Shelly Palmer chats about the wireless spectrum deficit, RIM’s overdue update to the PlayBook tablet and Barnes & Noble’s newest Nook Tablet on Fox 5 News at 10.

Wireless Spectrum Deficit

United States is running out of one its most valuable technological resources: wireless spectrum. The wireless capacity for cellphones, data plans and the like is expected to hit a usage deficit by next year. Wireless carriers are blaming the deficit on the exponential increase in smartphone and tablet usage. Read the full article at CNN.com

RIM PlayBook

Research in Motion released a major update to the Blackberry PlayBook tablet. The software update includes email functionality and the ability to install Android apps. Frankly, these are fairly basic features that should have been included in the PlayBook’s launch. Yes, BlackBerry is really playing catch-up. Read the full article at WSJ.com

Nook Tablet

Barnes & Noble announced a cheaper version of the Nook Tablet. It’s goal is to better compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire. For $200, Barnes & Noble is offering an 8GB version the Nook Tablet, which, as you know, runs a modified version of Google’s Android operating system. If you like to buy e-books from Barnes & Noble, the Nook Tablet is a good choice. If you prefer to buy your books from Amazon, it’s Kindle all the way. Read the full article at PCWorld.com

Augmented Reality

By the end of the year you’ll be able to wear glasses that give you a heads-up display, Terminator style. Google is making glasses that use a 3G/4G network, a small camera and GPS to overlay a digital display on the lenses. The glasses are expected to cost around the same price as a smartphone. Read the full article at NYTimes.com

United States is running out of one its most valuable technological resources: wireless spectrum. The wireless capacity for cellphones, data plans and the like is expected to hit a usage deficit by next year. Wireless carriers are blaming the deficit on the exponential increase in smartphone and tablet usage. In other news, Research in Motion released a major update to the Blackberry PlayBook tablet. The software update includes email functionality and the ability to install Android apps. Frankly, these are fairly basic features that should have been included in the PlayBook’s launch. Yes, BlackBerry is really playing catch-up. And finally, Barnes & Noble announced a cheaper version of the Nook Tablet. It’s goal is to better compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire. For $200, Barnes & Noble is offering an 8GB version the Nook Tablet, which, as you know, runs a modified version of Google’s Android operating system. If you like to buy e-books from Barnes & Noble, the Nook Tablet is a good choice. If you prefer to buy your books from Amazon, it’s Kindle all the way.

Some tactics never die

Marketers are rehashing that old formula, forcing people to ‘like’ the brand before they can see any content. Brands and agencies continue to be obsessed with aggregating as many ‘Likes’ as possible. In the beginning it was done through other marketing channels, social games and apps installations. Increasingly, this has been replaced by using the ‘Like’ click as the price of entry to interact with content or get special offers.

Wasn’t social about conversations, engagement and long-term benefits?

Social Media was this big party where we can interact in transparent and authentic ways, right? We didn’t like the screamer that just yelled at us. Or the “Look-at-me-guy”, right? Last time I checked, those are as annoying as the people I need to endorse on LinkedIn or praise them publicly before we can start to talk. Don’t I deserve a chance to explore what they’re all about before I endorse them to all my friends?

Don’t mistake a “like” for an endorsement

Studies show that 58% of US Facebook users expect to gain access to exclusive content, events or sales after “liking” a company, while 58% also expect to receive discounts or promotions. More insightful is what Facebook customers don’t want: Bombardment with messages (54%), access to profile information (45%), pushing things into friends’ newsfeeds (31%) and companies contacting them through Facebook (29%).

We all have busy lives. We can’t “like” every brand, we don’t have enough time and bandwidth. Does it make sense to “like” everything that’s in my closet, office, living room, garage and shopping mall?

Exactly.

The forced “like” tactic might be a good choice for brand advocates. But, they are already on your side.

Wouldn’t you rather start a conversation with people that have no defined feelings toward your brand, winning them over? You’re forced “like” tactic might just result in the opposite.

After waiting twelve hours for my invitation (one does not simply sign up for Pinterest) I arrived at the sign in page to find this:

I was annoyed to learn you can only sign up if you choose to connect to your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts, which I have no interest in doing.  On the Facebook front, I don’t want to spam my friends’ newsfeeds or have Pinterest suggest I follow that girl that I haven’t seen in 15  years.  I also don’t want to hand Facebook an easy way to know even more stuff about me.  On the Twitter front, I almost exclusively follow news organizations and comedians and if I want to see if one of them has a Pinterest account, I will check for myself, thank you.

