billso.com

Do children need a cell phone before they’re 18? I’ve long believed that people shouldn’t learn how to drive until they’re 18, or when they’ve demonstrated some advanced level of personal development. There are folks like Darren Draper and Rich Ling who think that mobile phones can become excellent tools in a classroom. This article in the New York Times about finding gadgets that are age-appropriate for children got me thinking about the issue again.

Several months ago, I was in a campus restroom when I overheard a student talking on his phone while he was sitting in a stall. He was talking in a normal voice, as if he was the only person in the restroom.

There are some universities and schools that have developed zero tolerance rules for mobile phones and other devices in classrooms, especially during exams and quizzes. If the device can be heard or seen, the student fails the exam. I’m not sure how long these rules will last, simply because more college students seem to carry their mobile phones everywhere.

“Where you at?”

Kids who use Nextel or push-to-talk phones are another irritant. No one needs to hear both sides of their conversation, and Mark Jaquith seems to agree with me. I used a Nextel phone between 2000 and 2003, but I would almost always put the PTT feature on vibrate. I’d use the PTT feature as if it were a regular phone conversation whenever I was out in public.

As usual, Asia and Europe are the leaders in mobile technology. European regulators may ban advertisements from children’s cell phones, according to this 8 March 2008 New York Times article. As mobile telecoms and other companies search for new sources of revenue, mobile advertising has become an attractive new business. The iPhone and Google’s Android platform each offer multiple ways to place advertisements on a user’s screen.

This is your brain on a mobile phone. Any questions?

There’s another concern in Europe - radiation. Studies are being commissioned to examine the possible effects of mobile phone radiation on children’s brains and behavior.

In japan, government officials are now asking mobile telecoms and handset manufacturers to design and market models for children - without any email or texting features. Japanese parents rely on cell phones as a digital leash for their commuting children, but kids have been known to spend all night sending messages to each other. Japanese officials want manufacturers to focus on voice and GPS features, so students will spend more time studying. This Associated Press report has more details.

Related posts and pages on billso.com

• iPhone
• 4 June 2004: GPS and mobile phones
• 22 April 2008: Android vs iPhone
• 1 October 2007: it’s time for an emergency Rave
• 13 February 2007: They will know you by your shoes

From ZDnet, the New York Times and TechDirt comes this story: New York City has subpoenaed a TXTmob server that was used to coordinate street protests during the 2004 Republican national Convention.

The city’s lawyers are litigating civil suits brought by hundreds of protesters who were arrested during the convention. All the city’s lawyers want are the records of every user and message sent on the system.

TXTmob can be used to resend text messages to hundreds of mobile phones in real time. The software is available on the Institute for Applied Autonomy’s web site. Wikipedia has a good article about the service.

Tad Hirsch, the creator of the TXTmob software, does not want to release the information on his server:

“There’s a principle at stake here,” he said recently by telephone. “I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy.”

Hirsch has appealed for donations on his web site. Hirsch says some of that data no longer exists. He’s been busy writing his dissertation at MIT.

Who’s got the data?

There are many web and mobile services like Facebook and Twitter that could be used to coordinate protests, according to this Wired article. Groups need to consider who operates their messaging servers and who controls the data for their web services. Hosting an application like TXTmob on one’s own server is one way to avoid a Web portal or service provider’s restrictions.

Even so, the server has to be connected to the Internet, and the text messages are resent to subscribers through the mobile phone carriers servers. The telecom carriers routinely archive text messages sent through their systems, as I mentioned on 3 February 2008, and the carriers will provide messages and logs if subpoenaed.

I may have to revisit the article I wrote last year for the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics & Society. Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology had the following response regarding the TXTmob subpoena in Wired’s article, and I agree with him:

“In civil cases, the law seems to prohibit the disclosure of stored communications in response to a civil discovery subpoena because the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 prohibits disclosure of stored messages of any kind,” he argues. “The subpoena clearly is not enforceable.”

