Tech Talk

A spoof film trailer making its way around the Web is offering a real glimpse into just how important Facebook — and other social media platforms have become.

In the two-and-one-half-minute YouTube video, comedians Dan De Lorenzo and Ben Stumpf equates in an over-the-top way not having a Facebook account to living an isolated existence in the wilderness.

It’s worth a watch:

Have you ever wondered what Google knows about you — and makes available to others? Now you can develop a better idea.

The technology giant has made it easier than ever to understand what information is collected, who it is available to and enables users to change many of the corresponding settings.

“One of our goals at Google is to give users meaningful choices to protect your privacy,” Google states in its new privacy center, where links to some of the company’s most popular privacy settings are posted.

The search engine giant has been under fire for collecting personal information from insecure wireless networks, as Tech Talk has extensively reported.

Perhaps the most powerful tool is the Google Dashboard, which displays information stored for services like Alerts, Analytics, Blogger, Books, Buzz, Calendar, Checkout, Contacts, Docs, Gmail, iGoogle, Latitude, Maps, Picasa, Profiles, Talk, Voice, Web History and YouTube.

It contains fascinating details like how many contacts you have, stored credit card numbers, recent status messages, most commonly e-mailed individuals, most recent piece of spam received, most recent alerts, newest e-mails, number of conversations logged, number of docs trashed, number of gadgets installed and more.

It will also indicate most recent Web search, image search, news search, product search, video search, map search, blog and book search with the corresponding date and time. It also indicates how quickly information becomes irrelevant. For example, the most e-mailed person in your Tech Talk editor’s primary Gmail account is an ex — and has not been e-mailed in some time.

Users may change their account password and privacy, sharing and subscription settings from the Google Dashboard.

The Ads Preferences Manager allows users to view and edit the information Google uses to show users interest-based advertisements within Google’s advertising network. Folks can add or remove interest categories associated with one’s Web browser or opt out of viewing relevant advertising entirely. It’s fascinating to learn what categories the Internet search giant has associated with you. As for your humble editor, the search engine’s analysis of which advertisements would be most relevant was dead-on.

Additionally, Google’s privacy center allows users to:

• Learn how to move data in and out of Google products;
• Encrypt the search traffic between one’s computer and Google;
• Learn how to partake in incognito browsing and downloading;
• Get information how to request the removal of images with inappropriate content, or to remove a photo of yourself your family, your car, or your home;
• Learn how to share videos with a specific group of individuals;
• Learn how to manage the site’s Web History;
• Learn how to chat off the record in Talk;
• Learn how to opt out of Google Analytics and Search Personalization; and
• Control Google Latitude.

It’s a powerful dashboard that Tech Talk implores you to explore. Chances are you will even learn more about yourself in the process.

Although the iPhone 4 may not be as good as its predecessors — and may drop more calls than phones a half decade older, at least it offers the opportunity for a good laugh. Tech Talk strongly supports laughter, and so rather than offering a lengthy narrative, today, we offer some videos originally collected by Tech Crunch at Apple’s expense:

Warning: Some of the videos may offend some folks, so viewer discretion is advised.

To read more about the iPhone 4, check out previous Tech Talk posts here. To check out more iPhone 4-related videos, please click here.

UPDATE: Apple may need a good laugh more than ever. News was just released that it’s white iPhone 4 would be delayed — yet again. Tech Talk has the scoop. Check it out here.

Ross Riskin, of Orange, performs for Tech Talk.

Technology is music to one area musician’s ears.

Ross Riskin, of Orange, frequents area cafés and music centers throughout New England and New York with his acoustic, quiet alternative sounds that he both writes and performs. He said he has been compared with John Mayer, Third Eye Blind and Matchbox Twenty.

“I write songs about the events that have taken place in my life and how they have made me feel. I write songs about girls, friends, love, death and pretty much everything,” he said in a recent interview with Tech Talk.

Social media and the Web have helped him to capture and share his music, he said.

“Technology has a played a huge role in my efforts to gain exposure in the Indie music scene,” Riskin said. “I have been able to reach thousands of people all over the world that would not have been possible without the use of technology.”

The rapid advances in recording interfaces and software have allowed him to record his original music in home studio, he said.

“Technology has helped me become a better marketer, distributor, producer and musician,” Riskin said.

He recently released his first full-length album, “Keep Moving.”

“It describes my journey from the past, through the present, and into the future,” Riskin told Tech Talk. “It reflects my strong belief that no matter what choices you make, good and bad things will happen. Some things in life can be controlled and some things can’t. Sometimes all you have to do is keep moving.”

In an effort to get his music to potential audiences, Riskin, who has been writing and recording music since the eighth grade, has utilized Web 2.0 methods to both market and distribute his soothing sounds.

“The main services I have been utilizing for marketing have been Facebook, Twitter and MySpace,” he said. “These sites are free, global and easy to manage.”

Riskin said he could easily get the word out about new releases and updates to thousands of fans through these outlets within sounds.

