Hotmail now has disposable e-mail addresses

Microsoft's Hotmail service has added a new feature that lets you use an e-mail alias completely separate from your regular e-mail address that funnels directly into your main Hotmail account.

In true Microsoft style, the feature is impossible to find but if you hover over the "Inbox" link in Hotmail, a little gear icon will appear and you can create a new alias that way.

Aside from all the weird, tasteless, mind-numbingly awful stuff you can now secretly subscribe to, Microsoft's blog post points out a more mundane use.

Let's say you're in the market for a new car. There are a bunch of websites that will email you price quotes, sales alerts, etc. During your car search, these messages are helpful, but once you're done, they become clutter that can be difficult to stop. By using an alias on these websites instead of your main email address, you can avoid this. And when you're done, just turn the alias off, ensuring future unwanted messages that are sent to that alias don't land in your inbox.

Link here and here.

NBC employee fired for posting 1994 'What is the Internet' video

An NBC worker posted an old clip from the "Today" show.

In the clip Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel and Elizabeth Vargas are wondering, "What is the Internet anyway?"

Filmed in 1994, the clip features Gumbel demanding, with a befuddled expression: "What is the Internet anyway?" and Couric stumbling to define it as: "that massive computer network, the one that's becoming really big now."

In the clip, Gumbel also complains about e-mail addresses, particularly "that little mark with the 'a' and the ring around it."

NBC has fired the employee for posting the embarrassing yet hilarious clip.

The clip can be seen at the link below.

Link

Get Internet access when your government shuts it down

Internet access was cut off in Iran recently and now Egypt has cut off Internet service and mobile phone service for everyone in that country.

And now the Obama administration has put the 'kill switch' legislation back on the table.

A report at the first link below is titled, "As Egypt goes offline US gets internet 'kill switch' bill ready."

So what will you do when the federal government cuts off our access to the Internet?

A PCWorld report at the second link below offers suggestions and instructions in case Obama shuts down our Internet.

The report is titled, "Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down."

Link here and here.

First full length movie shot with iPhone

A movie claimed to be the first ever cinema-standard film to be shot solely on the iPhone has been premiered by celebrated South Korean director Park Chan Wook.

The 30-minute film was shot using an iPhone.

It cost 150 million won ($133,000). Wonder why it cost so much? And Don't tell us it wads because of roaming charges.

More here.

Verizon customers can have iPhone soon

From an AOL Business report:

If you aren't tired of all the Verizon iPhone buzz yet, you'll love the latest hints coming from the rumor mill. Citing an in-the-know anonymous source, Bloomberg Business Week reports that the iPhone will most likely come to Verizon before Valentine's Day -- a present for iPhone holdouts (and current owners dissatisfied with AT&T), including many business users.

Look for the usual Apple press conference and fanfare following the official announcement of a deal with Verizon. But don't look for it at this month's Consumer Electronics Show.

Expect to wait until about Valentine's Day.

Link

Your phone apps are watching you

From a report in the Wall Street Journal:

Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off.

These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly.

Many smartphone apps collect and broadcast data about your habits.

Many of the app providers don't have privacy policies and there isn't much you can do about it.

It's nearly impossible to prevent cellphone apps, as well as games and other software, from transmitting information about you and your phone.

Turning off the phone's location services can restrict tracking by location. But it can limit some phone features like maps.

Apps sharing the most information included TextPlus 4, a popular iPhone app for text messaging.

It sent the phone's unique ID number to eight ad companies and the phone's zip code, along with the user's age and gender, to two of them.

More here.

VZ Navigator vs Sprint Navigation

We have used VZ Navigator (pictured) for a few years and have found it to be reliable.

One of the few complaints from users is the inability for VZ Navigator to interact with Google Maps. In fact, it won't allow the use of any third-party software.

We considered switching to Sprint several months ago for sentimental reasons because I was an auditor for Centel and Sprint purchased Centel in the early 1990's.

Sprint Navigation failed a live comparison test. We entered the same address using voice commands.

Both VZ Navigator and Sprint Navigation got us to our destination. However, Sprint Navigation took us off arterial streets and onto side streets for part of the route. VZ Navigator kept us on main streets.

Want to track bedbug outbreaks? There's an app for that

Bedbug outbreaks have been in the news recently.

If only there was a way you could snap your fingers and find out if they were at your hotel, your theater, or your office.

Well, you can't snap your fingers, but you can touch your finger to a screen.

As in an iPhone. Yup, you guessed it, there's now a bedbug app called the Bed Bug Alert.

Link

Is it safe to put a cell phone in your pocket?

A report at the link below asks:

Is putting a cell phone in your pocket a health risk?

Cell-Phone Safety: What the FCC Didn't Test.

We are a nation grown numb to the seemingly endless fine print that accompanies our purchases.

Sometimes we really should heed the fine print warnings.

Consider the little-noticed bit of legalese that comes in the safety manual for Apple's iPhone 4:

"When using iPhone near your body for voice calls or for wireless data transmission over a cellular network, keep iPhone at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) away from the body, and only use carrying cases, belt clips, or holders that do not have metal parts and that maintain at least 15 mm (5/8 inch) separation between iPhone and the body."

