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November 2007
Circuit City makes a run at MySpace and Facebook
Circuit City has started a social-networking community at its CityCenter web site.
As a social-networking community, there’s no comparison to the trendy MySpace or popular Facebook sites but it has merit.
The site has a gadgets blog and forums with topics like how to pick an HD-TV and answers to technical questions such as whether a user needs an HD cable-TV service to get the optimum high-definition image.
Much of the forums read like a tech support blog on other high-tech sites, and that’s not all bad.
Any company that deals with high-tech products should have a way to reach the consumer, and this is Circuit City trying to do just that. The important thing is it doesn’t appear to be a ruse. The consumer questions sound real and the Circuit City people are clearly identified on the site.
I’m not planning on killing my Facebook page for the Circuit City site but I might check in now and again if I’m looking for an answer to a tech problem or to see what consumers are saying about a particular technology.
Dell’s rolling out a bigger XPS
Dell Inc. got a strong response for its XPS M1330 notebook, so now it’s rolling out a bigger one. The company launched the XPS M1530 today, complete with all the bells and whistles of the earlier model but with a 15.4-inch screen (two inches larger than the M1330).
The pair of thin and light laptops are at the forefront of Dell’s increased emphasis on product design, especially for consumers. The company also has pushed out color options for its mid-level consumer laptops, and it offers both of the higher-end notebooks in black, red and white.
The new models also include built-in Web cameras, Blu-Ray disc drives and high-definition displays.
Dell also released two workstations today. The Precision T5400 and T7400 refresh its top line of high-powered computers targeted mainly at commercial customers. Both utilize the latest quad-core and dual-core processors from Intel Corp.
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A gadget for every stocking
This year, Santa’s wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector on his bright red suit. And whether you’re on a budget or willing to splurge, he’s got a high-tech gift for your gadget lover.
WI-FI DETECTOR SHIRT
Show the world your inner tech geek and find wireless hot spots at the same time with the Wi-Fi Detector Shirt from ThinkGeek. Designed for people too lazy to open laptops or check handheld detectors to find Wi-Fi, the black T-shirt uses three AAA batteries in a pocket to power a glowing decal resembling a radio tower. Animated bars fluctuate with 802.11b or 802.11g signal strength.
www.thinkgeek.com, $29
JUMP-START DC POWER PLUS How many times have you been on the road and needed a flashlight? Or an emergency car battery charger? Or some portable juice for your laptop or cell phone? Jump-Start DC Power Plus has all that. Retailer Sharper Image claims the gadget charges a car battery in minutes — though some users say it won’t work with an old or dead battery, just a newer one that has lost most of its charge. It also comes with a built-in LED flashlight and five universal DC adapter plugs for charging portable devices on the go. The two-pound power stick runs on a rechargeable NiCad battery that’s good for 500 charges. Charge it up by plugging into your car cigarette lighter or a wall outlet. Sharper Image (www.sharperimage.com) other retailers, $39.95.
MOTOROLA BLUETOOTH CELL PHONE CAR KIT Like seat belts, hands-free cell phone car kits aren’t just a good idea — in some states, they’re the law. Numerous manufacturers now sell Bluetooth wireless technology car kits, but Motorola’s T305 seems like a winner — and not just because Motorola pioneered the idea of putting radios in cars. Clip the simple device the size of a garage door opener onto your car’s visor, push a single button, and you can make and answer calls while keeping your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel. It provides up to 14 hours of talk time, 14 days of standby time and comes with a car charger. Various retailers, $40 and up.
