A new wireless service, which is scheduled for launch in France by the end of this month, will offer access to e-mail for free. The wireless service, called Freedom Mail, will make it possible for subscribers to view and respond to e-mail message on a cell phone or other mobile device regardless of whether or not it’s a smart phone. Behind the service is SetNet, a Silicon Valley-based company founded in 1993 by Nick Fodor that is the largest provider of wireless e-mail. The company currently offers its technology to service providers, who partner with cell-phone carriers. But now SetNet is taking its technology and creating its own free mail service, supported by advertisements in outgoing e-mail.
Source: Brittany Sauser, Technology Review, May 14, 2007
Ever wonder what doctors talk about among themselves?
You no longer need to be a fly on the wall of a doctors’ lounge to find out. These days, you just need an Internet connection: Doctors increasingly are telling all — though sometimes behind a veil of anonymity and altered facts — in the blogosphere. About 1% of all blogs deal with health, according to a 2006 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Many are by consumers writing about their own health issues, but “the numbers of health care providers who are blogging is steadily growing,” says Fard Johnmar, founder of Envision Solutions, a New York health care marketing firm.
Source: Kim Painter, USA TODAY, May 13, 2007
National ID: Biometrics Pinned to Social Security Cards
The Social Security card faces its first major upgrade in 70 years under two immigration-reform proposals slated for debate this week that would add biometric information to the card and finally complete its slow metamorphosis into a national ID. The leading immigration proposal with traction in Congress would force employers to accept only a very limited range of approved documents as proof of work eligibility, including a driver’s license that meets new federal Real ID standards, a high-tech temporary work visa or a U.S. passport with an RFID chip. A fourth option is the notional tamper-proof biometric Social Security card, which would replace the text-only design that’s been issued to Americans almost without change for more than 70 years.
Source: Ryan Singel, Wired News, May 15, 2007
On the Web, an advanced carbon calculator for personal use
A new Internet tool to help individuals and communities curb their role in adding global-warming carbon emissions will be announced Tuesday at a conference in New York of mayors from around the world, said a person who built the Web technology. Many environmental groups offer simple carbon calculators on the Web, which allow people to figure the carbon dioxide production from daily routines like driving a car or lighting a house. “But this is serious software, serious quantitative methods and social networking technology brought to the green world,” said Ron Dembo, the chief executive of Zerofootprint, a nonprofit group that provides information and services to combat global warming.
Source: Steve Lohr, The New York Times, May 14, 2007
Full body scans take off at Amsterdam airport
Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport began using new body-scanning machines at security checkpoints on Tuesday, becoming the first major airport to use the technology to find metals and explosives hidden under clothing. The “security scan” system, which uses harmless radio waves to display head-to-toe images of people, is also being used by other airports on a trial basis, but Schiphol is the only one to deploy the technology for regular use at its checkpoints.
Source: Reuters, May 15, 2007
Iris scanning lands at Gatwick
Iris recognition-based biometric technology has been rolled out at Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal. The Iris Recognition Immigration System (Iris) lets registered passengers enter the UK without queuing to see an immigration officer at passport control. Air travellers enrolled on the scheme can walk up to an automated barrier, look into a camera and, if the system recognises them, enter the UK.
Source: Gemma Simpson, silicon.com, May 17, 2007
A Key Change for Mobile Phones
[David Levy, an inventor and former ergonomic designer at Apple,] Levy thinks that people are so fed up with triple typing that they’re finally ready for a new keypad design, one that places each letter in alphabetical order, without adding a space-consuming QWERTY keyboard like those on RIM’s BlackBerry pager or Palm’s Treo cell phones. Levy’s idea, which he patented in 1993, is simply to place raised letter keys in the corners between the numeric keys. By a happy coincidence, an 18-button numeric keypad (counting navigation keys, special characters, and buttons for starting and ending calls) has 28 available corners; Levy’s design uses all of them except the bottom left and bottom right.
Source: Wade Roush, Technology Review, May 18, 2007
