The Network Podcast

Twitchy because you haven’t checked Facebook in a while? Then you could be in Fear of Missing Out… and that smartphone in your pocket isn’t helping. By Jason Deign We’ve all experienced the scene. A family gathering, a group of friends, in a bar or a restaurant. All chatting. But not to each other. Instead, they sit hunched over their mobile phones, interacting with people far away and ignoring those by their side. What drives this strange behavior? Recent studies in psychology have found many of us have a condition called Fear of Missing Out, or FoMO. It’s described as ‘a worry that friends and important others may be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.’ Such worries have always been around, and in earlier times probably accounted for our tendency to spy on the neighbors or gossip about colleagues at work. With the rise of social media, though, a couple of things changed. First, we suddenly had access to a lot more information about our nearest and dearest. Today you rarely need to ask your friends about their vacations; chances are you will have seen their snaps on Instagram before they’ve even returned. Second, you never knew when new information might come in. While water-cooler conversations can be predicted in advance, a Tweet or a Facebook update can arrive at any time. The rapid-fire, unpredictable nature of updates is what gives social media much of its allure. But it feeds right into FoMO, as well. “Social media has lowered the cost of admission for knowing about the things we could be doing,” says Andrew Przybylski, research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute in the United Kingdom, and the leading authority on FoMO. “It sets up an easier space for us to know we are not having the maximum experience.” But at least in the early days of social media you still had to be online to get your hit of other people’s action. That meant being in front of a computer with an Internet connection. Now, thanks to smartphones and other mobile devices, you can check on other peoples’ activity all the time. And sometimes it’s hard not to. “Previously, if things were going on someone would have to call you or you would have to turn on the television,” Przybylski says. “The way a lot of things are set up now is that they will intrude in the here and now to tell you things. “We are in a space where people haven’t quite learned yet how to regulate it. The affordance of getting all this great information comes with the cost of having to learn a new cognitive skill.” This sounds like pretty bad news for good old-fashioned face-to-face interactions. But Przybylski thinks that what is happening is actually a chance to master technology in order to lead more enriching and fulfilling lives. If we can cut through social media’s background noise, for example, we can use location-based mobile technology services to find friends and family nearby, giving us more opportunities to meet in person. Whereas traditional social media use can exacerbate FoMO, mastering it in this way could help overcome the fear. If you lead a richer life you are less likely to feel you are missing out. Ultimately, Przybylski believes, FoMO “is not a bad thing. It’s a chance for someone to think: ‘what are the things I am most afraid of missing?’ And that leads to the question: ‘What do I really want?’”

#47: Education Tech Startups by The Network Podcast

#46 Investing For Impact In Ontario by The Network Podcast

Canada has the world’s fastest growth rate for smartphone adoption, and boasts the third-highest penetration rate globally. At the end of 2012, smartphone penetration in Canada reached 62% of the total mobile phone population – compared to just over 50% in the US, according to ComScore. What’s more, Canadians are rapid adopters of mobile payments and video. Some 37% of Canadian smartphone users regularly watch video on their mobile devices, while just 2% of US smartphone users do so.

Blackberry's woes may be dominating the headlines—after losing market share to Apple and Android-based phones, the smartphone pioneer is reported to be preparing for more layoffs, and is undergoing a strategic review that could result in a sale or breakup of the company. It will certainly be a hit to the community in the company's hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, but the tech community there has been busy building the next billion-dollar company.

Fundraising Goes Mobile: Goodbye Checkbook, Hello Tablet A look at how tablets and smartphones are replacing checkbooks and clipboards.

Fourth-generation technology is transforming the mobile industry. So what will it do in Africa, which has already itself been transformed by mobile?

If we were to cultivate and fully embrace a world where scientists, technologists, and developers could openly and freely collaborate and concentrate on rapidly prototyping solutions for environmental and social problems, we’d be reveling in a scientific utopia. We’d be enveloped in day and age when crowd-sourcing data is widely practiced and fine-tuned. As luck would have it, this all happening Now—such an ideal time and place to thrive.

If we were to cultivate and fully embrace a world where scientists, technologists, and developers could openly and freely collaborate and concentrate on rapidly prototyping solutions for environmental and social problems, we’d be reveling in a scientific utopia. We’d be enveloped in day and age when crowdsourcing data is widely practiced and fine-tuned. As luck would have it, this all happening Now—such an ideal time and place to thrive.

