Is It Time For a Verizon iPhone?

You've probably heard by now that Android phone sales beat iPhone in the 2010 first quarter with 28% of the U.S. smartphone market. At first this may seem a little surprising but then when you think about it......... the only provider you can get an iPhone from is AT&T. You cannot buy one from Verizon or Sprint where you can buy an Android phone.

In addition, AT&T is selling Android phones so, if you are looking at phones in an AT&T store you're going to get to compare side by side. A quick check on the AT&T Wireless website shows the 16G iPhone 3Gs selling for $199.00 and the Motorola Backflip Android Phone selling for $99.99. Both option contracts look similar and they both run on the same AT&T 3G network.

There's been rumors swirling about a Verzon and a Sprint iPhone. Digital Daily quotes Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Katy Huberty on Verizon and the iPhone:

According to our [Alphawise U.S. consumer iPhone survey], there is substantial pent up iPhone demand within the Verizon installed base as 16.8 percent of Verizon subscribers said they are ‘very likely’ to purchase an iPhone if offered on the Verizon Network.

This 16.8 percent is higher than AT&T subscriber’s 14.6 percent extreme interest in the current AT&T iPhone and well above the overall iPhone extreme interest of 7.5 percent

Crunching her numbers, Huberty calculates Verizon would sell about seven million to eight million (Apple) iPhones annually over the next two years.

Sounds like some numbers Apple might be interested in, especially when you tie in potential revenue from the iPhone App store, iTunes, etc.

Steve Jobs is keynoting Apple's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) early next month in Cupertino...... it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

Simulation and Modeling in Technology Education (SMTE) Project

This is a quick animation demo for the Survival Master game for STEM learning illustrating how the development team plans on introducing the concept of the "Net" of a cube to the player.



You can follow along via the project website at http://gaming2learn.org/

A Good Cloud Computing Video

I was at an excellent Tech Futures Forum event today sponsored by BATEC and CAITE at the Microsoft New England Research & Development (NERD) Center in Cambridge, MA. Edwin Guarin, Senior Microsoft Academic Evangelist gave a nice presentation on cloud computing and Windows Azure. As part of the presentation, he showed the following video:

There is a lot of confusion about what cloud computing is - this video gives a good basic and easy to understand explanation. It's only 4 minutes and 52 seconds long and worh the time to watch!

Checking Your Facebook Privacy

ReclaimPrivacy.org has put up an independent and open tool for scanning your Facebook privacy settings. Here's how to run the tool and check your account for privacy:

1. Drag this link to your web browser bookmarks bar: Scan for Privacy You can also right click it and add it as a bookmark in your browser.
   
2. Log in to facebook.com and then click that bookmark
3. You will see a series of privacy scans that inspect your privacy settings and warn you about settings that might be unexpectedly public.

Here's my results after running an initial scan (click to enlarge):
As you can see, my account was set to share personal information with non-Facebook websites and allowed my friends to "accidentally" share my personal information. I was able to click the Instant Personalization and accidentally share links and set my account for all "good" privacy levels.

The scanner runs in your individual web browser and the company claims they never see your Facebook data and never share your personal information. There is a statement of limitation of liability on the site: you use this tool at your own risk, and by using this tool you agree to hold neither ReclaimPrivacy.org (nor its contributors) liable for damage to your Facebook account. However, we (ReclaimPrivacy.org) do strive to reduce that risk by keeping the source code open and transparent, so that we can identify bugs and quickly fix any functionality.

An App For That? Mobile In Airplane Mode For Car

I saw a nasty accident a couple of hours ago. A guy in a car in front of me was using his cell phone and rear-ended the car in front of him. I stopped and both people got out. Nobody appeared to be hurt but both cars had to be towed away.

The accident has helped me decide that - from now on when I'm alone in the car - my phone is going into airplane mode before I start driving. If I do this I do need to remember to take my phone out of airplane mode when I get to where I'm going and get out of my car. It has me thinking about a few interesting phone apps:

1. A bluetooth enabled airplane mode function. When the car starts the phone goes into airplane mode. When the car is shut off the phone goes out of airplane mode. This app would only work for cars that have bluetooth installed.
   
