Tech Blog

It wasn't filled with high tech computer generated graphics.  It wasn't sexy or glitzy.  In fact, yesterday's best Super Bowl commercial wasn't a commercial at all.  It was the promo for David Letterman's show featuring Oprah and, amazingly, Jay Leno.  In case you didn't see the :15 second promo, here it is.  The Tribune's Phil Rosenthal has the story behind the production.

Parents try to put a leash on their texting teens and now that leash just got a whole lot shorter. The software is called CellSafety. It lets you monitor and control your child's texting in several ways.  In the car, GPS on the phone won't allow texting in a moving car, unless you say it's OK because you know your 14-year-old is not the driver. At school, GPS on the phone can set up a dead zone within your child's school -- no social texting, or texting to cheat on tests within that area. Every text is filtered through a database of 4,000 words and phrases. If it looks like your child is being solicited or bullied by text, or is involved in "sexting," you'll get an email and text that alerts you. If words like "meetup" or "hookup" show up in a text, for instance, you'll get a warning text that your child may need a little parental intervention. The program even goes beyond texting. You can be notified if your child is in a car that's driving too fast or if your child has traveled beyond a perimeter you set up. You even get notified if your child tries to disable the cell-safety software. "If you do try to uninstall it or turn off the GPS, it sends an alert message to the parent, or whoever set up the alert," says Travis Bond, Chief Operating Officer of WebSafety which sells the software. The price is $149 a year. It's like having a $12 per month insurance policy. CellSafety software is available now and works on many phones.  A similar system called Protector will be introduced this summer by the Taser Company.

Helpful links for this product and similar products:
WebSafety: http://websafety.com/
CellSafety reseller link: http://www.protectkidstoday.com/
Taser Protector link: http://www.protector.com/
izup: http://illumesoftware.com/products/
tXtBlocker: http://www.txtblocker.com/
Guardian Angel: http://www.guardianangeltech.com/
ZoomBak: http://www.zoombak.com/

Text4Baby is a great idea brought to you by the government, some non-profits, a bunch of corporate sponsors, and academic institutions.  The goal is to have better prenatal care for pregnant women and their babies and for healthier newborns.  You sign up by texting the word "baby" to 511411.  You'll get 6 texts the first week, and then 3 texts every week of your pregnancy.  After your baby is born the texts will continue through the first year.  The health tips are delivered on your cell phone for free, through the cooperation of the cellular industry.  Texting the tips is effective because about 90% of people in the US have cell phones. Learn more at Text4Baby.org.  Take a look at the piece we did on CBS 2.

9 months until the general election. 9 months of shaking hands, 9 months of kissing babies, 9 months of interrupting my dinner with robocalls!

 

Automated, recorded phone calls are illegal to make unless it's a business that has written permission to call you, a charity, a pollster, or, you guessed it...a politician.

 

If you don't like political robocalls, move to Indiana! It's one of the states that actually enforces a law against such calls, along with Minnesota, Oregon and Arkansas. Here’s an interactive map of states and their laws regarding telemarketing calls.  The problem is that not everybody enforces the law. At the urging of Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, Indiana political party leaders recently signed an informal agreement not to call voters!

 

As for the future of robocalls, the news I have for you is not good. They just keep getting cheaper to make, companies that do them can target you by zip code or political party, and they're spreading from your home phone to your cell phone.  That's a killer because it means that when you pick up the call it actually costs you money! 

 

What can you do to stop unwanted calls?  Not much.  You can block calls that don't come up with a caller ID, but most telemarketers deliver a number to your phone in order to bypass that. It’s still good to have an unlisted number and you shouldn’t freely give out your number.  Don’t list a phone number when you register to vote.  Contact the candidate's office and ask them not to call and, if they do call, request to be removed from their list.  You can also remove your phone from Google's phone directory-it's free.   There’s also an organization called stoppoliticalcalls.org. To get your number on the list is free but candidates have to request the list to use it and most politicians would rather just call.  If they want to honor your wishes not to phone, they can use the FTC's Do Not Call registry.

 

Finally, a study done by a couple of Yale University professors says, in most cases, robocalls do not work. The best campaigning is face-to-face, either with the candidate or with your friends and neighbors who are campaigning.