“For my media distribution, I use four primary services: iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby and Digstation,” he said. “While iTunes and Amazon might be better known, CD Baby and Digstation are in most ways more artist friendly. CD Baby is the largest independent music distributor that allows artists to sell both digital and physical copies of their albums along with setting their own selling prices for them. Digstation is also a large independent distributor that allows artists to set their own selling prices and amazingly collect 100 percent of the sales.”

Riskin said he will begin utilizing YouTube more over the summer.

“I believe YouTube is one of the best places to gain exposure for anyone, especially musicians,” he said.

Riskin is offering a special perk to Tech Talk readers. Readers can download two free tracks off of “Keep Moving” for free.

As technology continues to evolve, it will undoubtedly allow more artists to record, edit and distribute their pieces with the general public.  Which, as Martha Stewart would say, it’s a very good thing.

HTC Incredible

Tech Talk recently had the opportunity to take the HTC Incredible for a test drive — and was blown away.

The smartphone, which runs on Verizon’s network, puts both Apple’s iPhone and the Droid released in November to shame.

The Incredible, which goes for $199.99 to new or renewing customers, offers a powerful punch and might convince some iPhone users to switch sides with its 3.7-inch touch screen, 1GHz processor, 480 by 800 pixel display and 8-megapixel camera.

During the test period, I attended a conference in Dallas. The photos I took with the 4.59-ounce Incredible were substantially crisper and more clear than what I captured with my point-and-shoot camera and iPhone 3GS.  The Incredible also managed to take more photos in the same time period than the iPhone. Another perk was that unlike the iPhone, which saves each photo as photo.jpg making it difficult to e-mail and quickly save multiple photos, the Incredible saves each photo in the same way a traditonal camera would — in a line of consecutive numbers, such as IMAG_0001. There was truly no comparison.

The Incredible also allows users to quickly and easily upload photos to the Internet. A user is able to share multimedia via Bluetooth, Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, other e-mail clients, text message, Twitter, Picassa and YouTube.  The speed of Verizon’s 3G service makes it possible to upload a half dozen photos in a matter of seconds. Good luck getting the iPhone to do that. And if those perks were not enough, the Incredible’s charger can easily be removed leaving a USB connection to easily transfer music and multimedia with the user’s computer.

Below are examples of unedited photos I took with the iPhone and the Incredible. Each photo could be clicked to see the photos in greater detail.  Here are some more pictures I took for NBC Dallas/Fort Worth with the Incredible.

A photo taken out of an airplane window with the HTC Incredible

A photo taken out of an airplane window with the Apple iPhone 3GS.

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio and 8GB of internal memory are all included with the phone. It also supports Flash Lite 4.0, Google Maps with navigation, Latitude, Google Talk and Google Calendar. The Android Market now touts 50,000 applications.

According to HTC, a user gets up to 312 minutes of usage time and up to 146 hours of standby time, something that seems about right.

The incredible is one of the fastest smartphones I have ever used. Even with multiple applications open, I was able to bounce from screen to screen without any delay — which was refreshing as the iPhone does not allow added apps to multitask at all.

I was surprised and impressed with the Incredible’s power. As loyal iPhone user, who had a BlackBerry previously, I did not think HTC would be able to produce something so great.  Suddenly my previous phones and cameras seem inadequate.

Maybe it’s time for a switch to Verizon so I can get my own Incredible.

Google will launch a new feature as early as this week to make sharing media and updates with friends easier, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The new module, which will be integrated into Gmail, is intended to make the e-mail application “more social” by allowing users to “view a stream of status updates from people they choose,” the newspaper reported.

The new feature seems to expand off of the Google Talk application currently integrated into Gmail. 

I regularly update my Google Talk statuses to reflect what I am doing, and utilize the application to communicate with friends and colleagues — as I once did on AOL Instant Messenger.

The difference, according to the Journal, is that the development will include an area where users can sift through a stream of updates — that includes the Google-owned YouTube and Picasa services —  in a similar timeline view as on Twitter and Facebook.  It remains uncertain if updates from non-Google entities will be included.

If the development goes across networks, Mashable notes:

[T]he new features could be thought of more like a TweetDeck or Seesmic, looking to provide an aggregate view of your friends’ social media activities along with the ability to push status updates to the services you use from inside of Gmail. If not, it could be thought of as a major competitor to Twitter and Facebook as Gmail looks to covert its millions of email users into users of a whole new breed of social media service.

The only known video footage of Anne Frank has been posted on YouTube, the Guardian newspaper reports.

The video, posted by the Anne Frank Museum, shows the then-13-year-old girl leaning over a balcony to catch a glimpse of a nearby wedding starting about nine seconds into the clip.

Frank was captured on the film on July 22, 1941.  Her family went into hiding from the Nazis just a year later, the Guardian reported.  She died in a concentration camp in March 1945.

According to the newspaper,

The museum has had the footage for some time, but thought YouTube would be a good platform to show the film and the other films about her life. It’s another way to bring the life of Anne Frank to the attention of younger people, and all people worldwide.

Anne became widely known a decade later when the diary she was keeping was published.