2. For cars that don't have bluetooth - a phone app that could be tied to the GPS radio. When the car is moving the phone goes into airplane mode. When not moving the phone goes out of airplane mode. This one would require some sort of timing offset to prevent people from picking up their phones when stopped at a light, stuck in traffic, etc. It may also be a problem when trying to walk and talk on the phone at the same time.
   
3. An app that allows the user to put the phone into airplane mode for a set period of time. I did find an iPhone app that does this called aTimeTool. This app requires the iPhone be jailbroken which I haven't done yet. There are probably other apps that do this - i'll do a little more looking when I have more time. I like this type of app - It would allow me to set my phone to airplane mode for 30 minutes when leaving my house for work and automatically go out of airplane mode 30 mins later. That's just about the amount of time it takes me to get to the door of my building. I would not have to remember to take the phone out of airplane mode. I could also use an app like this when at meetings and other functions.
   

I've done minimal searching on the web and only for iPhone apps that can turn airplane mode on and off. I'm not sure what is available for other phones like the Android.

Cloud Computing Technologies Podcast

On Monday (5/2/10) Mike Qaissaunee and I recorded a podcast titled Cloud Computing Technologies. The podcast references a couple of Infoworld.com documents that we think you will find interesting:

• A short white paper written by Eric Knorr and Galen Gruman titled What does Cloud Computing Really Mean
• A 21 page document titled Cloud Computing Deep Dive Report

The Deep Dive Report breaks down cloud computing into 11 categories and goes into more detail than the shorter white paper. What's really interesting is the categories are different in each document. You can see where the confusion lies when it comes to defining what cloud computing is. Here's the 11 cloud technologies we discuss:

1. Storage-as-a -service
2. Database-as-a-service
3. Information-as-a-service
4. Process-as-a-service
5. Application-as-a-service (a .k .a . software-as-a-service)
6. Platform-as-a-service
7. Integration-as-a-service
8. Security-as-a-service
9. Management-/governance-as-a-service
10. Testing-as-a-service
11. Infrastructure-as-a-service

We also discuss the CloudCamp event (great places to get info and meet people involved in cloud technologies) we hosted at Springfield Technical Community College last month and how you can get information on CloudCamps in your area.


Here's how to listen:

To access show notes and audio of our 23 minute and 26 second audio podcast titled Cloud Computing Technologies click here.

Listen to it directly in your web browser by clicking here.

If you have iTunes installed you can subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

Is Your College Online eLearning Program Typical?

I don't usually refer to a report more than once when it comes to blog posts but I'm just loving the Instructional Technology Council (ITC) 2009 study I wrote about a couple of days ago titled Trends in eLearning: Tracking the Impact of eLearning at Community Colleges.

Page 15 asks the question Is Your OnLine Program Typical?

Here's how the report says you can tell:

1. Is the primary source for enrollment growth for its institution.
2. Does not offer enough classes to meet student demand.
3. Increases access to higher education.
4. Is attracting an increasing number of non- traditional (younger) students.
5. Reports to the academic side of the institution (dean or above).
6. Is under-staffed, working in cramped conditions, and has an inadequate budget
7. Offers approximately 160 online classes/class sections each semester.
8. Has become a significant change-agent, prompting increased faculty training and professional development, rethinking how we teach, and providing a catalyst for integrating technology into instruction,
9. Often leads the institution in dealing with issues of assessment, design, rigor, course quality and learning.
10. Struggles to obtain understanding, acceptance and support from campus leaders, who often lack direct experience with this method of teaching and learning (sometimes a generational disconnect).

The report goes on saying individual programs that do not reflect these generalized characteristics can be highly successful – it often depends on the culture of the institution and how well they are able to “work their magic” to serve their students.

The excellent 18-page 2009 report is available as a free download here.