Archive for the 'technology' Tag

Why Whrrl is So Awesome

If I’ve talked to you since I started working at Pelago last month, chances are that I’ve told you to go join Whrrl. Apart from not having an “i” in its name, Whrrl has many traits, which usually get condensed into the one-liner description of “location-based social network”. Unsurprisingly, that isn’t immediately interesting to most people, given the number of existing options, so I thought I’d use this space to showcase some of what makes Whrrl so unique and powerful.

Millions of places, and they’re all on a map

Google Maps was a revolution in 2005 because it took the useful-but-boring maps we were accustomed to on the web and made them fully interactive, allowing you to pan and zoom the map by simply moving your mouse. Whrrl takes that a huge step further, by putting every public place in America on the map itself. Instead of having to search for a particular place that you’ve already heard of, you can easily discover new places around you.

The map is yours

Of course, with all of those places to visit, you need a way of knowing which ones are interesting. Rather than showing you the general-purpose ratings and reviews you’ll find at Citysearch or Yelp, Whrrl tailors your map to the opinions of your friends, allowing you to make decisions based on the opinions of those you trust. The places on your map will be green if your friends have rated them highly, or red if they generally dislike a place. If you’re new to Whrrl, your map will be prepopulated with the opinions of Top Whrrlers, who are the most active users in your city. What’s more, if your friends choose to share their location with you, they’ll also show up on the map whenever they’re checked into a place.

Helping you discover new places and events

Apart from simply clicking on any one of those places, if you’re looking for something in particular, you can do really deep searches depending on your current mood and preferences. I’ve found that Whrrl’s location search is more powerful than any other site I’ve used before, and it’s in part because Pelago has a data team that’s on a mission to actually call every restaurant in America for accurate and relevant information. For example, it’s 1am in Seattle as I write this, and Whrrl can tell me about 300 places nearby that will still be open in an hour.

It’s at your fingertips

Not only is Whrrl on the web, it’s also accessible from every mobile phone via SMS, so you can discover places on the go. If that’s not enough, you can download full-featured Whrrl clients to many phones, including iPhone and Blackberry devices.

Sign up today!

Note: If it isn’t already obvious, even though I work for Pelago, there is no transitive relationship between this blog and the company. Read my full disclaimer here.

July 20, 2008 | no comments | tags: , , , ,

Merriam-Webster has named “W00t” the Word of the Year for 2007.

Merriam-Webster’s president, John Morse, said “w00t” was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
S3ri0usly?
Purists of “l33t speak” often substitute a “7″ for the final “t,” expressing a “w007″ of victory — an “in your face” of sorts — when they defeat an online gaming opponent.

December 11, 2007 | no comments | tags: , ,

Yesterday afternoon, Engadget published a (false) rumor that Apple was going to significantly delay the release of iPhone and Leopard. Apple’s market cap fell by $4 billion within 6 minutes.

May 17, 2007 | no comments | tags: ,

The Informational City

In Understanding Amsterdam, Manuel Castells discusses the change of urban structure in response to the advancement information technology, claiming that “the coming of a technological revolution centered on information technologies, the formation of a global economy, the transition to a new society, that [...] replaces the industrial society as the framework of social institutions.”

Seattle is probably a good example of a city currently undergoing that shift. As a city that began with the goal of becoming a great trading port, and rose to that status through an economy focused on lumber and shipbuilding, it has become a place where people “come for the jobs at cutting-edge companies such as Microsoft and Amgen” and thus the best-educated city in the United States.

As Castells outlines, this change has significant consequences on the urban structure of a city. Corporations such as Microsoft are well suited creating their own world in the suburbs, given that they need relatively little face-to-face business interaction with entities in Seattle. At the same time, many of the well-paid employees at these companies are moving downtown, leading to the rapid development of condos, coffeeshops, and restaurants.

If this shift to an “informational city” is in fact reshaping the urban and suburban areas of our cities to serve the wants and needs of the upper middle class, our society needs to answer the question of how it will serve those who aren’t educated and/or rich.

April 18, 2007 | no comments | tags: , , , ,

Google has launched its own free 411 service, in direct competition with Tellme and 1-800-Free-411. They’ll even connect your call to the business you’re looking for. “Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.” (via TechCrunch)

April 6, 2007 | no comments | tags: ,

WEP encryption can be cracked in under two minutes. It’s not really “wired equivalent privacy,” as the name would have you think. Make sure your access points are set to WPA or WPA2!

April 5, 2007 | no comments | tags: , ,

Science News describes how Dartmouth computer scientist Hany Farid can detect manipulated photographs by using software to find anomalies in a forged image. (via BoingBoing)

April 5, 2007 | no comments | tags: , ,

Questioning the Internet’s Social Implications

A large component of the trip to Amsterdam consists of social research in the region. We will be working with the Virtual Knowledge Studio, which is a relatively new Dutch think tank concerned with the evolving use of technology in research.

I’m particularly interested in how technology usage patterns differ in various regions of the world. For instance, the use of mobile phones differs greatly between most continents. These differences are especially evident when looking at their use in various regions of the developing world. While we’re not surprised to see a twelve-year-old carrying her own pink RAZR, it’s common for multiple families to share a phone and even a single email address in many parts of the world. Other ideas contrary to our usage patterns, such as airtime rental have created new markets for trade elsewhere and are allowing rural areas to connect with the rest of the world.

Ideas

The very advances in connectivity that are brought through new developments in communication technology carry the potential of modifying the way societies operate. People’s online behavior generally mirrors and extends their offline concerns, as is visible at any community website or forum. Online social networks have struggled with appealing to more than a small subset of the global population, as these concerns vary greatly between regions. For this very reason, Google’s Orkut has seen great success in developing regions such as Brazil and India, while Facebook is ingrained in the everyday lives of American college students.

Leading off of this issue is the fact that people have begun spending a significant amount of their social energy in online interactions – this means that people no longer have a need to connect with their neighbors for social stimulation. I suppose that this could make it more difficult for a tolerant society like ours or Amsterdam’s to promote assimilation and intercultural understanding, as individuals would be less likely to interact with others who have differing interests and value systems if they can find people similar to themselves online.

Questions

  • How do cultural differences in interpersonal interaction affect the way people use and expect technology to function?
  • Has the Internet’s emergence reduced cultural tolerance in Amsterdam due to the ease of long-distance communication?

Evidence

In order to study the effects of technology, it would be necessary to first determine the usage patterns applied in a region. These could be determined through surveys and interviews of end-users, as well as discussions with people who teach the use of technology, such as librarians. Interviews of the general population could be used to determine what is expected of technology, and how it is used on a day-to-day basis. To answer the second question, the above methods could be extended to gauge the general sentiment regarding Internet use and its consequences.

April 2, 2007 | 4 comments | tags: , , , , ,

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

April 1, 2007 | 1 comment | tags: , ,