TAO ELECTRONICS DIGITAL KEY-CHAIN PHOTOFRAME Now you never have to look like a bad dad or mom for not carrying around photos of your kids. Tao Electronics is one of several companies selling digital photo frames that let you take tiny family photos wherever you go. Tao’s 1.5-inch square photo frames are about the size and weight of a pocket watch. With 8MB of internal memory, they hold up to 31 pictures at a resolution of 128 by 128 pixels. Tao Electronics (www.taoelectronics.com) $49.99
CHARGEPOD The sure sign of a gadget aficionado is the tangled mess of cords and power bricks needed to juice up those cell phones, PDAs, music players and wireless headsets. The Chargepod seeks to bring order to chaos by funneling power from a single cord through a circular base station to up to six devices simultaneously. It’s touted as being compatible with more than 1,000 mobile devices. The downside is paying for the specific adapters. A basic Chargepod costs $50, plus $10 for each adapter, while a starter kit with common adapters runs about $100. At retailers and at www.callpod.com
EYE-FI So your digital camera is stuffed full of precious moments from this season’s (or maybe even last season’s) Halloween and Thanksgiving. Now what? For everyone who has procrastinated over uploading photos to a computer or photo-sharing site, Eye-Fi offers its wireless SD memory card. After an initial setup, the 2-gigabyte card uses a built-in Wi-Fi transmitter to connect from inside your camera to your home wireless network. It automatically sends JPEG-format pictures to a computer or one of 17 photo Web sites, including Shutterfly, Flickr, Snapfish and Facebook. $99 at online retailers including Amazon, Buy.com and Wal-Mart.
TAKETV With all the new ways to zip video wirelessly around the house, the Sansa TakeTV is definitely retro. The device from flash-memory maker SanDisk uses your feet as its network to move video between your computer and TV. Looking and acting like a flash drive, TakeTV plugs into a computer USB port so you can copy over video. You then plug it into a docking station connected to your TV to watch. It also works with Fanfare, a download service SanDisk is testing. A 4-gigabyte TakeTV holds up to 5 hours of video and costs $100, while an 8-gigabyte model costs $150. It’s available at major retailers and www.take.tv.
SEA-DOO SEASCOOTER XL
Granted, this is more toy than gadget, but what water-loving geek wouldn’t want one of these?
Strap on your waterproof iPod and dive in with the SeaScooter XL. You can travel James Bond-style below the waves at 2 mph.
Charge the 12-volt battery for five or six hours and you’ll get an hour of running time. (Just make sure to come up for air.)
Amazon.com (www.amazon.com) and other retailers, $149.95.
VUDU There’s no shortage of ways to view movies at home, from DVD rentals to Internet PC downloads and video on demand from cable and satellite services. But the new Vudu set-top box aims to combine the best features of all these options. The black, 4-pound device hooks into a broadband Internet connection and delivers high-quality movies straight to your TV without a computer. Movies from a constantly updated library of more than 5,000 begin playing immediately while downloading. There is no monthly fee. Rentals range from $1 to $4, while permanent downloads cost $5 to $20. Vudu is available for $399 at a handful of retailers and at www.vudu.com.
KINDLE Will Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader revolutionize the book business, reverse falling reading trends and be a holiday hit? The jury’s still out. But as the newest toy on the block, its certainly tempts gadget addicts willing to splurge. Beyond the hype, the Kindle is going where no electronic reader has gone before with a built-in connection to a free nationwide wireless network for buying and downloading books, newspapers, magazines and blogs. Its screen uses electronic ink technology to mimic printed paper. New book releases cost about $10 (or you can get “Moby Dick” for $1.99). $399, available at www.amazon.com/kindle
PHOTOVU 22-INCH WIRELESS PHOTO FRAME
In just a few short years, digital photo frames have gotten remarkably better — and bigger.
PhotoVu, a Colorado company, claims its 22-inch, high-resolution widescreen frame is the biggest and the best on the market. It lets you transfer photos from your PC wirelessly through a Web site, or do it the old-fashioned way with a portable USB storage device.
The LCD screen boasts a 1680 by 1050 pixel resolution. Choose from a range of frames and mats to fit your style.
At www.photovu.com, $1,199 and up.
GARMIN STREETPILOT 7500 This is one of the most advanced — and expensive — GPS systems on the market. With a 7-inch screen and advanced software, it not only shows you the way, but also announces the names of exits, accepts custom “points of interest” like school zones or favorite restaurants, and uses a “dead reckoning” feature to plot your course even if you lose a satellite signal. With optional subscriptions, you can listen to XM satellite radio, check weather and traffic conditions and get traffic alerts. A built-in FM transmitter wirelessly syncs it to your vehicle’s stereo system. Bored? Pull over and plug your DVD player or video game into the back of the device, and enjoy. Garmin Ltd. (www.garmin.com), $1,393.
Kids: Mom and dad buy the wrong games
The battle between videogame systems Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation will take center stage again this holiday season.
