09, click here.
What is this, and where is it located? Be the first to provide that answer to today's Road Trip 2009 Picture of the Day challenge, and you win a prize. And there's a bonus prize-worthy challenge, too.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Update (11:06 p.m.): I've been out of Internet touch all day, but we've long since had a winner. The petroglyph in question is Newspaper Rock, in Utah. It was also possible to find the result by Googling "Petroglyph USA."
RIGGINS, Idaho--In the American West, nature's walls can tell a lot of stories. Many can be told through an examination and analysis of the landscape itself: what do all the different colors in the layers of the Grand Canyon say about the history of the region?
But others are man-made, even when left behind on great spots in nature.
For example, the picture above must surely depict a fantastic story, of one kind or another. Unfortunately, it's true that no one knows exactly what that story is, or whether it's even narrative.
What is known is that in a region that I drove through earlier on Road Trip 2009, anyone can stop by and personally try to interpret the original, much larger and more complete version of this.
My challenge to you: what is this called and where is it located?
I'm learning as I do more of these Picture of the Day challenges, that even the smallest clues seem to make them too easy. Gee, thanks, Google. So, I'm withholding the kinds of hints that led the previous two iterations of this Road Trip sidebar to be solved within mere minutes.
Not to say that you won't have the answer in mere minutes. Perhaps you've seen this yourself. If not, you'll just have to do a little bit more to solve it than type four words into a Google search. Or not. So here's a second challenge: if it's possible, and you're the first person to find the answer to this with a four-word Google search, based on nothing more than what I've written here and the photo above, you win a prize, too. You just have to tell me what the four words are so I can verify it.
Good luck.
For the next two weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Colorado. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman's in-laws peruse the Internet via a Wi-Fi connection at their mountaintop, off-the-grid house.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.
For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning fast, and over time, it should be interesting to see how much progress they make, and how they make it.
Over the few days that we just spent on the mountain with them, these are many of the things (in no particular order) we talked to them about, showed them on their new MacBook, and explained that they might want to investigate in the future:
• Undo/Control-Z. They wanted to know if there was any way to undo a mistake on their computer, and we explained that Control-Z (Command-Z on a Mac) is the way to do that.
• Pandora. They haven't used it yet, but we explained how this free service makes it easy for anyone to create a totally custom Internet radio station based on their musical interests. They asked how Pandora makes money. I couldn't answer that very good question.
• Rotten Tomatoes. We explained that this service is among the very best for crowd-sourced movie reviews.
• IMDB. They watch a lot of movies, and often want to know more about the actors involved. We explained that IMDB is the only site they needed to go to get fully cross-referenced information on actors and filmmakers.
• Skype. For my in-laws, Skype will be key in helping them save money on their cell phone bill. We showed them voice calling and Skype instant messaging.
• iTunes Store. Tyler was looking for a specific song by an artist, and I showed him how he could use the iTunes Store to listen to short clips of artists' songs.
• Downloading photos from digital camera. We recently gave them a Canon PowerShot G2, and now that they have a new MacBook, we showed them how to easily download photos onto the computer.
• iPhoto. After downloading photos, we showed them how to organize the pictures in the Mac's built-in photo management software.
• Printing wirelessly. Now that they have a Wi-Fi network (running on an old AirPort Extreme) I talked to them about setting up wireless printing to their HP DeskJet printer.
• Connecting the Mac to a TV. I bought them the connectors for linking their MacBook to their TV. At first they didn't see the value of doing this, but they eventually saw that as their vision gets worse, a larger screen will make computing easier.
• NeoOffice versus OpenOffice. They've been using OpenOffice on their Windows computer, and we loaded NeoOffice onto their Mac. I haven't used it, but I explained that my research concluded that NeoOffice is better on Macs than OpenOffice.
• Second Life. My wife and I are both longtime Second Life users, and we talked to them about whether they'd want to use the virtual world. However, their download limits (200 megabytes per day) would likely make it difficult for them to use such services.
• PayPal. They hope not to buy very many things over the Internet, but they do understand that having a PayPal account will make it easier for them to do transactions on services like eBay.
• Amazon.com. We walked in on them looking at prices for tarps on Amazon.com. My reaction was "hide the credit card."
• Facebook. While social networking is likely something they won't deal with for some time, we talked about how many people have used Facebook to connect with friends from past lives.
• Twitter. They have heard a lot about Twitter, and we showed them how the microblogging service is a great way to see what people around the world are thinking about things in near-real-time.
• YouTube. Among other things, I showed Tyler how he could use YouTube to find obscure songs he might be looking for.
• Netflix. We've managed a Netflix account for them (they would pick up the DVDs at their P.O. box) for some time, since they didn't have an Internet connection. Now that they do, they've taken over management of the account. I had high hopes they would be able to watch Netflix streaming movies, but their download limits may prevent them from doing that.
• Google Earth. We showed them Google Earth and used the service to locate their house, a process that took even them some time, given the remote location in which they live.
• Gmail. They are using Gmail for e-mail, and we set them up to be able to send and receive their Gmail messages using the Mac's Mail application.
• Control on PCs/Command on Macs. We explained that anything that uses the control key on a PC (Control-C to copy, or Control-Z to undo) would utilize the command key instead on a Mac.
• Windows Security patches. I uploaded Service Pack 3 and six Windows security patches on their PC.
• WhiteHouse.gov. They were excited to be able to send messages to the president and to be able to watch his weekly video addresses. They also were happy to be able to easily e-mail many other government officials.
• Instant messaging. We explained that instant messaging is a terrific way to carry on informal conversations, and we discussed some of the etiquette of IM.
• Commenting on Web sites/blogs. We talked at length with them about how comments are implemented on various Web sites and blogs, and how people use them for different purposes.
