Shelly Palmer’s Daily Radio Report

I’ve had my Nokia Windows Phone Lumia 900 for a couple of weeks now and I have to say, I like it way more than I thought I would.  Just like many of you, my company uses Microsoft Office and the new Lumia 900 has absolutely flawless integration with Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, Word, Excel and the rest of the Microsoft Office suite.  Web browsing in 4G on its 4.3-inch, AMOLED screen is an absolute pleasure and the phone is made of a very tough polycarbonate plastic that feels great in your hand.  If you’re a gamer, you’ll really like the Xbox Live integration and the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system is growing on me. And, for you geeks out there, while the Lumia 900 looks underpowered on paper, I was delighted by its speed and power.  If you’re a Windows person, for $99 with the obligatory 2-year AT&T contract, this is a smartphone should take a serious look at.

Online education is nothing new.  There are lots of for-profit institutions that offer college courses over the Internet – but a new interactive online learning system created by two Stanford University computer scientists may change everything.  Coursera offers free college level courses in partnership with some extremely prestigious institutions of higher learning, including: Stanford, UC Berkeley, Michigan, Penn and Princeton.  What’s the new part? Well, last fall, a free course taught by Stanford’s Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, attracted more than 160,000 students from 190 countries.  The free course launched an intense debate at Stanford, where tuition is over $40,000 per year. Ultimately, the 22,000 students who finished the course received “certificates of completion” rather than credit towards a degree.  But these are early days.  If you want to start your free college education, you have some great options.  Besides Coursera, you can take free online classes at Udacity, Minerva, Udemy, and even MIT.  Is going to college online for free the future of education? It sure beats student loans.

A Canadian Justin Bieber impersonator has been accused of threatening and sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl here in the United States. Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said that 34-year-old Lee Moir of Toronto, pretended to be Justin Bieber on Facebook then threatened to harm the girl’s family in order to force her to perform sex acts online. He was arrested and charged in with luring, manufacturing child pornography and extortion after an undercover Canadian officer posed as a 14-year-old girl online.  So how could this have been prevented?  Surely there’s some technology that her parents could have used.  Nope. In fact, using any kind of software to monitor your kids is a really bad idea because the software will lull you into a false sense of security. The only way to prevent cyber-stalkers and online predators from endangering your children is to personally monitor your children’s online activities, then set boundaries and constantly talk to them about cyber-safety.  It’s the only way to truly protect your kids.

Believe it or not, Hulu has been around for five years.  But the big news is that its $8-a-month Hulu Plus service just topped 2 million subscribers.  This week, Hulu is going to pitch advertisers on something really new – original programming.  You know Hulu from its humble beginnings as the best place to watch network television content on the Internet, but now Hulu is going to try its hand at the most difficult game in town – selling a new series that will only premier on Hulu online.  Jason Kilar, Hulu’s CEO recently said, “If we’re really on our game, people will look back on it and will say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe TV was like that in 2007’.”  Of course, he is referring to the online experience he helped create.  And, Jason’s right, Hulu is a great place to watch network tv content online.  But, will Hulu’s original content be equally great?  Can Hulu compete in a world with Comcast Xfinity, Netflix and dozens of other online video competitors?

Best Buy has disclosed the locations of the 50 stores it will be closing. The world’s largest specialty electronics chain will close seven locations in California, six in Illinois, six in Minnesota and even one way uptown New York City.  In a statement, Best Buy said, “This wasn’t an easy decision to make … we chose the stores carefully, and are working to ensure the impact to our employees will be as minimal as possible.” Best Buy said most of the stores will close by May 12, with three locations closing later this summer. There is no word on how many employees will be laid off, but Best Buys says that the workers will be notified Saturday and will be offered severance packages.  Is this the beginning of the end for Best Buy?  Some say it can’t possibly survive with people shopping in the stores and purchasing online.  But others believe that this cost cutting move will make Best Buy stronger. Visit shellypalmer.com for more information.