Nintendo’s Wii is apparently the front-runner, with almost 3 in 10 respondents making it their choice, according to a new survey by Weekly Reader Research. Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 fight it out for second place.
Six in 10 will be asking for a game console this Christmas. But 60 percent expect their parents to buy the wrong game, buy a game for the wrong video-game console or not buy the game they asked for.
Here’s a couple of hints:
Check the prices on the games before picking one. If you’re looking for quantity, then don’t go for one of the higher priced games. Super Mario Galaxy, one of the most popular, for the Wii console costs $49.88 at Walmart. Others can run as high as $60.
But if that’s what you want, write it down so your parents don’t have to guess. And parents: Ask for a list. Don’t drop 50 bucks on the wrong game.
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Microsoft’s Mass Effect game out everywhere but Singapore
Microsoft shipped its Xbox 360 video game, Mass Effect, to retailers this week. It sells at a list price of $59.99, but undoubtedly there will be discounts.
Except in Singapore. The futuristic space odyssey has been banned in the tiny city-state because of a lesbian scene between a human and alien woman.
The story pits a special agent, Commander Shepard, against evil forces around the galaxy. Think Captain Kirk versus the usual bunch of alien bad boys.
It’s gotten good reviews. One described it as a thinking man’s Halo. It poses moral dilemmas; you have to think before you shoot.
The game is rated M for blood, language, partial nudity, sexual themes and violence. But if what I viewed on joystiq.com was the objectionable scene, it looked pretty tasteful to me. And anyway, won’t most players be too busy saving the world to devote much time to such nonsense?
Laptops for needy children
Here’s a deal for you: Buy a cheap laptop and do a good thing.
The North American launch of the One Laptop Per Child Project started on Nov. 12 and ends Nov. 26.
For $399, you get your own bright-green-and-white laptop with Linux operating system. And you give one to a needy kid in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti and Rwanda. Half that cost is tax-deductible.
The unit weighs about 3 pounds, operates from a rubberized keyboard and kid-friendly desktop icons. It brags about a battery life that four times longer than a typical laptop. Those of us who have laptops would want to check that claim before believing it.
It has extras like a built-in camera, memory-card slots, pop-up antennas for wireless Internet and three USB ports. You don’t need to be from a developing country to want a bunch of those.
I know you’ve got a lot of spending to do in the next month but doesn’t this sound like a good way to start?
Amazon’s “Kindle” aims to rewrite the e-book
Amazon just unveiled its much-anticipated Kindle e-book, a $400 wireless device for downloading and reading books, newspapers and blogs. Amazon is betting it can succeed where many have failed, getting people to embrace a technology that has been touted for years but never caught on.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO, showed off the Kindle at a news conference at the swank W Hotel in New York’s Union Square. On stage, Bezos gave a brief history of the written word and said books have “stubbornly resisted digitization.” He said Kindle aims to change that.
“Our top design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands, to get out of the way so you can enjoy your reading,” Bezos said.
The 10.3-ounce Kindle is about the size of a paperback book, but it can hold more than 200 books in its built-in memory and more on an optional SD memory card. Starting today, Amazon has more than 90,000 titles available for Kindle at its online store. New York Times best sellers and new releases cost $9.99.
The Kindle uses E-Ink technology to make reading a screen more like looking at ink on paper. It also has a rubberized grip, a thumb-typing keyboard and large buttons around the screen for turning pages.
Perhaps the biggest e-book advance is Kindle’s wireless connectivity. It uses a network called Amazon Whispernet, which is built on top of Sprint’s high-speed EVDO network for cell phones and mobile devices. The Kindle uses this network to download books and subscribe to blogs and major world newspapers, which are automatically delivered overnight.
EarthLink may be unplugging from muni Wi-Fi
Atlanta-based EarthLink Inc. in recent years has been one of the biggest boosters of municipal wi-fi networks. But now, it looks like the Internet provider may be bailing out of the business.
EarthLink issued a very brief statement -not coincidentally late on Friday when it probably hoped it would get scant notice - that said it was beginning “a process to consider its strategic alternatives for its municipal wireless business”
EarthLink once had grand plans to build wireless Web networks that covered cities from Atlanta to San Francisco. Muni Wi-Fi was a pet project of late CEO Garry Betty and a big bet of his to transform the company from a dying dial-up Internet provider into communications company for the future.
