1984 and all that

Posted on by March 4, 2014

The day Amazon deleted 1984

This LinkedIn article by Steve Blank, When Product Features Disappear, is a must-read if you ever pay to download anything – software updates, e-books etc – and in fact even if you don’t pay but do rely on something remotely controlled by Someone Else.

The article is a swift and eye-popping rundown of a few recent sudden and unannounced withdrawals of product features in programs as diverse as Google Maps, Apple’s iWork, Tesla’s electric car software and Amazon’s Kindle. It’s a pain to have something you rely on suddenly whipped out from underneath you, but the implications and ramifications are quite frankly scary.

1984 and the Memory Hole

Blank is swift to point out the irony of George Orwell’s 1984 being a victim of this remote downgrading (a further explanation of the memory hole in this New York Times article on the affair) but there’s a connection to be drawn between government censors sending books down the incineration chute, and companies C21st ability to remotely reach out and relieve you of something you may well have paid for.  The New York Times article includes the following quote from 1984 purchaser Charles Slater:

“I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased.”

Whose right?

Whose rights and who’s right? Whether it’s Apple playing with its code base to the huge detriment of user experience or Google prettifying Google Maps while wrecking the user experience, what’s emerging is a culture of companies feeling free to make changes regardless of what the customer believes he may have paid for and have the right to use.

Perhaps the most shocking example is Tesla, a company from which one can’t help but to have hoped for better. Blank’s article details the steps taken by Tesla to update software in the light of recent fires. Having encouraged Model S drivers to buy the $2,250 “smart air suspension” feature which lowered the level of the car at motorway cruising speeds, Tesla then pushed out a software update that disabled this expensive feature. Almost the worst bit? That the release notes bigged up the new features and mentioned nothing about disabling this rather significant one. Eventually, after a great many software downgrades, Tesla mentioned something about it in a blog post. As Blank says in his article:

In the 20 century if someone had snuck into your garage and attempted to remove a feature from your car, you’d call the police. In the 21 century it’s starting to look like the normal course of business.

Somewhere, buried in the small print, will be the legalise that permits companies to do this. Content posted online is often not actually the property of those who posted it, but of where it’s posted. Together with the lack of regulation Blank refers to, the moral of this story is definitely caveat emptor.

The OpenSure Free Press October 2013

Posted on by November 12, 2013

We have recently resuscitated the Free Press as we feel its time has come again. In future editions we’ll be looking at the tech developments you need to know about, helping to demystify the wonderful world of tech and revealing which technologies we’re testing. And we might permit ourselves a tiny bit of self-promotion with a run-down each month of one service we provide.

Google’s Hummingbird

Google has quietly introduced a new algorithm, Hummingbird. It’s designed to work better with conversational search terms, such as ‘how do I make green tomato chutney’, rather than ‘green tomato chutney recipe’, a searching trend that has developed over the last decade. The new algorithm is designed to provide a response more in tune with the user’s intentions, rather than a set of results that might be rather sterile. This article from The Guardian explains the changes in more detail, and looks at the threat to regular search engine use from specific apps people use for specific functions.

Interestingly, just as this new algorithm is implemented, a class action on Gmail ‘wiretapping’ has just been given the go-ahead in America. Google claimed non-Gmail users gave ‘implied consent’ to their emails being scanned for keywords. Judge Lucy Koh described Google’s privacy laws as misleading and obscure. Read more about it here, and if you really want to scare yourself, take the privacy quiz.

Don’t forget to look at our blog, which keeps up commentary on developments in the tech world. Recently we’ve had a fair bit to say on cloud computing and security, picking a common sense path through the hype and hysteria.

Yahoo email

Do you use Yahoo email, or have your ever used it? If so, make sure you log in to that account at least once every six months, unless you want someone else receiving your email. Yahoo has, in a moment of utter madness, decided to recycle dormant email addresses. Despite what Yahoo believes to be stringent efforts to protect individuals’ security (except keeping their email address just for them), inevitably emails are arriving with the wrong people. Read more about it here, then make sure nothing remotely sensitive ever goes through a Yahoo account ever again.