If you Muggles are thinking that Harry Potter is over, think again.  Now there’s Pottermore.com, a free website developed by J.K. Rowling to apperate you directly in to the magical world of Harry Potter (even if you’re an underaged wizard).  It’s filled with new writings, games and a whole host of social tools.  Ms. Rowling says that, at Pottermore , “The digital generation will be able to enjoy a safe, unique online reading experience built around the Harry Potter books.”  I signed up, and the sorting hat assigned me to a house at Hogwarts. And, of course, when I went to get my wand, I didn’t really have a choice, as you know, the wand chooses the wizard.  Just remember anything worth having is worth waiting for, after you request your username, it may take up to a day to receive your login credentials.  But once you get to Hogwarts, it will feel like home.  You’ll meet up with all of your magical and muggle friends for some great fun at Pottermore.com.

People with Macs don’t have to worry about computer viruses.  Well, that’s not true, but it’s what most people thought until last week, when a nasty Trojan called Flashback infected about 600,000 Macs worldwide. Flashback is a form of malware designed to grab passwords and other information from your computer, through your Web browser and a few other applications.  Even if you don’t think your Mac is infected, you should run Apple’s security update to protect your computer and your personal information.  The update is available on your computer right now. Go to the Apple menu on your Mac, select “Software Update” and follow the directions.  This is an important software update and you should absolutely take the time to do it.  You’re specifically looking for a program called  Java for OS X 2012-003, even it you don’t run any other updates, make sure you run this one.  If this update from Apple does not solve your problem, visit shellypalmer.com where you’ll find links to software from F-Secure and Kaspersky Lab that will detect and remove the Flashback virus from your Mac.

Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up … but I don’t have to worry because my kitchen floor is going to save me.  Well, at least that what would happen if my kitchen floor was built using some newly patented technology from IBM.  The smart kitchen floor invented by IBM will be able to track the who and what is on it and even be able to sense if you’ve fallen and you can’t get up.  In fact, the monitors in this futuristic floor will even know if you’re having a heart attack or other types of health issues.  IBM’s patent also claims that the invention will alert you if there are intruders, or simply too many teenagers in your kitchen when you’re not home.  When will IBM’s smart floor be available?  Actually, the company has no plans to create the product, it just a random invention that IBM decided to patent.  But, you have to admit, a smart kitchen floor sounds awesome!

Best Buy Chief Executive Brian Dunn has stepped down while Best Buy’s board conducts a probe into his “personal conduct.” So far they say the investigation is unrelated to the company’s operations or financial controls – which is good news, because just recently Best Buy announced that is will be closing 50 of its 1,450 Big Box, US stores. Even though these events are unrelated, Mr. Dunn’s departure can’t be good for Best Buy and probably won’t get it any closer to a good anti-showrooming strategy. What’s showrooming? It’s what the retail industry calls it when you walk into a Best Buy, look around the showroom, see an item, then use your mobile phone or computer to buy it online at a lower price – it’s costing Best Buy, big time. Visit shellypalmer.com and check out my article called Transparency vs. Information Asymmetry. It will help you understand how showrooming will affect every retail business, including yours.

Would you buy Instagram, the second largest photo site on the Internet for a billion dollars?  Facebook did.  Considering that they can never make back the billion dollars Instagram will cost, what could have possessed Mark Zuckerberg and company to buy it?  Well, this is an easy one.  People upload about 250,000,000 digital photos to Facebook each day, and Instagram is the next most popular photosharing site. With this acquisition, Facebook now completely owns the photo sharing market – no one else comes close.  Want a point of comparison? Instagram has a dozen or so employees and they are going to divide up about $100,000,000 from this sale. Kodak has about 17,000 employees and recently filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. Anyway, Facebook says that it plans to run Instagram as a separate business so you’ll still be able to use Instagram with other social networks like Twitter – which is great if you like to filter your digital photos so they look like you took them in 1970.