But those plans never really panned out, and EarthLink ended up with only a few money-losing networks in places like Anaheim, Calif., Corpus Christi, Texas and Philadelphia. New EarthLink CEO Rolla Huff has been cutting expenses, employees and money-losing businesses trying to get EarthLink back on its feet, and he has made it clear on several occasions the company’s muni Wi-Fi efforts weren’t working.
In its statement, Earthlink said the assets of its muni Wi-Fi business were worth about $40 million.
A friend of mine with the trade group ITFlorida, Ken Zeszutko, emailed me about a speech recently by Jimmy Wales, the co-inventor of the Wikipedia Web site.
At Wikipedia, people write, update and edit their own encyclopedia-like entries on everything from biographies to history to scientific definitions and theories.
Wales’ hugely popular site is based in St. Petersburg, Fla., but announced last month that it is moving to San Francisco, closer to the nation’s high-tech epicenter.
Two weeks ago, he told ITFlorida members that Florida was too heavily weighted to a business culture rather than a geek culture. He compared technologists to artists rather than businesspeople.
It’s a good comparison, I think, at least from the standpoint of innovation. The best computer geeks think out of the box like a Picasso might.
It’s a dilemma. How do you create a geek culture in the land of sugar cane and cruise ships? Zeszutko said the ITFlorida folks were thinking of holding an unconference-like conference of programmers, a get-together where the agenda is spontaneously created. Loosely formed conferences like that are often held by hackers. There was one over the summer in Las Vegas.
John Sawyer and Jordan Wiens, two University of Florida software engineers, won the annual hacker’s competition at DefCon in the Nevada desert.
Each year, the conference brings together button-downed corporate engineers with purple-haired Goths of the hacking underworld to compare notes on Internet security.
Is that enough to build a geek culture around? No, but it’s a start.
Longtime cell-phone makers playing catchup
PC Magazine came out this week with its annual readers’ survey, and it’s not too surprising that Apple’s iPhone garnered the highest rating ever among phones, a 9.1 (10 is the best).
It received an even higher rating (9.6) for its music and video playback quality. You can probably hear a resounding “omigod” from the cellular industry as a whole. Many can play music. A small handful can play video. But nobody’s getting much credit for it but Apple.
The other day, Edgar Bronfman, the CEO of Warner Music Group, said mobile phone manufacturers must make their phones easier to use as music devices and move beyond ringtones “to embrace new and more imaginative products if they are to fuel growth of the $2 billion business,” according to the Financial Times.
It looks bad when the leaders of an industry get outclassed by a newbie.
By the way, that PC Magazine survey also has ratings on digital cameras, HD-TVs, MP3 players and phone and Internet services.
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Save on gas; tour those colleges virtually
Gas prices are up. Time is running out. Here’s a chance to check out more than 100 major colleges at one time. For free.
For the next two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) from 3 to 11 p.m. EST, you can have video chat with admissions officers at schools from across the country. Everything is at www.collegeweeklive.com.
There’s student panel discussions about their schools, virtual booths for colleges, real-time IMing, and networking with service providers.
The universities range from the smallest liberal-arts schools like the College of Charleston to the mega-universities such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Though Florida’s major state universities aren’t on the list, Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach is.
So save your parents some gas, and take a look at some of these colleges before making that road trip to tour schools.
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HP Chief: More consolidation coming in tech industry
SAN FRANCISCO - Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd isn’t saying who he thinks is buying or selling, but he says he thinks the technology industry is headed for more consolidation.
“In the end, math wins,” Hurd told attendees at the Oracle Open World tech conference here on Monday. Earlier in the same day, IBM Corp., one of HP’s biggest competitors, announced its biggest acquisition ever: A $4.9 billion takeover of software maker Cognos Inc.
Here’s how Hurd’s math works. There’s only a “handful” of tech companies that together have more than $100 billion in cash, he says. Together those companies have to do something with that cash.
The three basic options, he says, are simple: Give it to shareholders in the form of dividends, use it to buy back shares, or lastly, use it to buy other companies. (Never mind using it to beef up R&D, give employees big raises or donate it for good causes, I guess).
