Systems are starting to link directly to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Home control manufacturers are not just present on social networks; they’ll incorporate aspects of how you use such sites into your systems.

You’ve just downloaded a great song from Rhapsody onto your music server. You’d like to recommend it to your circle of friends, so you jump on Facebook and post your opinion. Your kids just got home from school, and just as you’ve instructed them, they tweet you to let you know they’re okay. Social networking has forever changed the way we communicate, and manufacturers of home control systems are starting to bring bits and pieces of the technology into their products.

Control4, for example, plans to make available to consumers downloadable applications for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr.
“They’ll be able to access these sites directly from their home control touchscreens and other interfaces,” says Jeff Dugan, vice president for product management. “On an even higher level, the control system will be able to communicate certain things about your home automatically, like sending you a tweet when a security sensor notices that the kids have arrived home from school. Or there might be an app that would allow certain security cameras to take snapshots (like of a party at your pool) and post them on Facebook.”

Control4 expects a number of social networking apps to be available through its 4Store online app store this year, so keep your eyes peeled. Home control manufacturer Crestron reports that a number of custom electronics professionals have started to incorporate social networking features into its high-end home control system.

“We’ve seen them use it so that when, for example, you’ve just downloaded The Hurt Locker the system will automatically send out a tweet.”
One manufacturer that’s been offering social networking as part of its technology package for awhile is Sonos. The company’s S5 wireless whole-house music system integrates Twitter, which enables users to send the name and artist of the track they’re currently playing to friends on their network directly from the system’s handheld remote.

Source : www.electronichouse.com

The EU ‘cyber security’ Agency - ENISA (the European Network and Information Security Agency) today presents a new report on accessing social networks over mobile phones, ‘Online as soon as it happens“. The report points out the risks and threats of mobile social networking services, e.g. identity theft, corporate data leakage and reputation risks of mobile social networks. The report also gives 17 ‘golden rules’ on how to combat these threats.

Online Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have had an exceptional growth trend on Internet. 211Mn users (out of 283 Mn) in Europe use SNS, and, primarily, Facebook in 11/17 countries studied. The modern way of staying in touch with business or personal contacts is through SNS and other digital tools. Consequently, the ways people meet, share opinions, communicate information and ideas is changing. With growing popularity of SNS, the demand for instant, continuous access over the mobile phone has increased-i.e. mobile social networks (MSN). More than 65 Mn users now access the social network Facebook over their mobile device. MSN users are 50% more active than non-mobile users, and are estimated to be 134 Mn in Europe by 2012.

Many MSN users also use their phone as a backup device for business mails, personal data, contacts, pictures, and access codes. As a consequence, a lost mobile phone can cause serious damage, e.g. when illegitimately used to access MSNs. Many mobile phones come pre-packaged at purchase, with built in MSN applications i.e. ‘on-deck’ services.
Several stories from Italy, France, Spain, Greece, UK, witness that many SNS/MSN users are largely unaware of security risks, privacy issues and threats related to misuse of the information put online in an SNS and of proper online privacy protection. A number of unique MSN risks/threats are identified in the report. The ENISA report gives an overview of the situation and underlines that in particular MSN users need awareness on how to safer use social networks on a mobile phone to avoid unexpected and damaging consequences. Risks include identity theft, and serious damage to personal or corporate reputation, or data leakage.
Two samples case studies:

• Fake profile on Facebook. A professor at Turin University discovered someone else had created a profile for him at Facebook with offensive features, affecting his reputation.
• Data leakage/corporate reputation. After a 2008 incident, Virgin Atlantic airlines later dismissed 13 staff members who had posted comments on Facebook which e.g. criticised the cleanliness of the company’s fleet and of its passengers. Similarly, British Airlines check-in staff at Gatwick posted messages on Facebook saying e.g. travellers were ‘smelly’ and criticised the chaotic operations at Heathrow.

The paper includes 17 practical ‘golden rules’. Samples include:

- Remember to log out from the social network once your navigation is over.
- Do not to allow the social network to remember your password (this function is called ‘Auto-complete’).
- Do not mix your business contacts with your friend contacts.
- Report immediately stolen/lost mobile phone with contacts, pictures, or personal data in its memory
- Set the profile privacy level properly.

Read in Fast Company, and interesting to think about in relation to domotics etc.

Health care is a personal issue that has become wholly public--as the national debate over reforming our system makes painfully clear. But what's often lost in the gun-toting Town Hall debates about the issue is a clear vision about how medicine could work in the future. In this feature article, frog design uses its people-centered design discipline to show how elegant health and life science technology solutions will one day become a natural part of our behavior and lifestyle. What you see here is the result of frog's ongoing collaboration with health-care providers, insurers, employers, consumers, governments, and technology companies.

You can join the conversation too: this Thursday October 8 at noon eastern, frog will hold a discussion about the future of health care on Twitter (follow the hash tag #futureofhealthcare). You can also download a .pdf version of this article.

Klick here for the complete article on Fast Company.

Zero in on what your peers are watching and say goodbye to long, fruitless EPG and Internet TV searches.


IPTV World Forum , Olympia, London - Neptuny and TVBLOB announce "BLOBwise", the first Social TV Recommendation System for over-the-top IPTV. Based on Neptuny's ContentWise engine, "BLOBwise" along with a Telsey BLOBbox radically change what's possible on TV: users expand their range of content options including EPG, podcasts, pay-per-view VOD, and other Internet TV channels and services, plus experience never before possible social interactivity on TV. The potential of the recommendation engine will be demonstrated at IPTV World Forum London (25-27 March).

"We are very happy to work with Neptuny because of their visionary approach in applying the spirit of the Internet to TV," says Fabrizio Caffarelli, TVBLOB CEO and founder. "They go beyond uni-directional recommendations that are based only on a user's taste and history and integrate new Web 2.0 social media possibilities. In fact, BLOBwise also leverages a user's social networks to provide suggestions of relevant content highlighted by friends and family; privacy is protected by considering just relationships and ignoring sensitive data."

TVBLOB integrated the ContentWise technology in the BLOBbox middleware, making it accessible to a whole new range of TV-centric consumer electronics devices that promise average television viewers new freedom in using their televisions by letting them directly tap into the explosion of content and services available on the Internet.

"Once the richness of Internet arrives directly on TV (and BLOBbox is making this possible), the challenge for users will quickly become how to find and discover what's most relevant and interesting to them", says Fabio Violante, Neptuny CEO. "ContentWise works transparently in the background, processing only relevant data and providing personalized recommendations available on the television screen. It's a great way to streamline the content discovery process and a whole new way to experience TV."

Content recommendation applications that leverage Facebook and BLOBwise are planned to be publicly availabile this summer . TVBLOB has released a free, open source SDK available at BLOBforge, an Open Source TV Development Community that lets developers invent new services for TV while using standard web technologies like Java, Ajax, HTML and open Web technologies.

The BLOBbox is available for purchase now from TecnologieCreative at in Italy or directly on the BLOBbox website. It requires a standard television with analog or HDMI input and a broadband connection.

The technology can be used on other platforms as well.