But he adds that the case is a reminder that federal privacy law is in dire need of an update to reflect the new era of massive stored communications and web services.

“The notion that any litigant can get any information about any person is an 18th century rule that now can now encompass terabytes of information, and I think it also has an impact on service providers who don’t want to become one-stop shops for every litigant in the country,” he says.

A local example

On Monday, Two hundred protesters used email and phone calls to organize their event at Fort Street Mall in support of Aloha Airlines. The US Bankruptcy Court is in 1132 Bishop, above the MSIS classrooms in the Frear Center. My office is a few steps away. This Honolulu Advertiser article has details and a few pictures.

I didn’t see anything about the march at DontFlyGo. Their web site is difficult to navigate, and the domain name is missing an apostrophe on the banner. Based on this Honolulu Advertiser article, there’s little indication that local groups might try to use mobile messaging to boycott go! flights.

Business Week reported yesterday that mobile phone carriers are desperately looking for new business models that will help these companies mantain control of their networks.

Mobile data services remain focused on market niches, and investors have seem little evidence that the mobile carriers can deliver compelling content. The carriers are more focused on maintaining control of their network, so the carriers miss ipportunities to be a vital connection point between media sites and users.

Except for a few offerings, such as Sprint’s aggressively marketed mobile data card, most mobile carriers offer customers access to a limited set of Internet resources. For example, MySpace offers mobile versions of its site to Helio and Cingular/AT&T customers. Facebook had an exclusive mobile deal with Cingular until recently. Now that service supports several different carriers, with the notable exception of T-Mobile. Seems like Facebook would work well on a Sidekick.

Author Robert Clark also offers this startling tidbit: YouTube generated more Internet traffic in 2006 than the ENTIRE Internet did in 2000.

Some quick Googling led to another interesting fact: Photobucket handled 2% of US Internet traffic at this time last year.

The mobile Internet has nothing close to either site in terms of popularity, functions or content. Even the mobile versions of established webmail systems like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail have failed to capture the imagination of mobile users. Yahoo offers multiple branded versions of its mobile interface (Go, Mobile and Mobile Web), which just adds to users’ confusion.

Both Google and Yahoo are offering mobile web services for the Apple iPhone, which may miss its June 11 ship date because of quality issues with the phone’s complex operating system. Stephen Wellman of Information Week reports that Apple and AT&T will be offering rebates to iPhone buyers, and AT&T may pay Apple for every customer that buys an iPhone through an Apple storefront. There’s no such thing as a “sure thing” in the mobile communications industry these days.

The sad events today at Virginia Tech should cause more university administrators to examine systems like Mobile Campus. I discussed this system on April 11, and noted that University of Florida officials use this system to tell students and staff about campus closings.

A text messaging system pushes information to subscribed users. The state of Hawaii is considering a similar system to send text messages to citizens about tsunamis, earthquakes, and traffic jams.

CNN quoted several students who said they were unaware of what was happening until they saw armed police officers in their classroom building. Some students and staff learned about the shootings when they checked the university web site. As we learned on October 15, timely official information can keep people from reacting to rumors.

Campus Technology ran an article today about the University of Florida’s text messaging system. It costs the university nothing for this outsourced service, which has been used by 10000 students, staff and faculty since 2005.

Users can receive text messages from other members of the service through a group feature. If users join an interest group or a club listed on the service, they’ll receive group messages from the portal. That aspect sounds similar to MySpace and Facebook in some ways. The service keeps track of users phone numbers and manages group preferences. Users must pick up the cost of receiving the text messages through their carriers.

Mobile Campus operates the service generates revenue by sending digital coupons and discounts to the users. UF says that the service users will receive up to two offers per day. Ten other universities in 5 states also offer the service.

UF administrators also use the Mobile Campus system to send out notices about hurricanes and other events that affect the entire campus. This is useful and timely information for commuters, and for university members who are away from their computers. As long as users have a cell phone and are subscribed to the service, they’ll get the message.