• Wi-Fi. We set them up with an Apple AirPort Extreme and made it so their new MacBook could be connected to the Internet throughout their house. They were more excited by this than by anything else.
• USB hubs. Tyler wanted to know how to print wirelessly and I explained that he would need to get a USB hub to split the cable coming from his printer.
• Bookmarks. We provided them with a long bookmarked list of Web sites, and showed them how to add new bookmarks so they don't have to type in entire URLs for sites they hope to visit a lot.
• Delicious. We want to see what kinds of sites they are interested in and encouraged them to use Delicious.com to share their discoveries with us.
• Safari versus Firefox. I explained that Firefox is generally considered the best Web browser for the Mac, but told them how to use Safari is they were so inclined.
• Never using Internet Explorer again. I said that because of its many security holes I would never let them use Explorer on their PC again.
• Registering for Web sites. They were interested in why people would provide their e-mail address and/or other information to register for Web sites, and we explained the many reasons people are willing to do it, and why sites want it.
• Adding an AirPort Express to extend the Wi-Fi network's range. We told them that by adding an AirPort Express to their wireless network set up, they could extend the range of their Wi-Fi connectivity to a metal shed near their house. It also happens that that is where my wife and I sleep when we visit during cold months.
• Google News. I showed them Google's clearinghouse for news stories. They didn't seem particularly interested in it, but I'm guessing that will change as they realize the site's utility.
• Using wireless keyboards and mice. If they do decide to connect their Mac to their TV, we explained, they would likely want to add a wireless keyboard and mouse so they could have more freedom of movement in their living room.
• eBay. We explained that this service would be a fantastic way for them to find the kinds of supplies that their local merchants often don't have, or charge too much for.
• iPhone (for the future). We touted our beloved iPhones, and tried to get them excited about the devices as well. This is clearly something for another time.
• Blogrolls. They asked what blogrolls were, and we showed them how many blogs offer lists of other sites they endorse and suggest readers look at.
• Using the trackpad on the Mac instead of a mouse. Having only previously used their desktop PC, they weren't familiar with laptop trackpads. So we spent some time explaining how they work, including how to use two fingers on the MacBook to scroll up and down pages.
• Wikipedia. I had already been touting Wikipedia, but now I explained how anyone can edit any page, and how it is possible to see the entire history of changes for a page.
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
After a less-than-stellar first attempt to get his in-laws online for the first time from the off-the-grid, 4,000-feet elevation house they've lived in for more than 30 years, CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman and his wife are returning to the mountain this week with a new Mac to help make the process better. And what could be better than a great view to go with your Internet?
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)Could a Mac be what it takes to get my in-laws to love the Internet?
Last week, I had the very rare opportunity to help get my in-laws, who live off-the-grid at 4,000 feet in the middle of a national forest, online for the first time and, my wife and I hoped, to instantly end more than 30 years of their being cut off from media innovations.
As I wrote afterward though, their initial experience was quite a bit less than stellar, mainly due to the vagaries of navigating what seem like fairly restrictive download threshold policies implemented by their satellite Internet vendor, HughesNet: After hitting the download limit of 200 megabytes in one day--which I'm certain we actually didn't hit--the connection slowed to less than 2Kbps.
But there were other problems, too, that had to do with what it takes to make a 2-year-old Windows machine that's never been online safe for play dates with the Internet. And for my in-laws, who had no experience whatsoever with downloading security updates, and XP Service Packs, and virus protection, I can only imagine how daunting it must have seemed. Even for me, a longtime computer user--albeit a Mac loyalist--it was confusing.
While my wife and I were on hand the day Hughes came to install the satellite, we had only that one day up on the mountain to help get things set up properly. But given that we ended up wasting hours trying, and failing, to download those security patches and virus protection packages, we weren't able to get much done before we had to leave. We couldn't even get their new Gmail account working.
But we have a plan. And it involves a computer that simply doesn't require security download after service pack download to be safe online.
Monday, a new (well, refurbished) MacBook arrived at my house, and over the next couple of days, my wife and I are going to load that computer up with as much necessary and fun software (starting with OpenOffice) as we can find, and then cart it back up to her parents' with us later this week. In addition, we're going to bring them an Airport Extreme so that they can use that new computer wirelessly all around their mountaintop property.
After all, while they may not understand the sense of freedom that a wireless Internet connection provides, we hope they will soon realize that sitting on their deck, looking down over the treetops at their stellar view, is a much better place to be online than stuffed into the tiny windowless office where they have their PC.
As for Hughes, after I contacted them last week to comment for the story I was writing, I was told by someone in their public relations department that the company would do what it can to help my in-laws. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but sure enough, the in-laws did get a phone call from someone in tech support, offering to work through any residual issues.
Originally, that call was supposed to happen Monday, but I suggested that they postpone it until Thursday when my wife and I will be back up on the mountain, so that we can help diagnose the problem and describe it to the technician.
That's important since, as I wrote previously, my in-laws don't have anything to compare their online experience to, and therefore would likely have trouble describing exactly what the problem is. But I can: Even before being booted to under-2Kbps speeds for supposedly going over the 200MB download threshold their account allows, the top speed they were getting on their 1.0 Mbps account was about 13 Kbps. Hardly high speed. So, we'll have to see if Hughes can do something about that.
Still, on Sunday, as my wife and I were hanging out, spending a little time online, an e-mail popped into her in-box. It was from the in-laws. And for us, having spent the last nine years working hard to get them to embrace the Internet as a way to stay in touch with us--and the rest of her family--it was a rather big moment.
If you have suggestions of important software that we should put on their new Mac--especially if it's free--please send them to me by Tuesday evening.
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
