Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policy on them, to examine and terminate the processes that run on them, to maintain them as honest servants to our will, and not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks.

Read the transcript by Joshua Wise
Watch the talk on YouTube

Hipstamatic has released it’s latest iPhone App; the Hipstamatic D Series. In this case, ‘D’ stands for disposable. In today’s digital world, where we connect more frequently online than we do offline, this is Hipstamatic’s attempt at reinventing the fun of the disposable camera. I must admit, I’m quite excited.

Before you start shooting, you are prompted to create a new camera. Each camera comes loaded with a 24 exposure film. Just like a disposable camera, you don’t get to see the images you have taken until you have taken a full roll of film.

But, some of the most fun to be had with disposable cameras came from developing a camera that had been passed around (or left laying around) at an event. Hipstamatic have attempted to recreate this element of surprise by allowing you to pass the ‘D’ series around, virtually. By linking up with your Facebook friends you are all able to shoot using the same roll of film. The 24 exposures are shared between you and at the end of the film you all get to see the results.

The best bit about this, is that you and your friends don’t even have to be in the same place. So, if you’d like to share a disposable camera and shoot a common theme (a gig, Christmas events, popular landmarks, even your morning commute, anything) then please add me on Facebook, and we can start shooting.

I used SquidMan which is a graphical front-end to the Squid proxy. The process is fairly simple:

1. Launch SquidMan
2. Tweak the settings
3. Configure iPhone to use the proxy
4. Watch the Squid access log
5. Use your iPhone App
6. See the HTTP requests in your Terminal window

This should be enough for most of you, but for more detail, and screenshots, read on.

Launch SquidMan

Don’t hit “Start Squid” just yet. You need to modify some settings first.

Tweak the SquidMan Settings

I needed to change the following settings:

• add the IP address of my iPhone to the list of clients (Clients tab)
• change the logfile locations (template tab)
• add strip_query_terms off to the template to allow Squid to log the query strings.

Configure iPhone to Use Squid

You need to use the IP address of the computer running SquidMan and the port number specified on the General settings tab.
You can find this screen under Settings -> Wi-Fi -> [NetworkName].

Watch the Squid Logs

Use the terminal to watch the HTTP requests made by your iPhone as you use your App.
tail -f /tmp/squid-access.log

You should now be able to see all the details of the queries made by your iPhone as you use any of the Apps. Try searching Google using the Safari App and looking for your search query in the logs. This way you know things are working before you start investigating your App.

If you are having trouble, you need to ensure that your iPhone and the computer running Squid are on the same local network. I haven’t tried this using an App that uses HTTPS queries.

oAuth Calls

API Calls

I have managed to test these API Calls using the oauth-proxy and will document the request response cycles in further detail as I make use of them in an upcoming project.

Watch this space.

With many of the utility companies in the UK trying to stamp their mark on the smart energy market, it is going to take something different for a non-provider like AlertMe to corner a significant market. Google (an AlertMe partner) tried, but only recently abandoned it’s attempt to collect home-energy data when they decided to retire their PowerMeter API.

AlertMe started out as a provider of self-install home security kits. But their focus on home security dwindled and they appeared uncertain over the company direction. I for one will openly admit that this lack of direction put me off the company, and I went from hovering over the purchase button to unsubscribing from their newsletter in a matter of weeks. However, a recent re-branding, confirms what many suspected, AlertMe has a new focus, home energy.

“Our vision is to empower consumers and give them unprecedented visibility and control of their homes wherever they are.”

There is a lot to be said for the combination of Direct Debit, paperless billing and online banking, but it has it’s downsides. I couldn’t tell you from one month to the next if we were using more or less electricity. I couldn’t even give you a ballpark figure for our annual electricity bill. Perhaps the AlertMe Smart Energy Kit (pictured below) can help me change that.

AlertMe Smart Energy Kit

The kit consists of the following:

• SmartMeter Reader
• SmartHub
• SmartDisplay
• SmartPlug (not included in the standard kit)

Set-up

The set-up was fairly straightforward. A wizard on the AlertMe site takes you through each step in the process, tailoring each step for the devices you happen to have installed. The source of all your data, the SmartMeter Reader, clips around the main electricity feed into your home and sits unobtrusively alongside your electricity meter. It is battery powered, but batteries have a lifespan measured in years, so you shouldn’t need to worry about replacing these often. The SmartHub requires a broadband connection and, assuming you have a fairly standard set-up on your broadband router, the installation process involves nothing more than plugging it into a spare network port.

The most visible part of the set-up is the SmartDisplay, a stand-alone unit (pictured below) that currently takes pride of place on our coffee table. This gives you your all important Power Now figure (measured either in KW or £/hr). It also shows the power or cost for the current day, week or month. The unit is portable, but batteries only last up to five hours so you’ll probably keep this plugged in.

The SmartPlug was interesting. My first reaction was to use it to measure the most energy hungry device we have (assumed to be the kettle). But I couldn’t find anywhere that set out guidance for what could or could not be controlled by the SmartPlug. I decided to play it safe and started out with a simple floor lamp. I fired off an email to AlertMe support to find out more about the SmartPlug ratings. A subsequent response to my query revealed:

The SmartPlug can handle power up to 13 amps – so as long as the appliance is under that, you should be fine.

The keen eyed will of course point out that power is not measured in Amps, but the advice seems to suggest that I can plug our kettle into the SmartPlug. I’ll probably end up moving the SmartPlug around the home before finding a suitable appliance to measure and control.