In this 21st century, always-on, instinctively social and collaborative world, organizations need to be able to harness new ideas and get them to market quickly - to maintain and advance their position competitively. The speed of change has accelerated to the point that consumer preferences seem to change overnight. Any business not tuned in to customers’ latest interests could find that they are yesterday’s news – before they’ve even realized that a new trend has emerged.

In a world of Massive Open Online Courses that enroll tens or hundreds of thousands of “students” at a time and, if one doesn’t seek course credit, currently cost participants nothing, traditional institutions of higher education rightly fear enormous disruption to their revenue models—and to the very ways they educate.

See how mobile technology is changing the way homes and businesses are sold. cs.co/tnp Several years ago, commercial real estate broker Sean Toomey couldn’t have imagined creating floor plans for clients on the go or quickly figuring out project pricing with an amortization calculator from his smartphone. But that’s just what he’s doing these days – using technology and the cloud to seamlessly work regardless of where he is physically located. The Silicon Valley-based broker is always armed with his tablet or smartphone while out with clients. If one is having a tough time envisioning how a space might look, he whips out his phone to access the “MagicPlan” app to measure a room and draw up possible floor plans. Sensopia, a Canadian firm with offices in San Francisco, recently raised $1.2 million for the hot app which is being used all over the world by commercial and residential real estate brokers alike to create ‘instant’ floor plans. It works by allowing users to hold up their phone to scan the dimensions of a room around them to create a floor plan that can later be exported to different formats, including PDF, JPEG and HTML, to view on the web. For Toomey, being mobile has dramatically increased his efficiency, which he believes in turn has made him more competitive in one of the most competitive office markets in the country. He uses Evernote and DropBox to maintain access to his files and client data from anywhere and any device and also takes searchable notes that are immediately accessible when he’s on the go. “Using the tech tools I have at my disposal has enabled me to have consistent information at my fingertips regardless of which device I’m using, which allows me to assist my clients any time of day from virtually anywhere,” Toomey says. “Commercial real estate is still a ‘people’ business, and the increased use of technology has enabled our industry to focus more on our clients without being so buried in the administrative side of the business.” Ninety percent of consumers now start their real estate journeys on the Web, according to the National Association of Realtors. More than eight out of 10 home buyers are accessing home information on their smart phones and computer tablets, according to the California Association of Realtor’s “2013 Survey of California Home Buyers.” The survey found 85 percent of buyers used a mobile device during the home buying process, with the majority of buyers (70 percent) accessing the Internet from their smart phones and 15 percent accessing it from their tablets. Mobile apps are also becoming more popular among residential real estate agents. For Keith Walker, a residential realtor with Intero Real Estate Services, storage on his iPad and iPhone are a must. He uses a slew of mobile apps to conduct business in Silicon Valley –one of the most competitive housing markets in the country. When giving presentations, Walker only uses his iPad. His most used mobile app by far is Evernote, which he uses to store all of his notes, team meetings, templates and presentation dialogues. “It syncs between all of my devices and allows me to email out and share with my team immediately,” Walker says. “It also allows you to record lectures and place photos directly into notes.” Like Toomey, Walker is also a big fan of Dropbox. “I would be lost without it,” he says. “My team and clients can seamless share documents and photos on the cloud regardless of the platform each person is using.” Also among the plethora of apps Walker uses is Open Home Pro, which basically serves as a guest registry for open houses via a Realtor’s tablet. Walker likes it because it allows him and his team to customize questions, photos and send automatic follow-up to clients after they sign in on his iPad. Users can create and e-mail a report to sellers and follow up with buyers through an e-mail containing a brief survey. “It’s very visually impressive,” raves Walker, who is a member of the Silicon Va