Zimbra merges with Telligent

Zimbra has split from VMWare and merged with Telligent to form a new independent company under the brand name of Zimbra. “Our goal is to return Zimbra to its roots as an independent collaboration software leader with a vibrant open source community,” says Patrick Brandt, CEO of Telligent, in a renewed declaration to extend the connections with the open source community and broaden the social media interactivity services that Tellingent will bring to the party.

We’re already working in related areas on such exciting services as WebRTC for direct point to point, browser based video and voice collaboration that need no additional software or plugins and neat social messaging. These will begin to be introduced in the next round of development after the imminent ‘Judas Priest’ release (Ubuntu has animals, Debian has Toy Story so Zimbra have rock musicians!).

In other news…

Flossie

Flossie is the latest in 1960s computing. Weighing in at a mere 5 tons and taking up only 20′ x 23′ of desk space, Flossie was created in the 1960s to churn out University of London exam results. At the time she was innovative, using transistors instead of valves, which – believe it or not – made her smaller than previous computers and much less heat-generating. Her smaller size (!) made her much more viable for business. Eventually she ended up on a farm and was ultimately donated to the National Museum of Computing in Milton Keynes. Read the BBC article here.

Tech Review

Star S5

The Star S5 phone, supplied by OpenSureWhat toys have we been playing with recently? As well as S5 Android phones (more to come on those as they are *fab* and we’re going to have some corking offers on phones and accessories), we’ve been testing messaging software and have recently implemented the Zimbra feature ZPush.

 

Z-Push

OpenSure offers Zimbra emailGetting email, contacts and calendars to sync to your phone is something we have offered for a while using open standards like secured IMAP, Caldav and Carddav. To add to the options for some clients we have recently begun offering activesync-style push services on some of our Zimbra Platforms.

Using open source Z-Push services we have been trialling services with some clients for over 10 months and will soon be inviting more users to apply to be enabled for the service to test its wider use.

It delivers your email to your mobile device using the same connector as some other services such as MS Exchange. It is a little more restrictive but for some users it does enough to meet their needs or the limits of devices they use. It can increase battery drain, but many find it a familiar way to use access services. Drop support a message to find out if you can access Z-Push for your service.

What We Do

WordPress Plugins

WP_icon_big419x334If you’re a WordPress customer of ours, you’ll know we don’t give server space to just any old plugin, oh no. We test them, we review the support and we assess the functionality. When we’re satisfied that a plug-in isn’t buggy, is useful and isn’t going to have support withdrawn any time soon, then we’ll add it.

Once we’ve added it to our list of available plugins, we don’t forget all about it. We keep all offered plugins under review, and replace them if necessary. We’ll keep you up to date with the ups and downs of plugins, and of course be in touch directly if your site is affected. Don’t forget we offer premium plugins too, such as  iLetter, the newsletter plugin we’re using to create this newsletter.

Recruiting

OpenSure is looking for additional WordPress and Android developersTalking of WordPress, we’re looking for people with WordPress coding expertise. If that’s you and you’d be interested in working with us, please let us know.

We’re looking for Android developers too. Both these skill sets will help us bring to fruition some exciting projects and, we hope, build some long-lasting relationships with trusted partners.

Megan Baker House wish list

Megan Baker House is OpenSure's 2013 CharityOur charity for 2013 is Herefordshire’s own Megan Baker House, which provides FREE Conductive Education Services at its centre in Herefordshire for children, teenagers and adults with special educational needs and physical disabilities.

MBH has a wish list on its home page, listing all sorts of things from printer paper to screwdrivers. If you can help out please do. We recently donated a couple of SD cards, vital for recording the minute movements of children’s hands and feet as they undergo their therapy. A small donation on your part can make a huge difference.

If you have something nice to say…

Please say it! We’re gathering user comments, so if you like what we do, we’ve made a real difference or you just like us, please let us have a quote. We can credit you or not, your preference.