If you saw the Grammy salute to Les Paul last night on CBS, you saw a fantastic performance by Jeff Beck and Imelda May.  Les Paul did more than just bring us the solid body electric guitar.  Here's a great video of Les Paul and Mary Ford doing How High The Moon, along with Les' other little high-tech invention, multi-track recording.  It changed music recording as we knew it at the time.

Here are some interesting observations as news organizations, particularly newspapers and magazines, look for a way to slide readers into high tech devices.  Getting readers into e-reading is one problem, but getting them to pay for it is an even bigger one.

Thank you all for your notes regarding the end of the CBS 2 Morning News.  Many of you have asked what I'll be up to beginning next week.  First of all, I have Monday off!  Wow, a 3 day weekend!! I'll work the day shift Tue-Fri and the evening newscasts on Saturdays. You can catch me doing the weather on Saturdays and on some of our 11am newscasts (especially Thu + Fri). Yes, I still expect to be doing some tech stories for you and I'll post them here in the CBS 2 Tech Blog.  I look back on all the experiences I've had on the morning news since I joined WBBM-TV. So many memories. From incredible breaking news stories, really funny moments, and the terrible loss of our friend Randy Salerno. What a wonderful person, a great newsman...a great broadcaster in general. Susan Carlson, Roseanne Tellez and I reminisced about some of our morning show experiences yesterday. It has been such an important period in our careers. You'll still see Susan anchoring news updates during the new Monsters and Money in the Morning show.  Roseanne will be anchoring the 11am and reporting. This show has allowed me to work with some of the best people in Chicago television, including the many people you never see who work so hard behind the scenes to create a good newscast. Thanks for watching and for your emails and posts at my facebook.com/edcurran account.

Steve Jobs unveiled his latest "magical" device today.  It's called the iPad, a name I predicted on the air yesterday (patting myself on back), and it's a sleek and sexy device that redefines the tablet computer.  Like a giant iPhone, the new iPad has a 9.7 inch touch screen that uses a soft keyboard for input.  It runs the iPhone operating system on a speedy 1 Ghz chip.  Use it to browse the web, do E-mail, look at photos, watch video (even YouTube in HD), keep your calendar, navigate through maps, and listen to your music.  It's an e-reader as well and a good platform for both newspapers and books.  The screen size works well for reading with the ability to chance fonts and font size as well.  Zooming is accomlished in a way similar to the iPhone if you need to zoom and, if a newspaper has embedded video in it you can view it with just a touch.  Jobs gave a nod to the Kindle, as a pioneer in the ever-growing category, but the iPad can be a reader, in color, with loads of other capabilities, at a price that starts about $200 above the Kindle.  Remember that it was Jobs who originally scoffed at Kindle, saying people just didn't read anymore.  Game developers also showed off products on the new device, using hand gestures to control some elements of the games.  Like I said, it's a giant iPhone.  It also runs iPhone apps, but developers will soon turn out apps that take advantage of the iPad screen size.  One of the drawbacks of smartphones is the power consumption but the new iPad promises 10 hours of battery life.  Jobs says he can fly from San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole way on a single charge.  The standby time is pretty impressive as well...a month!  The new iPad weighs 1.5 pounds and is just a half inch thin.  It's WiFi enabled with AT&T 3G available. The data plan is either 250MB per month for $15 or unlimted data for $30, just like the iPhone.  Free use of At&T hotspots.  No contracts. Sign up and leave as you like with activations handled through iTunes.  The device is unlocked so, if a carrier uses the new micro SIM then you can use it there. WiFi versions will be available in late March, with 3G versions available a month later.  The WiFi-only iPad will start with 16 GB at $499, 32 GB will cost you $599 and 64 GB for $699. For the 3G version, add $130.  So the one I want will sell for $829.  That, my friends, is some pretty aggressive pricing.

 

Could this be Steve Jobs' big announcement?  The new CBS2 iPhone app.  News, sports, weather, entertainment, videos, and the ability to tweet a favorite story by just touching a button.  Let's hope that the iSlate, the iPad, the iRead....whatever it's called, operates like an iPhone and runs all your apps!  Check out our new, free, app in the app store.  Just search for CBS 2..

The Zune may contain some elements of the next iPhone/iPod Touch. The Zune's AMOLED screen and really great features like HD radio, and HD video, raised the bar quite a bit.  Along with a tablet computer this Wednesday, Apple could use the event to also announce that it's done a little bar-raising of its own when it comes to its media players and iPhone.  We anxiously await.