mobile devices

Barack Obama has been the most tech savvy President we have ever had. Living in an age of technology, this is increasingly important and with a new directive this week, he has proven how serious he is about the issue:

U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered all major government agencies to make two key services available on mobile phones within a year, in an effort to embrace a growing trend toward Web surfing on mobile devices.

Obama, in a directive issued Wednesday, also ordered federal agencies to create websites to report on their mobile progress. The websites are due within 90 days.

Innovators in the private sector and the government have used the Internet and powerful computers to improve customer service, but "it is time for the federal government to do more," Obama said in the memo. "For far too long, the American people have been forced to navigate a labyrinth of information across different government programs in order to find the services they need."

Many government services are not optimized for smartphones or tablets, and other services aren't available at all on those devices, Obama wrote.

"Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device," Obama said in a statement. "By making important services accessible from your phone and sharing government data with entrepreneurs, we are giving hard-working families and businesses tools that will help them succeed."

Sen. Al Franken is still on a rampage over the recent news of Apple iOS devices recording their users every moves and now he will be holding a hearing:

Senator Al Franken (D-MN) has stepped up his pressure on Apple CEO Steve Jobs, announcing on Monday that he will hold hearings on the recent revelation that Apple iPhones and iPads are secretly tracking and storing their users' locations.

"The same technology that has given us smartphones, tablets, and cell phones has also allowed these devices to gather extremely sensitive information about users, including detailed records of their daily movements and location," Franken, Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, said in a statement posted on his website.

"This hearing is the first step in making certain that federal laws protecting consumers' privacy-particularly when it comes to mobile devices-keep pace with advances in technology," he added.

Franken said he has invited representatives from Apple and Google to attend the hearing, titled, "Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy." The hearing is scheduled for May 10.

I can’t wait to see who shows up and what they have to say. Hopefully more members of Congress, from both sides of the aisle, will get in on this.

It turns out Apple has snuck a “feature” into their latest version of iOS, which powers iPhones and iPads. It’s a little tracking software that logs everywhere you have been:

It turns out that your iPhone is keeping a record of everywhere you've been since June. This data is stored on your phone (or iPad) and computer, easily available to anyone who gets their hands on it. Why? Apple won't say. We're creeped out.

The enormous privacy startle, apparently enabled by this summer's iOS 4 release, was discoveredby two security researchers, one of whom claims he was an Apple employee for five years. They're equally puzzled and disturbed by the location collection: "By passively logging your location without your permission, Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements," they explain. All it would take to crack the information out of your iOS device is an easy jailbreak. On your computer, the information can be opened as easily as JPEG using the mapping software that the security experts have made for download--Try it yourself.

Apple didn’t tell anyone about this and there’s not even a way to disable it.

So why in the hell would Apple even do this? One thought was for advertising, but that goes against their policies. Another thought is that the government has asked them. If that’s the case, then why is this only in Apples and not in other mobile devices? I think these would be great questions that Congress should seek answers to.

As a developer one of the problems I have had with Apple is their closed App store and the hurdles that you must conquer just to get an app published. Here’s an example of that:

This week cartoonist Mark Fiore made Internet and journalism history as the first online-only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Fiore took home the editorial cartooning prize for animations he created for SFGate, the website for the San Francisco Chronicle.

I spoke with Fiore about his big win and plans for his business. Fiore is not on staff at the Chronicle, or anywhere else; since 1999, he’s run a syndication business, selling his Flash animations à la carte to TV, newspaper, and magazine websites for about $300 a piece. (The price varies by size of the outlet.) In a typical month, he might have about eight clients. Before 1999, he ran a similar syndication business for his print cartoons, using a lower-price-per-image, higher-volume model.

When I asked about the next phase of his business, curious if it will include a mobile element, Fiore said he’s definitely hopeful about mobile devices. “I think the iPads and anything iPod to iPhone — to maybe a product not made by Apple — will be good or could be good for distributing this kind of thing,” he said.