Tag: Internet access

Mark Zuckerberg On Making Internet Access Available For Everyone & Unlocking Your Car Without A Key (Smartphone Required!)

Linda Reimer

Mark Zuckerberg On Making Internet Access Available For Everyone: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has created a new organization called “Internet.org” in conjunction with tech companies Nokia, Qualcomm and Samsung. The goal of this new organization is to make Internet access available to everyone in the world.  According to Internet.org two thirds of the people in the world cannot currently access the Internet; and Zuckerberg and the other members of Internet.org are determined to change that fact.

Internet.org has released a three minute video featuring Mark Zuckerberg;  in which Zuckerberg notes that Internet access is a necessity for people today to be able to be innovative and creative and that the creativity and innovation of individuals can benefit humanity if those individuals have Internet access. Additionally, Zuckerberg offers some information on just how Internet.org intends to reach its goal of making sure all the people on Earth have Internet access.

I applaud the goal of Internet.org to make Internet access available for everyone across the globe!

Of course, access to information is a prime public library goal too. Public libraries exist to serve their patrons and one of the ways we do this is to offer patrons access to information contained in books and other printed material and information and resources they can access online. And with that information in hand our patrons can do all sorts of things including create a resumes to land a new job, learn how to create a new product and get a patent for it, write a book and self-publish it online, read public domain books, learn how to do algebra, learn more about history and much, much more. So here’s hoping that Internet.org is successful with their global Internet access project.  

Here’s a link to a Next Web article titled Mark Zuckerberg: How to make the Internet 100x more affordable by lowering costs and reducing data which offers more information on Internet.org and links to both the Mark Zuckerberg video and the Internet.org site:

http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2013/09/30/mark-zuckerberg-how-to-make-the-internet-100x-more-affordable-by-lowering-costs-and-reducing-data/

Unlocking Your Car Without A Key (Smartphone Required!): The Wall Street Journal offers a press release by the Voxx company. Voxx has announced that it has created a new keyless system for the Ford Motor Company. Customers who purchase select Ford Lincoln cars will be able to unlock their cars without a key. Instead of using a key the system allows car owners to unlock their cars with their smartphones via Bluetooth technology and an app called Lincoln Remote Access.

Being one of those people that locks myself out of my car on a regular basis; I find this new technology super exciting! Of course, I suppose I could leave my phone in my car with my keys but then I could simply pull out my iPad and use the Lincoln Remote App on it to unlock my car – if I owned a Lincoln Ford! I guess I have to still key track of my keys for the moment though…

Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal webpage:

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130930-905573.html

And here’s a link to the iTunes webpage which tells you more about the Lincoln Remote App:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lincoln-remote-access/id587055049?mt=8

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Young, Ken. (2013, September 30). Mark Zuckerberg: How to make the Internet 100x more affordable by lowering costs and reducing data. TNW. Online. Accessed September 30, 2013, http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2013/09/30/mark-zuckerberg-how-to-make-the-internet-100x-more-affordable-by-lowering-costs-and-reducing-data/

VOXX International Corporation Announces New Accessory Product Collaboration With Ford Motor Company. (2013, September 30). Wall Street Journal. Online. Accessed September 30, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130930-905573.html

Tablets Selling Furiously & Why This Is A Very Exciting Thing!

Linda Reimer

Tablet shipments rose 75% in the last quarter of 2012 to 52.5 from 29.9 million in 2011. Tablets are now selling at half the rate of PCS. And tablet sales are expected to further soar in the next three years and actually overtake PC sales. And those stats shows that tablets and Smartphones are well on their way to replacing desktops and laptops as the primary way people connect to the Internet. And I find the fact that tablets are selling so furiously while PC sales are crawling along a very interesting one; because it shows a fundamental shift in the way people consume information and media and communicate with each other. For just as the rapid adoption of Smartphones that has occurred in last five and half years (since the iPhone first went on sale in 2007) illustrates a major shift in how people connect to the Internet so too the quickening rate of tablet adoption by consumers is creating a second and larger wave of what we might call the evolution of global 24/7/365 connectivity; that is the ability of people from all walks of life and from all parts of the globe to access the Internet and communicate with others from just about anywhere they are in the world at any time of the day or night.

And the idea that anyone from anywhere in the world will be able to easily access the global information and communications network of the Internet in the near future is a revolutionary idea and a very exciting one! The increasing global connectivity network of the Internet means that more people than ever before will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and learn and communicate with others – even those people that live in isolated regions. And taking that last idea further, the fact that more people than ever before can obtain knowledge and communicate with others via the Internet translates into the fact that more people than ever before can be creative and have more of an opportunity than ever before to fully realize their personal potential. Thus we might wind up with the greatest novelist of the 21st century being a person who grew up poverty in a village in the northwest corner of India and who managed to get her early writings noticed by people and publishers by posting them online. We might find that a phenomenal educator who will transform the American educational system is the daughter of migrant workers and got started on her education by accessing the Internet at public libraries throughout the south western United States. We might see the greatest chef of the 21st century coming from Nigeria and offering his popular cooking show only over the Internet* to those of us who like to cook (and adding some literal new spices to our lives in the process) and we might find that one of the greatest composers of this century is the son of a  widowed hotel cook who comes from a small town in Peru and yet was able to hear the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and other great classical composers by listening to the London based radio station Classic FM via the TuneIn Radio app on his iPad; and then subsequently composing and recording works on his iPad and getting those early compositions on the Internet for people, including record company executives, to hear.

And I could go on and on but I’ll get off my soap box now! I think I made my point as to why I find the combo of the Internet and mobile technology so exciting – it isn’t just the technology itself that is cool it is what we can do with it via access to the Internet. And how the tool of the Internet will continue to have an even more democratizing impact on people across the globe as time marches on and more and more people have the opportunity to, as the old army slogan, goes be all they can be because they can gain knowledge and communicate with others via Internet access offered on mobile devices. Now that is exciting!

And here are links to two of the many news stories I read online last week regarding the increasing ferocity of tablet sales:

The first article is from the Gigaom site and is colorfully titled Who Tablet Shipments Now More than Half That of the PC – here’s the link:

http://gigaom.com/2013/01/31/whoa-tablet-shipments-now-more-than-half-that-of-the-pc/

And the second article is from the Wall Street Journal Digits blog and is titled Amid PC Woes Tablet Shipments Jump 75% – here’s the link:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/01/31/amid-pc-woes-tablet-shipments-jump-75/

And having waxed on about the benefits of Internet access from the top of my soap box I’ll get off it now and wish everyone a good Sunday afternoon!

Linda R.

*I believe the streaming of video content from the Internet to portable devices and televisions will eventually become the norm and replace the current media business model of cable companies offering bundled content to consumers at high prices – but then that is the subject of a blog posting all by itself!

References

Cai, Debbie. Amid PC Woes, Tablet Shipments Jump 75%. Wall Street Journal: Digits blog. Online.

Tofel, Kevin. (2013, January 31). Whoa: Tablet shipments now more than half that of the PC. Gigaom. Online.