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Category Archives: Mobile Tech
Sorry State of the Web and Cool, Modular Phones
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web and recent winner of the Turing Award, has been sounding the alarm about the sad, sad state of the Web (read it here in The Guardian). Cathi Bond has heard the alarm bells loud and clear. Is the promise of the Web as an open, democratic place dead?
People have been talking about modular smart phones for a while now, where you swap out parts of your phone that need upgrading, instead of trading them in for a whole new one. Are they ready for their close-up? Nora Young says there are a bunch of modular phones around (see the comparison at CNet) including a new version of the Fairphone (via PSFK), which ethically sources materials. What would it take to make modular phones sexy rather than just worthy?
Finally, astonishingly, people watch a billion hours of content on YouTube per day! What if people actually did something for the public good with all that time?
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Posted in Internet, Mobile Tech
Tagged data profiling, e-waste, Fairphone, fake news, Google phone, green phones, modular phones, state of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, world wide web
Mobile Payments for Unbanked People and High End Grow Your Own
On the podcast this time, Nora Young talks about India's plan for a Unified Payment Interface, or UPI. The idea is to connect Indians who are currently "unbanked" with a mobile payments system, using phones and their national biometric-based ID system (via Mashable). Cathi Bond gets why they're doing it, but still thinks it sounds creepy and Big Brother-ish. What do you think?
Meanwhile, Cathi looks at Grobo, a very cool, design-forward, internet-enabled system for growing your own plants, whatever those plants may be!
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Posted in D-I-Y, Mobile Tech