There’s a reason why the current BYOD explosion makes CIOs and IT nervous. Lost smart phone? Compromised corporate data? Malware? The newest trend is to secure smart devices with clearly defined divisions between work and play. We examined the latest offerings designed for a seamless transition. cs.co/tnp As “bring your own device,” or BYOD, takes off across the corporate landscape, security, costs and productivity concerns are growing. That’s because early on, handling BlackBerry and Apple iOS access was relatively easy. Now, IT departments must try to control so many different devices and operating systems, they’re nearly overwhelmed. Today’s workforce is working everywhere and they’re using every mobile device at their disposal—smartphones, laptops and tablets. And according to a recent Harris Interactive survey conducted on behalf of the international non-profit wireless association, CTIA, 81 percent of businesses allow staff to bring in personally owned mobile devices for work purposes. But users want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to answer work-related messages, access company files and link to business applications beyond nine-to-five corporate hours. They also want to check out YouTube videos, send cool Instagram photos and download apps that are not always deemed safe. It’s not news that corporate leaders are concerned about security breaches, malware intrusions and compromised data. Recent mobile security solutions offer the means to give end users their freedom while maintaining control at the same time. The new generation of dual-mode solutions effectively divides a mobile device so that a user can smoothly shift from work-related tasks to personal use. Here’s what the most recent offerings promise: Samsung Knox: With single-click sign-on, users can switch between work and personal environments. Knox follows the growing trend of Zero Sign-On access points, such as those used by cloud-based storage/collaboration sites Box, Catch and Onvelop, etc. Zero Sign-On essentially means that once you access a remote application or system with your username and password, you don’t have to re-enter the same ID over and over again every time you log onto a new application. Such easy authentication makes it a breeze to access business content and then switch to leisure activities. All the while giving IT the control it craves. Enterproid Toggle: A password-protected dual profile solution lets you divide your Android or iOS device into two: one lets you connect to your company’s server for work; the other profile lets you download apps, play videos and access social media sites. The software gives IT the control it desires with the ability to wipe corporate information on an as-need basis. VMware MVP: Based on the company’s strong virtualization presence, the Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP) relies on having two operating systems accessible to users. One is real, embedded in the device; the other is virtual. The solution uses a partition where the base Android system stores your personal profile. The virtual OS is where your corporate information resides — and never the twain shall meet. All information is isolated from an employee’s personal profile. BlackBerry Balance: Similar to VMware’s MVP, BlackBerry Balance is limited to a set user base: BlackBerry owners. Personal features that may be allowed in one setting are simply blacked out or inaccessible in the work setting. Balance lives directly on the user’s smartphone, accessible to IT which can control access or wipe content as needed. While the playing field is still relatively new, look for increasing numbers of solutions that attempt to divide the work and personal worlds. That’s because the BYOD trend shows no signs of slowing down or reversing. For IT, such security is key because the need to control network access has never been greater. For a range of corporate roles, limiting access to personal mode while on work mode means empl

A look at how businesses are using the Internet of Everything in Growing. cs.co/tnp While the Internet of Everything has started to take off in such sectors as automotive and smart cities, it’s made less of a splash in the areas of agriculture and farming—so far. Still, according to Peter Cooney, practice director at ABI Research, some companies are introducing agriculturally- related uses for the IoE, which, according to some definitions, brings together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before. As you might expect, some farseeing startups and small businesses are getting in on the act. Here’s a look at two. Amit Kumar grew up in southern California with a thriving garden in his backyard. Then, about six years ago, he moved to Brooklyn, where he worked as a software engineer and the closest thing to greenery was the trees on his block. After a while, he developed a hankering for his own garden. That’s when he learned about hydroponic gardening, a method of growing plants in water using nutrient solutions, without soil. Still, while the method provided a way to grow plants in a small space and with less water than conventional avenues, Kumar discovered there was no central place to learn about how to do it. Plus, success required constant monitoring of pH levels and the like. So, he started investigating ways to create an automated plant monitoring system. He met Michael Doherty, a hardware engineer, and learned about Arduino, an open-source microcontroller board that makes hardware and software design much easier. The two decided they could use Arduino to build a system with a base station connected to sensors that could monitor everything from a garden’s pH level to its humidity, then relay that information through the cloud to growers’ computers and, in many cases, automatically correct any problems that might arise—say, turning on a fan connected to the base station when the temperature rises to 90 degrees. A year and half ago, they founded a company, Bitponics, and raised $20,000 through Kickstarter. “Our major mission is to make gardening as simple as possible so people can have thriving gardens in their home,” he says. Central to their operation is a “grow plan”, which Kumar describes as a “blueprint for how to create and take care of a garden from start to finish,” with everything from what kind of lighting to buy to the type of nutrients needed and automatic scheduling for, say, changing the lighting. For actions that the system can’t take care of automatically, like adding water, it will send an email with an alert. Here's an example: A grow plan for lettuce or herbs calls for a three-ft. by three-ft. flood and drainage system and a 24-gallon reservoir. After that, the plan includes steps for additional phases of growth, each with appropriate requirements. The two-week-long seedling stage, for example, needs 16 hours of light per day. Next phase, gardeners transplant the seedlings into a grow bed and there’s an automatically triggered schedule for turning off and on lights and pumps. But there’s another element to his system. Through an online dashboard, can connect to other growers and share their own grow plans. “User -generated knowledge is an important part of the Bitponic community,” he says. Eventually, he hopes that the platform will “bubble up” the most effective methods for growing and that growers will connect to like-minded users nearby--and share their harvest with one another. Based in Zaragoza, Spain, six-year-old Libelium takes a different approach. The 35-employee company sells an open source sensor platform allowing for the development of multiple applications in 12 sectors, including farming and agriculture. “We try to connect the real world to the Internet,” says co-founder David Gascon. The platform includes a central microcontroller board, called a waspmote, and a “plug & sense” device to which 50 o

