Alec Saunders SquawkBox

The US Congress’ decision to muck with daylight savings time has IT managers running panicked.  Engadget warns:

Smartphone users are particularly vulnerable since they need to update both their phone and computer in order to keep their schedules events on time.

Y2K?  Perhaps not.  But just in case, if you’re a Blackberry owner point your browser at http://www.blackberry.com/DST2007/patch/index.shtml to download the RIM patch.

Further proving the point that mobile devices are becoming the preferred data terminals of the future, Nokia has released Nokia Mobile Search, allowing you to search for content on your handset.  Targeted at Nokia’s high end customer, this applet is for Nokia N95, Nokia N93i, Nokia N93, Nokia N92, Nokia N91, Nokia N91 8GB, Nokia N80 Internet Edition, Nokia N80, Nokia N76, Nokia N73 Music Edition, Nokia N71, Nokia E70, Nokia E62, Nokia E61, Nokia E60 and Nokia 3250.  In other words, any of their late model phones with substantial storage on board.  Once again, it looks as if the N90 is becoming an afterthought, however.

Download it here.

Picking through my list of favorite bloggers this morning, I came across Jeff Pulver’s Understanding the Say Everything Generation, which is commentary on a New York Times feature from February 12, titled Say Everything.  The gist?  Today’s kids are different — uninhibited in what they say and do online, they’re forging a new kind of relationship reality that recognizes we have no privacy, and embraces openness on a scale never before seen.

Meh…. it makes good journalism, but I’m not sure that it’s really true.  Yes, with MySpace and the like, it’s happening on a scale which has never been seen before but doesn’t anyone remember:

• The usenet? Mid 1980’s.  You could regularly find people discussing their personal lives, and making friends online in the alt tree.
• The early text MUDS and MOOS?  I know more than a few people who met online, and got married in meatspace later.
• The Compuserve boards of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
• The WELL

And what about the books that were written?  Schuler’s New Community Networks, Whittle’s Cyberspace, Tapscott’s Growing Up Digital, and Rheingold’s Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier are just a few of the books that I can see by swivelling my chair in my office. 

Don’t be misled by the NY Times.  The ”Say Everything” generation is a 20 year arc, finally reaching its peak.  It didn’t start yesterday.