Similar warnings against carrying cellular and smart phones in a closely sewn pocket show up throughout the industry.

The safety manual for Research in Motion's BlackBerry 9000 phone tells users that they may violate Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines for radio-frequency energy exposure by carrying the phone outside a holster and within 0.98 inches (2.5 cm) of their body.


The safety manual of the Motorola W180 phone tells users to always keep the active device one full inch away from their body, if not using a company-approved "clip, holder, holster, case or body harness."

More here.

Verizon Wireless to pay millions in customer refunds

From a report at the link below:

Verizon Wireless could pay out up to $90 million in refunds to cell phone customers who were improperly charged for inadvertent Web access or data usage over the past several years.

The Federal Communications Commission had asked Verizon Wireless last year about $1.99-a-megabyte data access fees that appeared on the bills of customers who didn't have data plans but who accidentally initiated data or Web access by pressing a button on their phones.

If you are a Verizon customer, don't get your hopes up too high.

You probably will be lucky to buy more than a Happy Meal or two with your refund.

In a statement on its website Sunday, Verizon Wireless said most of the 15 million customers affected will receive credits of $2 to $6 on their October or November bills. Some will receive larger sums. Customers no longer with the New York-based carrier will get refund checks.

Link

Trade your troublesome iPhone4 for a seashell

Learning from my grandchildren

Just finished my first texting lesson from my grandchildren.

Since most people now have cell phones with QWERTY keyboards I was told to stop using "gr8" for the word great, the letter "u" for you, etc.

Not knowing how to respond, I simply said “gr8.”

I am breathlessly awaiting lesson number 2.

Lawsuit over iPhone 4 just one week after release

From a CNET report at the link below:

Barely a week since the public got its hands on the iPhone 5, the first lawsuit over it has been filed.

The suit accuses Apple and AT&T of knowingly distributing a phone with a malfunctioning antenna.

The iPhone maker and its exclusive carrier partner in the U.S. are accused of a laundry list of infractions, including: general negligence, defect in design, manufacture, and assembly, breach of warranty, deceptive trade practices, intentional and negligent misrepresentation, and fraud by concealment.

With that many charges, one wonders if the iPhone 4 was prematurely rushed to market.

In responding to the first iPhone 4 complaints, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said it was the users fault accusing them of holding the phone wrong.

The CNET story is here.

The Steve Jobs accusation is here.

Trouble with your new iPhone 4? Apple says it’s your fault

Some who bought their iPhone 4 yesterday reported reception troubles, a problem Apple has acknowledged and said it’s the users fault.

Hours after its iPhone 4 went on sale to excited crowds Thursday, Apple found itself responding to complaints that holding the phone by its metal edge causes mobile reception to suffer.

The company's response, in a nutshell? You're holding it wrong.

"Just avoid holding it in that way," Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote in an e-mail that was making the rounds on the Web on Friday morning.

Holding it wrong? Why did Apple make it so it could be “held wrong?”

Is Apple’s Steve Jobs holding the iPhone 4 correctly in the photo above?

More of the iPhone 4 "users fault" story here.

This guy wants to be first in line for the iPhone 4

Apparently someone is eager to be first in line for the iPhone 4. Eager enough to pitch a tent one week early!

Endgadget reports:

Let's hope he got his preorder in, and that he's not waiting for the white one. Otherwise, he's going to be one unhappy camper.

Link

Teen gets carpal tunnel from texting

A 16-year-old Illinois teen has carpal tunnel syndrome from sending over 100 test messages a day to family and friends for the last year.


Annie Levitz, who lives near Mundelein, Illinois, is paying the price for a texting habit that sometimes reached 3,500 to 4,000 messages per month on an unlimited plan.

She couldn't wait for her day to end at 3:25 p.m. at Lincolnshire's Stevenson High School where students are banned from sending text messages over their wireless telephones at school. So, the minute Levitz got outside she'd fire texts to her friends and kept at it on many days until 11 p.m., with the lone break coming for dinner.

Daily Herald report is here. Video is here.

Mobile phone at the 1988 winter Olympics

The photo shows skier Frank Piccard using a mobile phone during the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Early cellular phones like this were called “brick phones.” They were the size of a brick and nearly as heavy.

Mobile phone circa 1940

The US Army Signal Corps communicate via radio in the field during simulated wartime maneuvers.

Cell phone cancer warning back in the news

We have read cell phone cancer risk warnings in the past but this time a state legislature has proposed a bill that would require warnings.

The bill could make Maine the first state to carry warnings that mobile phones can cause brain cancer, especially among children.

The bill would require manufacturers to put labels on mobile phones and packaging.

Proponents of the bill claim that ignoring the health risks of heavy cell phone use invites a cancer epidemic.

Opponents dismissed research pointing to the risks and claim the bill is more about politics than science.

Link

Coffin with cell phone on sale at Verona fair

Shoppers at the international luxury fair in Verona, Italy found a cell-phone-equipped golden coffin.

The coffin was priced at a mere 280,000 euros (381,000 dollars).

No mention of how many minutes of talk-time was included.

Link