A Microsoft App in the works called “Pedestrian Route Production,” that would provide the user walking directions around a city that avoid “unsafe neighborhood[s],”  has been deemed racist by an number of organizations, notably the NAACP of Dallas. Dallas NAACP President Juanita Wallace has pledged “I’m going to be up in arms about it if it happens,” comparing the app to “gerrymandering.” The app is patented, but is not yet available to the public. Microsoft refrains from commenting on already-patented applications.

The app would provide walking directions with large blue dots over areas in which ten or more criminal incidents have occurred over the past 12 months. I assume that this must be a very small area, limited to one or two particularly dangerous blocks, because Capitol Hill has had over 2,000 crimes last year, according to SPD crime records—which would mean one of Seattle’s most vibrant neighborhoods earns a big old blue dot.  For some, the implications of this app are irrefutable: avoid the ghetto, avoid “black and hispanic neighborhoods,” avoid low-income areas. For others, this particular feature fits logically within a GPS app that also helps pedestrians avoid impassable roads and dangerous weather conditions—remaining safe is as much avoiding violent crime as it is avoiding busy streets with no sidewalks, for example.

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Tablet computers, for all their strengths, still fail to do the obvious thing: behave like paper. For this reason, creative professionals who write, sketch, or prototype by hand still carry Meads or Moleskines along with their gadgets. Why isn’t digital ink and active digitizer technology standard on tablet devices? Three case studies provide some potential insight.

1. The Apple Newton

In the 1980′s, during the time of Steve Jobs’ exile, Apple Computer created the Newton, the first PDA (personal digital assistant). It functioned most essentially as a digital notepad, with a stylus and revolutionary handwriting recognition and drawing capabilities. The Newton failed to become a mass market device and was cancelled by Steve Jobs upon his return because it failed to jibe with his vision for the Mac’s future, which didn’t include pen input: “It’s like we said on the iPad,” Jobs remarked in 2010, “If you see a stylus, they blew it.”

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Like any devout follower, writer and performer Mike Daisey was reluctant to ask questions about his favorite religion—the church of Apple. A self-professed gadget freak and number one fan of the ubiquitous technology company, Daisey’s reluctance is probably familiar to all of us.  In his most recent monologue on NPR’s popular series, This American Life, Daisey renews the debate about “fair trade” electronics by traveling to China and investigating working conditions at Apple’s main manufacturing plant, Foxconn.

Listen to his story here.

Is anyone truly surprised by what he found? Should it come as a shock that while hundreds of thousands of Americans are perusing the latest gadgets at this week’s Consumer Electronic Show, children as young as 12 are working full-time in China in conditions so poor their manufacturing plants are surrounded by suicide-thwarting nets? Read more…

Microsoft recently announced that the consumer version of Office 2010  will soon be available for free: Office Web Apps. This might just make Google start sweating. If not, it should.

Let’s face it: given the choice between Google Docs and the polished, well-tested and universally approved Microsoft Office, which would you choose? Yep, Office. After all, then you know your recipient will be able to open, read and edit the document, know how it works and not have to sign up for any new account. Office is the industry standard. Now you can access the docs everywhere, without e-mailing them, carrying them on a flash drive or bringing your laptop to the site where you need your docs. You can log into any PC and get your stuff. You can get the docs on your mobile phone. It’s where you are when you need it. Read more…

Google holds 71% of the search market; Bing, 10% (chart).

Cory Doctorow has a clear crystal ball. Earlier this month, Rupert Murdoch accused Google of stealing his content and threatened to cut the search giant off. Cory guessed that Murdoch might be angling for a search-engine payment deal: Read more…

Listening to Google CEO talk about the importance of a “new platform” while noting that “enterprise-focused” engineers are a small percentage of the company’s engineering team, I flashed back to 1984.

When Apple introduced the Macintosh with that Ridley Scott commercial, the company was making a statement about the “cultural implications of personal computers.” Apple’s deliberate shunning of IT departments, Steve Jobs’ goal of democratizing technology, the 1984 slogan “The Computer For The Rest of Us”, the 1998 slogan “Think Different” — each are examples of a company positioned as the alternative to “the enterprise.” Read more…

This really isn’t news per se. Facebook made a run at them late last year but fell short in their bid. Now comes Google.

Robert Scoble has weighed in. I think Scoble raises some excellent points in this post. I have wondered lately if large corporations can really handle social computing. There is too much risk. And in the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I am a Product Manager on a social computing platform at Microsoft. I spend a lot of time thinking about risk. He is tough on IBM, Oracle, and Adobe but toughest on Microsoft. I think he is daring Microsoft to do it but daring Microsoft to do it in the right way. Take the risk, he is saying. He backs Google only to the extent that they will know how to use the technology but hints at what the future of Twitter will be if Google buys them…oblivion. They will chop the code up and use what they can to further their own initiatives but Twitter will be no more. Read more…

INTRODUCTION

With the proliferation of social networking sites, we are increasingly reliant on our online profiles to accurately present our personalities. But do they? Dr. Scott Counts of Microsoft Research’s VIBE Group explored just how people’s perceptions are impacted by the advent of online identities.

In a recent presentation of findings, Dr. Counts discussed studies that delved into the ways we self-present our personalities via online profiles and how others perceive those presentations.  The results were interesting, and proved the promising reliability and accuracy of the newfound ability to “right-click” on someone via their online profiles.

Below are the insight summaries from two of the Mircrosoft studies that focused on how people perceive personalities via online profiles.
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