The real question, Hurd went on to say, is “how fast will consolidation occur.” If the right companies combine, it could happen quickly. Even if they don’t, he predicted, “it’ll move at a pretty reasonable pace.”
One thing’s that’s almost a sure bet: Hurd will be getting a few phone calls from intersted sellers after his talk.
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$10 million for the best Google “Android”
While it sounds like something out of an Asimov novel or a lost Star Trek episode, the “Android Developer Challenge” that Google just announced is the search giant’s latest push for the mobile applications platform it announced Nov. 5.
The contest seeks the best mobile software for Android in areas such as social networking, media sharing, collaboration tools, gaming, mash-ups and news.
The top 50 entries received by March 3 will each get a $25,000 award to fund development. After that, there are 10 $275,000 awards and 10 $100,000 awards. More stages will follow.
The judges will come from members of the Open Handset Alliance.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said: “We’ve built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that’s because they’re going to be written by developers.”
(Image: Google)
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IBM meet Cognos. Microsoft meet Musiwave.
Adding to the ever-popular “Intend to Acquire” file, IBM said Monday morning it plans to spend $5 billion in cash to buy Cognos Inc. The Canadian company is a leading player in the field of “business intelligence” software, which helps large organizations collect, organize and present data.
This would be IBM’s 23rd acquisition to support its “Information on Demand” strategy, which Big Blue says combines “information integration, content and data management and business consulting services to unlock the business value of information.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft says it wants to buy Musiwave SA, a French mobile music company and a unit of Openwave Systems Inc. Microsoft said the deal would combine Musiwave’s relationships with music labels, device makers and mobile operators with Microsoft technologies such as Windows Mobile, Zune, MSN and Windows Live.
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Big blow for Wi-Max
One of the most promising ventures to extend the reach of wireless Internet access has hit the skids.
Sprint Nextel and Clearwire said this morning that they’re canceling their plans to work together to roll out Wi-Max wireless Internet service around the country. Wi-Max technology, of course, promises to increase the reach of wireless “hot-spots” from a few dozen feet to several miles, potentially blanketing corners of cities or entire rural communities with wireless Internet access through cellular-like networks.
Lots of companies are interested in advancing Wi-Max. Neither Sprint nor Clearwire say they’re giving up on the idea. But the failure of the partnership is certainly a big blow toward its advancement.
Read the press release here
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I’ll have 5 gallons of gas and a Google search
You still have to drive your own car. Google hasn’t figured out a way to do that yet.
But if you need directions, there’ll be no need to stop and ask a weary, bored or just plain testy gas-station clerk for directions, not with Google’s latest deal.
Google is said to be working with the maker of gas pumps, Gilbarco Veeder-Root in Greensboro, N. C., to put Google maps, local listings and driving directions on those little screens where you can barely make out the cost of gas (who wants to these days!).
Right now, Gilbarco’s pumps can issue coupons and promotional material. But with an Internet connection, it could do much more, including making a little money for Google. The roll-out will start with 3,500 pumps. Here’s what you might see (link).
This might actually be useful. How many of you have driven around hopelessly lost rather than ask somebody for directions?
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HP pictures a business without cameras
Former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carley Fiorina used to open her keynote speeches with a backdrop of digital images from all around the world, taken with HP digital cameras. For her and HP at the time, digital cameras were an essential part of the company’s business strategy.
No more. HP on Wednesday said it plans to outsource its camera business and shift any remaining resources to its mainstay printer business. Palo Alto, Calf.-based HP will take a $30 million charge against earnings related to the move.
HP-branded cameras won’t to disappear altogether. The company said it will continue to sell its HP-designed and -produced cameras through the end of this year. After that, it will license its name to an as-yet-unnamed partner that will sell HP-branded cameras, but who knows for how long. Either way, HP will have little to do with the business.
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MySpace profiles to be used for targeted advertising
Think of all the advertisements you’ll be getting if you’ve loaded up your MySpace pages with gobs of detail about yourself.
You love salsa-dancing and travel and coffee drinking. You love detective novels and punk rock and scuba diving. Your favorite movie was Ocean’s Eleven. Your favorite band, Coldplay. Your favorite TV show, Grey’s Anatomy.
