Story 1: Two tweens charged with cyberstalking in Facebook incident

An 11-year old and 12-year old are accused of using an ex-friend’s Facebook account to post mean and sexual images and messages. This is a clear instance of posing, which we’ve previously studied as a form of cyberbullying. The 12-year-old student went before a judge today and pled not guilty.

Story 2: A superstar teen loses chance to be featured by the Seattle Times because of distateful tweets

A Seattle journalist was writing an article about a teen who is heading to college after beating the odds and moving to the US from a refugee camp.  As part of his research, he took a look at the teen’s Twitter account, which contained lewd language and drug related posts. As a direct result of the tweets, the journalist has decided not to write the story.

8th graders spent time debating the conflict between the teen’s positive actions and negative digital identity. Which is a more accurate depiction of the teen? Do we all have negative aspects of our life that aren’t meant to be recorded forever? What are healthy ways to explore identity without putting everything online?

As a result of the hack, there is a class-action lawsuit filed against Sony and the U.S. government wants answers too.

Sony’s stock price has dropped as a result of the intrusion, and on Monday they announced that another 25 million older accounts have been hacked as well.

While some students felt this story didn’t pertain to them personally because they don’t have a Playstation Network account, we quickly realized that there are many online locations that have similar databases of customer information.

Here is a list of places that students shop online, places that keep records of our address, name, birthday, credit card numbers, phone numbers, etc:

• iTunes music store
• Amazon.com
• XBOX Live
• Facebook
• eBay
• anywhere online that we shop!

Every time we buy from an online location, we are trading the convenience of instant gratification for the risk of losing control of our personal information. Sony is an incredibly unfortunate example.

Since the database breach occurred, Sony had to switch off their Playstation Network until they can fix the security issues. This means that millions of people can’t play games online with friends or buy new games. This results in millions of lost revenue dollars for the company and many angry customers.

Will this problem cause Playstation to lose the console battle with Microsoft? Will people be able to trust Sony with their personal information after such a news story?

The conversation was wide-ranging…some of the topics discussed:

• what is the history of AT&T?
• how would the purchase of T-Mobile help AT&T provide service to it’s users?
• how would T-Mobile’s customers experience the change?
• how do cell phone companies marketing departments claim colors to represent their company?
• why does the US have more than one cell phone technology (CDMA, GSM, etc)?
• what is a monopoly?
• why is competition important for the US?
• what is the electromagnetic spectrum?

Facebook begins streaming video – we discussed how brick-and-mortar stores compete with mail or instant download/streaming video services, the death of the DVD, and how many BluRay DVD player owners don’t actually own BluRay DVDs.  General consensus was that impulse purchases are most likely to occur when streaming video.  Facebook’s approach to streaming video is a little different than Netflix because you can use US currency or Facebook currency.  Students point out that once you invest in Facebook currency you are bound to their service – a clever and scary proposition. Also, watching movies in Facebook will drastically increase some people’s Facebook time…this provides more time for Facebook to advertise to the viewer, thus increasing their profits.

Apple announces iPad 2 – we compared the features of Apple’s new offering to the iPad 1 and the iPhone. Students decided this is clearly an evolution, not a revolution. Even though the technology might not be ground breaking, students think that the tablet in general is fairly revolutionary because it is increasing the amount of screen time a person engages in.  Tangential conversations turned to the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Google’s Android OS.

Apple becomes a distribution channel for OSX applications – Apple has taken their iTunes model (sell other people’s music and take a bit of money from each sale) and successfully applied it to iPhone apps. Now they are moving ahead and allowing Apple computer owners to do the same thing.

Two stories from CES 2011

Microsoft announces Surface 2.0

Snowboarding goes high tech

What type of creature could do such a thing? Biped or quadruped? Herbivore, carnivore or omnivore? Can it swim? Students used facts from the stories to support conclusions about dietary needs, description and origins of the mythical monster. Click on the pushpins below to read more about the incidents.

Just when things couldn’t get any scarier, we found a mystery jawbone in the rain garden while on break! How does this jawline and the teeth present affect our hypotheses already established?

Story #1: Segway owner dies after falling off a cliff

The owner of a company that makes Segway scooters was riding a prototype near his home and fell off a cliff.  There are actually quite a few cases of people being injured by this technology – so is it good or bad?  After much heated debate, the group came to the decision that it is people and their intentions that project good or bad onto an object.