The final step in the process was to provide AlertMe details of my current electricity tariff to allow the SmartDisplay to display our electricity usage in terms of price. It is worth noting that AlertMe price calculations don’t appear to allow for some of the more complicated pricing structures that can exist such as mixed rates or standing charges.

Initial Reactions

The SmartHub and the SmartMeter Reader are out of site, and once installed, will probably remain so. The SmartDisplay however, is brilliant. It takes a couple of seconds to register changes in power usage, but updates frequently enough that you can associate changes in electricity usage to events that take place in the home.

AlertMe SmartDisplay

The biggest surprise came when putting the kettle on revealed a five-fold jump in electricity usage. No more tea for me.

How am I doing?

As part of the initial set-up, Panel members were asked to note down some initial readings. I presume these are to be used for comparison purposes in later challenges.

The swingometer below shows how I’m doing by tracking my current energy usage against my usage at this time last week. At the time of writing, I’m not doing too well against the London average, using 12% more electricity than I was last weekend (which is odd, as I didn’t have the kit installed). I’m looking forward to seeing if that changes as a result of our increased awareness of just how much energy we are using.

If you have any questions about the set-up or have your own Smart Energy experiences to share, the comments are all yours.

From the iPad to the latest Nokai (yes, that is Nokai) the mobile is striking by it’s ubiquity in Beijing. On the street, on the subway, in the taxi or even behind the wheel, everyone is using their phone. What struck me though, was that an ever increasing percentage of mobiles are being used to browse the web. I live in a city where mobiles still don’t work on The Underground (subway) and so seeing so many people readily browsing the web as they travel really stands out.

It is difficult to comment on what exactly people were reading (more on the importance of 汉字 in another post), but the occasional chuckle and regular screen showing stock symbols was enough to suggest that usage was varied.

Perhaps the most striking thing though was that many users of the mobile web don’t have smart-phones. Information is text (rather than media) rich. In other words, this is what WAP should have been.

Of course, this could all change as the prevalence of smart-phones grows and the infrastructure to support the media rich mobile web stabilises. It is easy to see how the mobile web could easily become the only web in China. Indeed, registration for online banking (at least with one major bank) requires users to have a Chinese mobile and does not offer email as an option. The same requirement exists for signing up to Baidu’s micro-blogging service.

It can’t be long before we start seeing major organisations (banks, governments, utilities companies, airlines, etc.) developing mobile-optimised sites ahead of their traditional counterparts? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, in China, some of them already are.

[note:] This is the second in a series of posts following a recent trip to China. You can read the first here: Only in China

“What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.”

I wonder how different this graph would look if the same analysis was done for Twitter? For me, the two networks are very different.

Read Paul Butler’s explanation of how he generated a world map from Facebook relationships over on his Facebook page.

Does it surprise you that 4399.com is the fourth most searched for site in 2010 in China (according to Google)?

In his recent blog post, Google Latitude for iPhone is a Big Disappointment, Marshall Kirkpatrick describes the recent launch of the official Latitude iPhone App as “a real let down”. Whilst I’d tend to agree with a many of the observations he makes about the iPhone App, I disagree with his conclusions about Latitude.

I believe the core Latitude service to be sound, but Google needs to clarify the direction it intends to take the Latitude service and work on encouraging developers to build Latitude applications if it is to avoid sending Latitude to the same fate as Wave. The following are essential to the success of Latitude:

1. Increase sources of location information:
   • Phones (real-time)
   • Check-In Apps (point in time)
   • Browser Location (point in time)
   • Runkeeper, Nike+, etc. (historic)
   • Flickr (historic)
   • GPS Import (historic)
2. Increase sharing options:
• Twitter, Facebook, etc.
• Check-In Apps
• Blogs
• Flickr
3. Improve granularity of privacy controls.
4. Provide push notifications to authorised Apps.
5. Provide clarity around what Latitude is.

The Google Latitude service provides a great way to maintain a history of a user’s physical location, a service that doesn’t appear to have been offered by anyone else. The benefits to Google, a data company, are mind boggling. Location history can be used to better understand user lifestyle and to increase awareness on how we interact with each other and the world around us. In an age where we know browsing history, purchase history, and contact history, location is a missing dimension in the behavioural analytics game. To understand what might be possible, have a look at the Latitude dashboard after a couple of weeks of use. It has determined that I took a flight on Monday just from my location updates alone. The benefits to Google are clear.

Where Google have struggled is persuading users they need to pro-actively share their location. After all, what benefit do users get in return for providing their location? To me, this comes from integrating Latitude with other applications. Much like the way the success of Twitter was largely down to the success of the client applications, the success of Latitude lies in the hands of application developers. The number one focus of the Latitude team should be on encouraging application developers to build off the core Latitude service. This alone would enable three out of the five essentials identified above.

Yes, the iPhone App may be a little rough around the edges, but the iPhone App is only a small part of the Latitude offering. Latitude is a great platform, but as with any platform, it is encouraging others to build off it that is the key to success.

How many would recognise the top 10 search terms for Google China? Some may find it surprising that the list is dominated by social networks. The number 1 spot however is reserved for Googles search rival, Baidu.

In the area of mobile search, things look a little more familiar with the weather and mobile entertainment featuring prominently.

Does anyone care to predict the top 10 China searches for 2011?

Note: It is worth noting that, with around 25% of the market share, Google is not the No.1 search engine in China. The results may be slightly different when other search engines are used.