The paper ticket is fast becoming a thing of the past as travel firms, entertainment companies, and others switch to mobile ticketing. cs.co/tnp The trusty travel checklist of “passport, tickets, and toothbrush” may soon need revising. Increasingly, companies are doing away with paper or card-based tickets in favor of electronic versions you can carry around in your smartphone. Mobile or ‘m-tickets’ have caught on with many airlines and other transport providers, as well as entertainment companies such as cinema chains, concert organizers, and trade show administrators. In many respects, the technology has parallels with the mobile cash systems being used in Africa and elsewhere. Its use is growing on the back of booming smartphone sales. Smartphones now account for about half of all mobile phone sales in the United States, according to a study by Nielsen, the research firm, and in some European countries penetration of the devices could top 90 percent by 2017, eMarketer figures show. Consequently, Juniper, the research organization, predicts 23 billion m-tickets a year will be delivered to mobile phones worldwide by 2016, from just 4 billion in 2011. In a study last year, it found one in eight mobile users in Western Europe will be using their phone as a contactless metro card by 2016. “Mobile ticketing solves key problems for facility operators whether in the transport or events markets,” says the analyst firm. “The ability to sell and deliver tickets through the mobile channel without the need for extra staff or real estate has a significant impact on operator profitability, especially as user numbers are continually increasing and need to be supported with minimal investment.” One company joining the m-ticketing rush is Go Ahead, a major public transport provider in the United Kingdom. The business owns the Gatwick Express rail link that many visitors use to get into London from the city’s second airport. Samantha Hodder is Go Ahead’s group corporate affairs director. She says on the bus networks around Britain, “It has proved popular as it is quick to implement and easy to use. From the experience so far, we have found it to be a very useful additional channel, which complements our existing smartcard scheme and offers an alternative to cash on the bus. Customers like it as it removes the barriers to travel.” Go Ahead customers are able to buy m-tickets after installing a special app on their phones. They can purchase the tickets at any time or place, which means they don’t have to wait for a smartcard to arrive or queue in a shop to charge the card up. Currently, Go Ahead’s bus mobile tickets have to be shown to a driver, but the company is planning a move to barcode-based m-tickets that can be swiped over a reader without any need for drivers to get involved. Another plus of m-ticketing is that it is relatively simple to launch from a technical point of view. The back-end systems required to issue and process m-tickets are not unduly complex, particularly with the advent of Borderless Networks. Nevertheless, says Hodder, there are still a few wiggles that need to be ironed out before m-ticketing can be used more widely, at least on railways in the United Kingdom. “In rail, m-ticketing requires quite a lot of front-of-house hardware,” she says. “As many rail stations are gated an additional barcode reader has to be installed, which can be costly to implement. There is an added difficulty in implementing single-use tickets as opposed to period passes, as these have to be marked as invalid once they have been used.” The British rail industry does not currently update its revenue systems in real time, Hodder explains, which means single-use tickets cannot be cancelled immediately after use. This is not an insurmountable challenge, though, particularly as m-ticketing embraces near field communication (NFC) technology. “The advent of NFC will make m-ticketing more closely aligned to contactless sm