As Abbey points out, “A rock can’t be good or bad, a rock just is. It’s how someone uses a rock that gives it value.”

Isaac held out with the belief that, while the above is true, there are some objects, such as a nuclear bomb, that are made with the sole purpose of destruction. Therefore, the object itself is bad because it can’t be anything else.

Story #2: Girl, 14, fears 21,000 party guests after Facebook invite blunder

An English girl tried to invite 15 friends to her birthday party using Facebook.  When creating the event, she included her cell phone number and addresses.  Her invite security settings were not set correctly, and she ended up with thousands of people from all over the world RSVPing to the party.  She has had to change her cell phone number and the police are stepping up patrols in the 3,000 person town in which she lives.

Where does the fault lie in this story? 8th graders recognized quickly that Facebook isn’t good or bad, it is it’s use & misuse that cause troubles such as these.  Should everyone have access to all technology? Who should monitor whether a 16 year old can drive a car? Should the government make you pass an reflex test to get a Segway? Should parents have to approve all content a minor posts online?

Lots of great conversation but no clear answers. We’ll continue these discussions in coming weeks and relate privacy settings and responsibility to our own digital lives. Stay tuned for more insights…

iPhone updates:
iPod touch with camera shows up in Vietnam
Apple loses a second 4th gen iPhone, new insights discovered
iPhone Finder Regrets His ‘Mistake’
Police Raid Gizmodo Editor’s House, Confiscate Computers

Facebook updates:
Facebook Users Plan to Quit the Service on May 31
Senators’ letter to Facebook
Facebook and Others Caught Sending User Data to Advertisers

Google Street View troubles:
Google faces U.S., German probes on data collection

We started by tracking Apple’s stock price this year, beginning with the iPad announcement and following through until yesterday’s report that Apple made over 3 billion dollars in the last quarter.

Using Bing’s finance charts and Google’s time-related search results, we mapped increasing share price and product announcements over the last 3 years.  We found a clear trend – stock prices rise between the announcement of a new product and it’s actual launch.

Also, we realized that much of the pre-launch marketing around Apple products is free – news outlets and bloggers share stories and compete to scoop each other with rumors and insider (mis)information.  This is great news for Apple, since they don’t have to spend all of their money to get the word out.

Now to the rumor of the week – an Apple employee supposedly left a prototype of the new iPhone (to be released this summer) in a California bar.  The device was sold to Gizmodo, which has dedicated an entire portion of their site to stories about this gadget.  This creates more buzz for Apple as other news outlets report on Gizmodo’s reporting.

Students used Google’s real-time “updates” to monitor how many stories are bouncing around the blogosphere and Twitter channels about this story.  While there is a bump in traffic, we don’t think that this story is enough to sustain interest through the summer.  What else will Apple tell us about the new product to keep news outlets interested?

Some students wondered if Apple had “lost” the iPhone on purpose to try and get free advertising from bloggers, newspapers, television and radio.  Some bloggers suggest that Gizmodo got punked by Apple.

One class had an unexpected find during class today, a webpage that simultaneously searches Google and Bing, displaying results side-by-side.  In Firefox, you can actaully set http://www.google-vs-bing.com/ as your default search engine if desired.

We started with the official video that greets visitors to the Apple website.  What does Apple want us to believe about the new device?  How do they use music, backgrounds, demonstrations and interviews to convince us?

Next we broke up into groups to figure out if the iPad is a technological evolution or revolution.  Every group clearly agrees that this is merely an evolution – as Abe pointed out, “it’s just an iPod Touch that won’t fit in your pocket.”

Could the iPad be a replacement for your home computer?

“No way,” said Pearl and a few others.  ”There is no way to connect your digital camera or a printer.” Students also pointed out that you need another computer to efficiently upload contacts, calendars and mail.  Without USB, your limited in the devices you can plug in.

“There is no DVD player” pointed out Rowan. Mason thinks this is because Apple wants you to spend money at their stores to get content.

In looking at these new devices, we had conversations about the idea of technological evolution vs. revolution.  There is some amount of opinion when it comes to using these labels with tech – and we had some great debates.

• Evolution - a natural next step for a device.  (E.g., more megapixels in a camera)
• Revolution - a completely new gadget that has never been seen before and does something totally new. (E.g., the first satellite)

Our favorite new device of the day: Microsoft’s Project Natal

Cooper pointed out that Natal is a lot like the Wii, but you don’t need sensors. Rebecca stated that we could use the control abilities of Natal to control other computers.  According to students, Natal was the best contender for a technological revolution.

