Daily Bits

Brits to Enjoy Amazon’s Black Friday Sale

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Black Friday is something that practically every American looks forward to. And, why wouldn’t you look forward to this day? All sorts of gadgets and other items can be had for ridiculously low prices – if you have the patience and energy to battle it out with countless other shoppers looking for a good deal. So yeah, every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, everyone goes nuts, and stores – both online and offline – have to deal with massive amounts of transactions.

This year, the “guys across the pond” are going to have taste of what their American cousins consider a normal experience. The UK branch of Amazon is holding a five-day sale dubbed Black Friday Deals Week. That’s pretty much self-explanatory, but you have to be ready to get drooling once you visit the online shopping site for good deals.

What do you think of newly-released CDs that are worth only 1 GBP? How about video game consoles with severely slashed prices? (That’s something that no one can say no to!)

In order to be able to take advantage of the deals, though, you have to keep your eyes peeled – the deals run throughout this week, but each specific deal only stays up for a limited period of time. The reason for this is, according to Richard Dodd (British Retail Consortium spokesman):

This move is a reflection of how tough trading conditions are, even in the run up to Christmas, and more evidence of how retail competition benefits customers. But, over a period, all retailers have to cover their costs – premises, staff, buying in stock and a reasonable return for investors – so there will always be a limit to the depth and duration of discounts.

Limited or not limited, you’ll have to at least give this a look. Don’t expect to easily find a Kindle for less than 100 GBP, though. Yeah, I checked. 😉

Expert Gives Facebook Only 5 More Years

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Facebook is on a roll, isn’t it? In the past month or so, we have been hearing about all sorts of new features from THE social network platform. Some of the more recent ones include the Friendship Pages and Groups. And, just the other day, we heard about their “Gmail Killer.” So one would think that Facebook is here to stay – at least for a very very long time, right?

Not according to Dr. Jeffrey Cole, a digital consumer expert. If you’re doubting his prediction, bear in mind that this is the guy who said that MySpace would suffer the same fate (decline) four years ago. While MySpace is still around – I just logged in earlier to listen to some indie music – no one can deny that it is but a shadow of what it used to be. Oh, and check out Dr. Cole’s other credentials: Director of the Centre for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California and a director of the World Internet Project.

So Dr. Cole said that in five years, Facebook is going to be what MySpace is today. However, he states one major difference: there will not be a single social networking platform anymore. Instead, we are going to have many smaller communities.

His predictions are not limited to social networking platforms. He also mentioned that the iPad will be the last man standing in the realm of tablets – mainly thanks to the Apple brand – and that it will change the face of traditional print.

If his track record is anything to go by, we might just see his words becoming reality sooner than we think. Let me ask you though, do you think Facebook will be “gone” in 5 years?

New Android Phones to Replace Credit Cards?

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It’s the stuff that sci-fi is made of. How many stories have you read or heard or even watched about being able to use your mobile phone for practically everything? For sure, this idea is nothing new. However, the actual implementation of this idea is something else.

With the recent announcement from Google, though, it seems that we just might be able to use our mobile phones in lieu of credit cards in the future. At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Google head honcho Eric Schmidt talked about – and showed off – the new mobile operating system that they are working on. While the mobile phone was a mere prototype, the new version of Android – dubbed “gingerbread” for now – seemed to be ready for release. It won’t however, be released till the next several weeks or so.

What is really interesting about Schmidt’s demo is the fact that he talked about “near-field technology.” What’s it all about? In the future, mobile phones will have a chip that will serve as a way to conduct transactions the way credit cards do right now. While has was quite excited about the potential of the technology, he added a word of caution about credit card-like transactions not being available in the immediate future.

What got the attention of the people present at the demo was the mobile phone which ran the new version of Android. As is to be expected, rumors are flying around that the phone is a prototype of the Nexus S (S for Samsung), Nexus One‘s successor. While that phone is “dead,” there is still hope for a successor, something which a some people are looking forward to.

In the meantime, hold on to your credit cards.

Obama Administration Targets Online Privacy

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Protecting one’s privacy is perhaps one of the biggest issues that “online dwellers” face today. With everyone and their mom spending a considerable amount of time online on a daily basis, it is inevitable for privacy issues to crop up left and right. We don’t even have to talk about Facebook, and privacy is already a big issue.

Naturally, a problem that exists on such a large scale is bound to catch the attention of the big wigs. So now, the Obama administration is embarking on a project to regulate Internet privacy. There are no concrete details as of yet, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Commerce Department is due to release a report soon. More than spewing out a report, though, the government has already created a task force that will ensure that the recommendations from the report will be converted into policy.

The United States is rather a late comer in this regard. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada have had systems in place to protect the online privacy of their citizens. Surprisingly, there is a serious lack of a comprehensive system in the U.S. – well, until now.

Naturally, there are opposing views on this move. On the one hand, we have people like Rep. Joe Barton who says: “Better late than never. I am glad more and more folks, in the government and otherwise, are beginning to realize that there is a war against privacy.”

On the other hand, entities such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau are not too happy with the idea of having new laws as they believe that they already employ sufficient measures to ensure the privacy of consumers.

Let me ask you – do you think new laws are necessary to address privacy issues in America?

Funny-Serious Video: Hug a Developer

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Let’s have a little fun on a Friday and watch a video, shall we?

I don’t know what you do for a living, but I am pretty sure that while a good number of just might be software developers, there are also a lot of readers like me – people who usually deal with the finished products. As consumers, we do have to admit that sometimes, we may overlook the hard work that goes into a piece of software. We might not even be aware of it in certain cases.

Now I came across a YouTube video, courtesy of a developer friend naturally, and it does give you a different perspective on the life of a developer. Whether you are working as one or you only have an inkling of what a developer does, you ought to take a minute to watch this. Now don’t blame me if you feel your eyes tearing up or if your chest starts getting a little tight along the way… 😉

As far as I know, there is no official Hug a Developer Day yet (or maybe I missed it?). What do you say to starting a movement?

For the developers out there: what can you say about the video?

Guess What the Top 10 Most Popular Facebook Apps Are?

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Come on, give it your best shot! I am sure, though, that even without having to really think, most of you will get the answer correctly. That ubiquitous FarmVille is still the King of Facebook applications – no surprise about that! The real-time simulation game where anyone can pretend to be a farmer has made addicts of countless people around the world. Indeed, there was a point when it was said that the number of Farmville farmers exceeded the number of farmers in the entire United States! Zynga really did hit a goldmine in that app! Furthermore, other popular Zynga games are scattered all over the top 10 most popular Facebook apps list – Texas HoldEm Poker, FrontierVille and Café World.

Here is something that might surprise you, though. Would you believe that the second most popular Facebook application is Microsoft’s instant messenger app, Windows Live Messenger? To be honest, I didn’t even know that there was an app for this, but apparently, since its launch in August, more than 10 million people have connected Facebook to Windows Live. Pretty impressive!

ReadWriteWeb posted the full list of top 10 Facebook apps yesterday:

  1. FarmVille
  2. Windows Live Messenger
  3. Phrases
  4. FrontierVille
  5. Texas HoldEm Poker
  6. Bejeweled Blitz
  7. Cafe World
  8. Mafia Wars Game
  9. Birthday Calendar
  10. Treasure Isle

Now try “scoring” yourself.  How many of these apps do you use on a regular basis?  I currently use 1 out of 10, but I have to be honest and say that I used to be a slave to app number 7 and app number 8.  And, no, I don’t play FarmVille. 😉