The Dilemma of Facebook

I'm very torn about Facebook. How much to share, and whom to share it with? The ongoing lack of respect for (and exploitation of) personal information exhibited by Zuckerberg & company is disgusting & worrisome. Seeing "The Social Network" last night did not make me feel any better about that.

But despite all that - it does provide tremendous value through day-to-day connections to people I call friends, that would not occur otherwise. More importantly, it has overcome barriers of distance & time, and enabled me to stay more connected to my children and to my brother... the few close blood relatives that I have left. 

On Monday we lost my brother.  Initially I was shocked & taken by surprise by how people immediately shared their feelings about that on Facebook. It is indeed a new paradigm for social interaction, one that merits deeper thought and consideration of what the etiquette should be for such situations. Friends immediately flocked to his page to express their sorrow, and I responded by setting up a separate page for that purpose. 

In the last 3 days, because of Facebook, I have been able to see how much people that I never knew cared for Frank, and the impact he had on their lives. For that I am truly grateful.

The Samsung Tab: 7" Android Tablet at CTIA

Samsung made their new 7" Android tablet, the "GALAXY Tab" the centerpiece of their exhibit at the CTIA Wireless Enterprise & Applications show.  The device appeared at a number of stations showing a variety of applications, from entertainment to medical to video conferencing.

The device supports Flash video, and hence runs on Android version 2.2 (aka Froyo), though Google does not officially support tablets in this rev. Independent application developers that I talked to at CTIA E&A told me that they had no problems porting their Android apps from the Galaxy smartphones to the 7" tablet form factor.

When I asked Samsung representatives about the selling price and release date, they had no information. The Samsung exhibit made a big deal about the GALAXY Tab being available from each of the top-4 wireless carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon), but the device will be sold as WiFi only in the U.S. In the earlier European release, the device included 3G GSM connectivity.  The carrier "support" then is only to provide a sales channel (with no contract I hope), and the device.should also be available from other retailers.

UPDATED Oct-7

When I was in the "Android Bootcamp" today, Sprint presented that Samsung GALAXY Tab as having 3G and WiFi connectivity.  Since this contradicted the information I received yesterday, I went back to the Samsung exhibit on the show floor to check on the official plan for how the device will be offered through wireless carriers. 

This is the clarification I receieved:

The Samsung GALAXY Tab will follow the same model as the GALAXY-S, i.e. each of the 4 major carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon) will offer a version that is compatible with their 3G network. Devices will require subscription to a data plan.

The Samsung GALAXY Tab will be sold by other retailers in a WiFi only mode.

UPDATED Oct-7

In a demonstration playing a pre-loaded video, (the Qik video demo was not available due to the now infamous "WiFi problems"), the image was very good and the overall operation with a 1GHz Cortex-based processor appeared to be very fast.

On my return visit to the Samsung exhibit today, I did see a successful demonstration of the Qik video conferencing app running between two of the GALAXY Tab demo stations.

Verizon Wireless LTE announcement at CTIA - San Francisco

Information on Verizon Wireless's plans for a 2010-2011 LTE roll-out has been no secret, as the company provided early demonstrations for the press and analysts at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. Today, at the CTIA Wireless Enterprise and Applications show in San Francisco, a bit more information was provided on the cities that will have 4G coverage by the end of this year.

Lowell McAdam, president and chief operating officer of Verizon, told the CTIA audience that "a half a dozen" LTE-equipped smartphones and tablets would be shown at next year's CES keynote.  He also added that Google CEO Eric Schmidt would be joining him for the product announcements on the stage in Las Vegas. It will be interesting to see if the Android LTE devices are smartphones or tablets, or both. After Dell's presentation of the WiMAX-equipped Inspiron Duo tablet at Intel's Developer Forum just a few weeks ago, will we see a CES faceoff of a 4G-Windows tablet vs. 4G-Android and 3G-iPad, with Steve Ballmer also scheduled for a keynote address?

Here is the list of cities in Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Initial Major Metropolitan Area Deployment. I'm happy to see that Silicon Valley won't have to wait for LTE as we have (still) for WiMAX, Verizon will be going head-to-head with Sprint & Clearwire here by the end of the year.

1. Akron, Ohio
2. Athens, Georgia
3. Atlanta, Georgia
4. Baltimore, Maryland
5. Boston, Massachusetts
6. Charlotte, North Carolina
7. Chicago, Illinois
8. Cincinnati, Ohio
9. Cleveland, Ohio
10. Columbus, Ohio
11. Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Dallas, Texas
12. Denver, Colorado
13. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
14. Houston, Texas
15. Jacksonville, Florida
16. Las Vegas, Nevada
17. Los Angeles, California
18. Miami, Florida
19. Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota
20. Nashville, Tennessee
21. New Orleans, Louisiana
22. New York, New York
23. Oakland, California
24. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
25. Orlando, Florida
26. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
27. Phoenix, Arizona
28. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
29. Rochester, New York
30. San Antonio, Texas
31. San Diego, California
32. San Francisco, California
33. San Jose, California
34. Seattle/Tacoma, Washington
35. St. Louis, Missouri
36. Tampa, Florida
37. Washington, D.C.
38. West Lafayette, Indiana
39. West Palm Beach, Florida