Another big impact was made by Google’s Nexus One (clearly evolutionary):

The Nexus One is, according to Josh, just an iPhone clone.   Peter argued that it is a revolution for Google, and Kelly said that it is cool because you don’t have to have AT&T to use the Nexus One.

Finally, we looked at a multi-touch Levono netbook:

Students were split on whether a swiveling-touchscreen was enough to be a revolution.  Ben said that the fact that it will only be $500 might cause a consumer revolution, but the tech itself isn’t new.

The laptop example was especially interesting because the review mentions Apple in the ad.  We talked briefly about 2 of the biggest tech rumors so far this year – the Nexus One (which was true) and the Apple iSlate.  There are over 7 million hits on Google for “iSlate” and Apple hasn’t spent anything on advertising yet.  The Levono review is essentially free advertising for Apple, as the laptop is compared to their products.  Students noticed that the Nexus One ad didn’t mention the iPhone, and Natal didn’t mention the Wii.

Today we talked about the mighty battle between Verizon and AT&T.  AT&T has the iPhone, and pays Apple money for the right to have this cool device on their network only.  Verizon has the best customer satisfaction rating for service (according to Consumer Reports) as well as a much larger 3G network in the USA.  AT&T is mad about Verizon ads that point this out, so they are suing Verizon and they also made some new tv commercials starring Luke Wilson that say “AT&T is better”.

We talked about tons of interesting marketing ploys, competitive negotiations, and operating system constraints. The most lively discussions focused on:

• Cell phone companies have claimed colors as their own – Sprint=Yellow, T-Mobile=Pink, Verizon=Red, AT&T=Blue&Orange
• Cell phone companies are really becoming data service companies – most people use their phones for way more than just making calls
• Verizon just introduced Droid, a new phone that is supposed to compete with the iPhone.  It runs Google’s Android 2.0 operating system.

Verizon attacks AT&T’s 3G service coverage

AT&T fights back

Students agreed that Apple is a computing company and Google is an advertising company.  They don’t compete for hardware (iPhone, computers, iPod, etc) but they DO  fight for software users (Apple sells software, Google gives it away).

Students pointed out that Google’s web browser (Chrome) only works on PC, not on Apple computers.  This makes us think that Apple and Google will work together to steal users from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

However, on January 5th, Google released a piece of software called Picasa for Mac, a direct competitor to iPhoto (the most popular free Mac photo organization/editing software).  What does this mean?  Is Google attacking Apple?

The 6th grade thinks that this will be a tough fight for Google.  Apple computers come with iPhoto already installed, and for people that already use iPhoto, there isn’t a lot of reason to switch.

I did research on Ask Eraser, a part of the Ask.com search engine that disables the engine’s ability to gather personal info from users. Without Ask Eraser engaged the engine could place cookies (pieces of software that a website puts on your computer), find out your personal info such as your name, and phone number, address, age, IP address (the location, or “call number” of your computer on the internet) It could possibly even take info such as credit card number, social security number or bank account number.

This sort of information would go into your digital identity, the trail of ones and zeros you leave behind every day you use tech. It can be used to find out something as harmless as what you ate for lunch or something as malignant as the aid to a murder (don’t go nuts, the chances of that are about one million to one) but you need to be careful.

On most search engines every time you type something in and press enter it automatically records your IP address and what you’re searching for. This info is usually kept inside a database and not read by anyone, but if it’s there there’s always some risk of info leakage.

Unfortunately Ask Eraser comes at a price, the second article states that when you go to Ask.Com, Ask Eraser itself places session cookies (identifying “name tag” cookies that enable websites to remember you) to record your preference of having Ask Eraser on. With these cookies in effect it could also extract identifying information from your computer without your knowledge.

With that on the table it really comes down to you, pick your poison. Do you trust Ask.com in default or Ask Eraser mode, both? Nether? Both of them have the downside of putting your personal info at risk. When I first wrote my thesis I only saw one side of the argument that Ask Eraser helps to prevent internet crime. But as I did more research the size of the catch 22 really became apparent. I do not recommend Ask Eraser simply because it implements the very thing it supposedly targets. This can rightfully classify it’s creators as un-trustworthy hypocrites.

Sources:
http://lifehacker.com
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9836002-7.html