First, let’s assume all of that is true because a lot of stuff on MySpace isn’t. But even if it is, you’ll be getting advertisements from Microsoft, Ford, Toyota, Procter & Gamble, and Universal Pictures tailored to you, based on the vast material you’ve written on your profile page. See this link.
Maybe that’s not all bad. It’s what you like, right? But then again, will you be getting more ads than you do messages and postings from your friends?
There’s also no escaping it by jumping to the other brand. The New York Times says Facebook is looking at doing it too.
Maybe less is more when it comes to stocking up your MySpace page. Think about it.
You + 178 million others = U.S. Internet users
Four out of five U.S. residents - about 79 percent of us - are now regular Internet users, according to the latest Harris Poll on Internet usage.
Just as importantly, the number of Internet users - surprise surprise (okay, not really) - continues to grow. According to Harris, the number of people who used the Internet in July and in October totaled about 178 millon - up about 10 percent from the comparable periods a year earlier.
Here’s a factoid that’s even more telling: In 1995, when Harris first began to track Internet usage, only 9 percent of adults said they used the Internet.
The amount of time Internet users spend online - surfing the Web, watching videos, reading this blog - is also increasing.
The average number of hours per week that people spend online is now at 11 hours, up from 9 hours last year and 8 hours in 2005.
Here’s a link to a Harris press release with more details.
Hello Google? Where’s my G-phone?
If you were late to the iPhone party and were anxiously awaiting your shot at getting the first “Gphone” …. well, keep waiting.
Google Inc. finally took the wraps off its much-awaited strategy to move into the cell phone business Monday, unveiling a new software package and agreements with more than 30 partners that it says could dramatically advance Internet-type services on mobile phones.
On a conference call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt hinted repeatedly that a Google-branded “Gphone” might still be in the coming - just not yet. The mobile phone industry has been buzzing for months about Google coming out with its own handset, like Apple, and/or its own service, like AT&T, Sprint or Verizon.
If it lives up to its billing, Google’s software package could be just as revolutionary as any handset or service, however.
At its core will be a full-featured Internet browser, like computer users and Apple iPhone users are accustomed to, that can be on all types of new cell phone handsets beginning in 2008. Just as importantly, Google’s software package will be an “open source” platform, meaning other software developers can build and distribute their products more easily than they can today. According to Google, that means cell phone applications like games, video, music - and of course, Google, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. - will work much better on your phone than they do today.
Read more here:www.openhandsetalliance.com
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Games mirror Hollywood action
I was reading GameDaily Biz at www/gamedaily.com the other day and saw a report by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research on 219 retail and 187 downloadable games for Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 with an “M,” or mature rating.
The study found they had the highest reviewer scores and highest average gross sales in the U.S. even though they made up only 10 percent all U.S. games out there on the market.
In addition, think of all the pre-teens out there that live for these games. They might want to buy “M” titles but their parents probably wouldn’t be buying them for birthdays and Christmas.
But the research firm’s president, Geoffrey Zatkin, had a plausible though not particularly empirical explanation.
Gamers, especially those from the first- and second-generation, are getting older. The average gamer is 29 years old. But games don’t mirror real life. They mirror movies. And what are the most popular movies, at least for young males?
Action movies.
“We’ve been raised on a glorious tradion of Hollywood action,” Zatkin said. That means swearing, bleeding and characters with fantastic-looking bodies. What’s not to like for the teen and twentysomething male?
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How much is your Internet privacy worth?
The Federal Trade Commission is taking up the thorny issue of Internet privacy this week.
The question of how much information should be collected about our Internet search habits, how it should be used and who controls it presents a double-edged sword to the consumer. Here’s what The New York Times said: (click link).
Web marketing companies track your path on the Internet and then craft specific advertisements for you, targeting your tastes based on the sites you’ve visited.
Some consumer groups are asking for a “do-not-track” list but none of us wants to pay to access the sites we visit. But without enough advertising, couldn’t it come to that?
Advertising is crucial to Internet sites. So wouldn’t advertising based on your specific tastes be better than random ads about women’s clothing when you’re not into cross-dressing?
There’s no easy answer to this. But one thing that might help is for the consumer to have access to the information collected about him and to be able to correct it. That’s the least that marketers who are making money off of us can do.
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