After whining for two minutes, I gave in.  I signed up using my Facebook account and disabled the connection as soon as I could, but not before Pinterest posted to my timeline a group of people that I unintentionally followed during the sign up process.

My point is this:  Among users of Facebook who’ve been on the site for several years, there is a growing amount of dissatisfaction.  I would argue that they are on it because it’s still better than not being a part of the largest social network, but that increasingly, users don’t know what to do when they get there.  After a few recent changes, I no longer understand why certain posts from certain people show up on my newsfeed in the order that they do, and when the posts I see are things like “Guy you met once at a party just read ‘Dow Closes at 4-Year High’ on WSJ” and I can’t click the link to the news story because I don’t have the WSJ app, I care less and less about returning to Facebook multiple times a day to see what’s going on with my friends.

Based on the amount that the people I actually care about are posting (i.e. hardly at all) I’d say others are feeling the same way.

While brands probably think it’s great that I see their name ten times a day on my feed and believe it’s an excellent plan to get me to interact with them, I mostly just feel annoyed by looking at things I don’t want to see. I am irked by the feeling that I’m allowing Facebook to know more and more about me by letting them see what I do on other sites.  As Shelly says in his blog “Google = Skynet … Yikes!,” it’s not because I think they’re doing anything bad with the information… yet.  But my instinct is to opt out where I can and increasingly, I can’t.  I don’t want to live in an Internet so fluid that information spills over everywhere in a way that I can’t easily trace or understand.

What about you?  Are you tired of seeing things on your Facebook newsfeed from other sites?  Do you like having your online accounts connected? How do you see this changing and how do you want it to change?

I’ve seen grown adults cry, throw hissy fits, even violently throw their pieces of personal technology at the floor (pro tip: this helps nothing). There’s no sense in losing your mind, when you’ve already lost control of your device; these things happen and it’s important to keep your cool when they inevitably do.

Dealing with technological disruptions and disasters requires both foresight and composure—things that are easier said than done, but important all the same.

Having a backup of your data helps to mitigate the circumstances beyond your control. Repair costs and missed deadlines are bad enough; these are separate, anxiety-inducing issues that don’t need the added stress of having lost your entire digital existence. The mechanisms for backing up—whether to an external drive or cloud-based service—have been made so accessible, there is literally no excuse for data loss. NASA put a man on the moon, the least you could do is back up your data.

When you experience technical difficulties, it is important to remember that only one of these two things can be true: you’re doing something wrong OR these are circumstances beyond your control. That said, it’s important not to assault yourself, your device(s), or anyone else. Instead, you can follow these steps to technological zen:

1. Turn it off and on — This is troubleshooting 101, you’d be amazed how often this works.

2. Google — If it is user error, then it’s vital to read whatever error messages you encounter and change your behavior accordingly. Don’t be afraid to type your problem into Google; if you ask your tech savvy friend, neighbor or nephew for help, this will be one of the first things they do, so have the common courtesy to at least attempt it for yourself.

3. Whine a little — If your Googling has yielded no relief or the thing won’t even function enough for you to Google at all, maybe this actually is a circumstance beyond your control. At this point it’s acceptable for you to complain and maybe make some weird noises, but it’s best to do this by yourself just to get it out of your system. This may sound like weird advice, but it’ll help you keep it together.

4. Wait it out — Servers go down, weird things happen, sometimes all you have to do it wait. Do your dishes, throw a load of laundry in the wash, go for a walk, whatever you have to do to make you stop pressing buttons and making matters worse for 15 minutes.

5. Consult a professional — Make a Genius Bar appointment, call your IT guy (or lady), and above all, be nice!  Remember, they are trying to help you.

Whatever it is, it’s important to remember to breathe; whatever you were doing cannot possibly be important enough to cause a grown adult to freak out like a wild monkey who has awaken to find himself in captivity. So keep calm and compute on.

Internet Explorer

Microsoft claims that similarly to Apple’s Safari browser, Google is also bypassing security settings in Internet Explorer to track users. The tracking cookies being installed on users’ computers helps Google serve you ads and customized content. It’s very probable that Google isn’t the only company doing this. Read the full article at arstechnica.com