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The Android way

Everybody talks about the iPhone, but less than a month ago it was revealed that Blackberry's biggest competitor in the smart phone market is actually Google and not Apple after all.

Everybody talks about the iPhone, but less than a month ago it was revealed that Blackberry's biggest competitor in the smart phone market is actually Google and not Apple after all. Google Android now accounts for 28 per cent of the smart phone market, compared to 21 per cent for the iPhone and 36 per cent for Blackberry.

There are a lot of reasons why Android is picking up steam. The most obvious is that almost every carrier in the U.S. has a wide array of Android phones available while iPhone is still exclusively with AT&T. Customers have a greater choice of Android plans and options available, and people can stay with a contract and provider they like and that makes sense in their area.

But it's not the only reason Android is winning. There has been a pushback against Apple recently for selling their customers what is essentially a locked product, while Android is actually becoming more open source all the time.

The latest Android 2.2 has a lot to offer that right now the iPhone can't match. Web browsing is enhanced with Flash for example, which allows you to view more graphically dynamic websites and play Flash games, movies and more. There are also web-synced apps for things like streaming your music and photo collection, as well easier syncing between things like calendars and RSS feeds through your cell network. The overall speed has been enhanced with tweaks to the operating system and web browser.

Android 2.2 can also turn your phone into an Internet hub for your laptop though the FroYo application - providing your provider doesn't mind you plugging your laptop into your phone from time to time to browse the web.

The new operating system will also work with Google TV - a new project to unite the web and your television at home through a Google TV-enabled TV or a separate Google TV box. The Android app will allow people to view content through a Google TV box, program their televisions, set reminders to record and watch shows and a lot more.

Google is also somewhat catching up to Apple in the app department. At last count the Apple App Store had more than 200,000 titles, but Google now boasts about 38,000 apps - a fifth as many, but still far more than any person could ever want or need.

 

Facebook vs. personal privacy

I like Facebook. Like many people I have friends around the world that I like to keep in touch with, and these days face-to-face meetings only happen at the occasional wedding - and fewer of those each year as more friends tie the knot. I don't do Farmville or Mafia Wars, and consider 99 per cent of the add-ons a complete waste of time. E-mail, photos, the occasional video or link, and that's about it.

And yet Monday, May 31 is being called "Quit Facebook" day, encouraging millions of people to ditch their accounts in protest of changes to the company's privacy laws and the sale of their personal information to marketing companies.

The thing is I already assumed they were doing this and was pretty much all right with it. It was kind of obvious. Facebook is free for consumers but all of those servers and programmers are not - and aside from advertising the culling of demographic information and selling it to marketers is generally the best way for free websites to make a buck.

Facebook is reportedly in the process of updating its labyrinth of privacy settings rather than apologizing for any breaches of privacy, and is revising its privacy standards to appease various watchdogs. However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes no apologies for his actions and has gone as far as to say that the age of privacy is over.

That caused some outrage as you can probably guess, as did the Open Graph API announcement - basically a system that can give any page on the web the look and feel of Facebook, and where people can sign up for information by becoming a fan of a person, place or thing. Whoever owns that page will in turn have access to those fans and a great deal of their personal information.

The bottom line is that it's up to you to secure your information if your privacy is that important to you. Ditch Facebook if you feel threatened, or crank up your privacy settings to the maximum.

To get a sense of what information about you is available to anyone visit http://zesty.ca/faceook/ and type in your numeric code or alias to get a full rundown. You can also create another Facebook account with bogus information and then check your own page out to see what information is available to others.

To restore your privacy there's a great article at Lifehacker.com called How to Restore Your Privacy on Facebook. You also might want to type "Facebook's Huge Maze of Privacy Options Mapped Out," in the search window to get a link to a rather alarming chart by the New York Times that explains how many levels you have to go to secure your information. Apparently there are 50 different settings and more than 170 options, some of which are confusing, to say the least. For example, did you know that every photo album you post on Facebook has its own specific privacy setting?

In the end most people won't bother to change a thing because of the hassle and time involved, or because they don't care. I think I fall in the latter category.