PEDES3ANTECH

Apple is leading the way in promoting user privacy in the digital age and recently Apple CEO Tim Cook delivered a speech during an event in Washington where he made some very important and controversial points about privacy in the digital age.  "Like many of you, we at Apple reject the idea that our customers should have to make tradeoffs between privacy and security...We can, and we must provide both in equal measure. We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy. The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it.” This statement is supported by Apple's action being the first major phone manufacturer to make encryption as a default in its Operating System. It goes to show how serious Apple is in protecting customer privacy and in not making money out of customer information. There are hundreds of millions of iOS devices all over the world and each one is connected to the internet. Whenever these devices connect to the internet ...

Amazon.ca Widgets T he issue on privacy has recently come into the spotlight with the revelation that the NSA has been listening to calls and collecting internet data. This revelation has also implicated all the major tech companies (ie. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) as providing the NSA "direct" access to their servers for data collection. Although the companies implicated have been unanimous in their denial that they provide "direct" access to their servers. One by one they have issued statements denying the allegations and have even released information to the public about all government related data-requests sent to them.  So, it turns out, these companies do not provide "direct" access to their servers, but will comply with government requests for information- in "certain" situations. If you ask me, it is all a play of words and a convoluted interpretation of the word "direct". But this is not what this post is ab...

Read, Subscribe and Contribute to Pedes3antech weekly on Flipboard T his week was still dominated by one major story- PRISM. The US government under the Obama administration has been under a lot of heat since the leaks came out of the media. This week however, the PRISM story was made even more interesting when Edward Snowden came out and faced the world. Now the people and the government can put a face to the NSA leak. This development however has put the whole debate around PRISM on the wrong direction. The government and the public dialogue has started to shift towards questions about Snowden's decision to leak. Questions about the ethics of his decision and how he has endangered (mysteriously) thousands of lives is drowning the more serious questions about Civil liberties, Individual Privacy, Limits on government powers, Government Accountability and Corporate Social responsibility. The US Senate , in one of its more sensible decisions lately, has put pre...

Apple has been known for its simple, intuitive and beautiful hardware design and today that philosophy has been applied to its software component. This expectation was driven mainly by the fact that Jony Ive (Apple chief of industrial design) took the lead in re-designing the much anticipated iOS7 and the world was given a first hand look of the updates today during the WWDC 2013 keynote address. The weeks leading up to the event was full of supposed leaks about how the new iOS 7 was going to be "flat" and "simple". People gave these rumors a lot a credit because that has always been the over-arching principle behind Apple's hardware designs since the beginning. So the idea of it being applied to its software component was a no-brainer especially with Ive at the helm. The immediate reaction from the tech-world was "mixed" to put it mildly. Some people felt like the new iOS does not offer anything new to the table and that a lot of the design im...

Apple has reached a major milestone, its app store has reached 50 Billion Downloads. To put that into perspective, there is about 6 Billion people in the world w/c means there is almost 10 apps downloaded for each living soul on the planet. To put it on even better perspective, Apple has sold 500 Million iOS devices according to most recent numbers ( source here ). That means on average each iOS device sold has 100 apps installed/downloaded to it.  If you think this milestone is important only from a business standpoint, you are missing half the story. Here is why: How the iPhone changed the mobile market When the first iPhone came out, the Apple App store was not in existence yet and no one had any idea how big a role apps will play in our lives. The first iPhone unveiled on January 9, 2007 and went on sale on June 29, 2007. At launch, the 1st Generation iPhone was able to do basic Smartphone functions (ie. web-browsing, email, calendar, etc.) and it was heralded as ...

At the beginning of the new year, I posted a blog about my 2013 to do/try list (see post here ). Today I am proud to say that I am able to check off one item in the list- Try an Android Smartphone.  I have been using the Samsung Galaxy Note II for the last couple of weeks now after giving up my iPhone 4S. I did not post a blog about it right away to make sure my assessment is not biased. I had to make sure I gave myself enough time to learn and understand the OS. I had used an iPhone for over 3 years before getting the Note 2 so I had to make sure I get rid of any expectations based on what I was used to getting with iOS. It was not easy but after around 3 weeks I am fairly confident I gave Android a fair chance so here is my assessment.  Hardware Design and Feel. The Galaxy Note II is huge but highly functional even for someone with small hands like myself. The feel of the material however still has a plasticky feel w/c to me diminishes its high-end value ...