Archive for June 27th, 2008:
SNIFF your Facebook friends
Fortunately, this has nothing to do with smelling your friends over the Internet, as many of my friends tend to be unwashed computer geeks. No, SNIFF stands for Social Network Integrated Friend Finder, which is a service that allows you to use your cell phone or other portable devices equipped with GPS to track your friends’ locations in the real world (with their permission). The idea is that your cell phone would alert you when one of your friends was nearby, so that you could meet up with them. You wouldn’t even need to call them to ask them where they are, as you’d have a map directly to their location. While the concept is interesting, I have to wonder if people would really want their friends tracking their movements or knowing where they are at all times. One application I could see this being used for, however, is by parents wanting to keep tabs on their children.
Jun. 3 – The Social Network Integrated Friend Finder is a permission-based service that allows friends to find each other in the real world.
The service is billed as a safe and convenient way to connect with online friends in the offline world. But do people really want their friends to SNIFF them?
Nintendo DS goes to school
Japanese schools have the right idea. Rather than punish our children for their interest in handheld video games, why not take advantage of their interest and produce games that are fun and educational? I’m sure many adults from my generation have fond memories of learning geography and history from the Carmen Sandiego series of PC games. There’s no reason why that concept wouldn’t be valid today. The games should be tested by parents first, however, because if parents find them boring, their children will find them intolerable. We shouldn’t force children to endure anything we wouldn’t inflict on ourselves. The whole idea is to make learning fun. Cable networks like Animal Planet and The Discovery Channel have mastered this but educational video games are much more hit and miss in the entertainment department.
June 27 – Nintendo games are banned in most Japanese schools, but its DS console is becoming the latest Japanese teaching tool.
Teacher Motoko Okubo uses the handheld DS and textbook software and says after years of Super Mario Bros. and other games on the prohibited list, students weren’t expecting Nintendo in class.