Is the Use of Mobile Technology like a Cult? Ever Notice how People looking at their Smartphones can look like moments of Prayer

CNET has a post on Bono saying Apple is like a religious cult.

As Adweek reports, Bono puts Apple's behavior down to it being "like a religious cult."

It might strike some as odd that a man who wanders around the world offering a fair degree of righteousness, bordering on sanctimoniousness, compares someone else to a religious cult.

Still, it's a criticism that's been tossed at Apple before. The notion that it looks upon itself as a belief system, rather than a corporate one, is not so hard to embrace.

In 2011, British neuroscientists declared that the brain of an Apple fanperson isn't dissimilar to that of a religious devotee.

In 2012, anthropologist Kirsten Bell described an Apple event as "littered with sacred symbols, especially the iconic Apple sign itself."

Instead of focusing on Apple, the use of smartphones looks like more of a religion.

The definitions of religion could be used to describe the use of technology.

: an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods

: an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group

Just like no one understands god, most people have no idea how their smartphone works and the back-end Cloud infrastructure.  It just works.  God-like. :-)

Sometimes it looks like people are in moments of worship, engaged with their smartphones.

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Check this image out someone created of Steve Jobs.

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Adding Cell Network to a Helicopter can help you find People

Mobile devices are the electronic device people carry more than anything else, but when you have no cel coverage your device is only as good as the stuff you have downloaded that doesn’t require a data connection.

Someone asked the question what if you could be a Cell Network in a helicopter?  You can’t provide cell coverage, but you can find people who are lost.  Range Networks posts on this idea in Iceland.

That is what you get with coast guard helicopters flying about with an OpenBTS-based solution on board, scouring the Icelandic highlands for (extremely) lost souls during large-scale search & rescue missions.

Rögg of Reykjavik, led by technical director Baldvin Hansson, has created a complete system using OpenBTS and Range's SDR1 for a helicopter-mounted network which can pick up cell phone signals up to 35 km away, map them on iPad tablets, and lead the crew to swoop in and rescue someone while the up to 500-person search party is still pulling on its boots. They call it Norris for short, the Norris Positioning System officially. (But nothing to do with GPS - they use the timing advance value from the GSM connection to map the location.)

It's not just faster, it's better -- they used to fly around and...look! Any rain, snow or fog usually meant nothing to see, so they would ground the Super Puma helicopter and send everybody slogging. Now they have a tool which makes a fast rescue under even inclement conditions possible.

Wired posts on how an OpenBTS cel network can be a small fraction of a proprietary solution.

Range has already brought GSM service–the same type of network that carries voice calls and text messages elsewhere in the world–to Macquarie Island, a small island just outside the Antarctic Circle. This is preferable to walkie talkies or Wi-Fi because it provides wider coverage while using less energy. And although the network has a satellite uplink to connect it with the rest of the world, it doesn’t depend on satellites for local communications, which is essential to the safety of field researchers.

GSM networks like the one on the island usually cost about a million dollars to build, says Range Networks CEO Ed Kozel. But Range is able to bring the technology to Antarctica for just a few thousand dollars using an open source platform called OpenBTS, short for Open Base Transceiver Station. All you need to run a GSM network with OpenBTS is radio software and an off-the-shelf Linux server. “The legacy infrastructures are why most operators are so expensive to run, but we took a clean slate approach,” Kozel explains.

When Geeks are Your Early Adopters, You Inherit their Sharing of its Use

Apple is rumored to be buying Beats.  Beats has focused on its image from the beginning getting the influentials in music, sports and other areas to be seen wearing Beats.

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Google Glass has hired a leading designer to lead its effort to save Glass.

Here’s the World-Class Designer Google Just Hired to Save Glass

Google has been putting a lot of effort into making Google Glass seem like a fashionable device and not a vaguely creepy gadget for geeks. The wholesome Mother’s Day ad was a solid first step. Now, the company is handing the reins to a master designer and marketer who will be tasked with making Glass appealing to the masses.

But, consider that the most famous Google Glass image is this one of Robert Scoble.

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Demo'ing Mobile Software with Samsung Devices on the Mac

If you use Samsung devices most of the software was Windows only.  I could run the Samsung Software on Windows running in Parallels.  But finally Samsung has released the Mac version of SideSync.  What’s SideSync?  It allows you to share the Mobile screen to your PC/Mac screen with keyboard and mouse control.

Originally SideSync was a Samsung PC feature, but you can now download the apps for your non-Samsung devices.

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With SideSync I can now demo mobile software with video conferencing software that shares a desktop.  This is so much easier than trying to grab screen shots or be in person with a mobile device.  My favorite video conferencing is Fuze.  Thanks to Chris Crosby.

Here is a screen shot from my Mac with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 screen shared.

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Facebook's Mobile-Only Users out number Desktop-Only

TechCrunch has a post highlighting the fact that Facebook’s Mobile-Only users out number Desktop-Only.  Now, when I build a service I try to go mobile-only, then think about how to support the Desktop users who are consumers.

The old world was desktops were for creating content, then mobile was for consuming.  For some services it has flipped.  Mobile is for content creation and desktop is for consuming the content created by a mobile user.

Facebook In The Age Of Mobile-Only

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Just 21% (268 million) of Facebook’s users access the service from desktop-only, and both that percentage and number are falling as Facebook grows, according to new stats fromFacebook’s Q1 2014 earnings report this week. Meanwhile Facebook’s mobile-only user countis now at 341 million, or 26.7% of its total userbase, and those figures are quickly climbing.

What this means is that if a Facebook feature doesn’t exist on mobile, it’s becoming less and less relevant.