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Just when you thought the over 70,000 phone apps on the market covered every single entertainment, scientific or news-spreading purpose possible, the need for new applications grows.

Last week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a scientific convention focused on a new field: the human-environment mobile-based interactions.

Cell phones, iPods and any other portable computing device are about to become the ultimate low-budget environmental monitoring tool for researchers worldwide.

Dale Joachim, a visiting scientist at MIT’s Media Lab, organized the event, with funding from the National Science Foundation. “How do we rethink human-environment interactions in light of these mobile devices?’’

For instance, Carlos Corrada-Bravo, director of the Computer Science Program at the University of Puerto Rico, programmed his iPod Touch to record birds and frogs in remote areas of Puerto Rico and Hawaii. He modified the consumer device by adding an extra battery and an off-the-shelf microphone. A less than $20 investment allows professor Corrada-Bravo to record the sounds of the forest and study the fauna.

Richard Fletcher, a Media Lab research scientist, envisions instead a cheap low-wattage system incorporating sensors in order to detect soil moisture or pH, wired to data-storage hubs with Bluetooth radios. Field assistants will be able to collect and forward scientific data using just a cell phone.

The era of scientific expeditions with porters carrying heavy machinery deep into the forest may soon come to an end.

As fascinating as the new technological frontiers may seem, the scientific community raised some concerns, such as a potential lack of bandwidth in remote areas, battery supplies, waste of electricity, etc.

Joachim, one of the strongest supporters of this direction, does not dismiss the challenges, but believes they can be overcome. In this new “digital ecology’’ approach, millions of cell phones can interact with powerful servers and provide a never-before-seen flow of data. “Now we have a different beast,’’ Joachim said. “We have a beast with a thousand eyes.’’

If we talk about “sandboxing”, happy memories of childhood games in the garden will come to mind.

But when talking about computers and applications, this term refers to a very powerful security feature that separates running programs. This is very important for service/application providers. Anyone that offers a web-based service is potentially under risk of being attacked by hackers or third parties interested in gaining the information that’s been transferred from the user to the server during uploading and vice versa during downloading.

When Swiss DNA Bank’s developing team was crating the application, the number one priority was always to give users the maximum level of security possible due to the company’s concern with the customers’ privacy issues.

The only way to provide 100% guarantees that the data would not be intercepted by malicious third parties was to rely on two separate servers: one on which the application is running and another one on which the data is stored. The two servers are completely independent and physically located in two different venues. The only connection occurs during data uploading and downloading, a phase in which everything is protected by the highest encryption standards.

In addition, the keys to decryption and the encrypted data are saved in physically separated machines, so that even if a system engineer gains access to one of the servers it is impossible for him to enter the Forever database.

Another plus of this security solution is that in case of an application crash occurs due to a very high number of access, there is no risk of data loss or damaging because everything is saved on the separate and highly secure Forever server.

The risk with the average available cloud computing (services which, like Swiss DNA Bank, provide a software that users access form a browser instead of downloading it on their computer), is that you do not know for sure wether the application and the data are on the same server and where the server is physically located. Since data can sometimes be backed-up on one’s computer but is usually hosted on the cloud, in case of a system crash there are no security guarantees concerning a safe back-up procedure.

Unlike most services, thanks to the multiple server solution and localized Forever data storage, Swiss DNA Bank is able to provide a 100% secure service for a risk-free storage.

September 1st 2009 is a very important day in Swiss DNA Bank’s history. It’s the day the staff finally pulled the strings on a very intensive two-years project development. Everything came together and the “put-the-web-application-on-line-button” was pushed.

The dream of creating the first data and DNA forever banking service came to life.

The idea was always to create a bank, a Swiss bank, which followed each and every security and privacy policy of our country. But what was going to be sheltered in this bank was not money or bonds. Was something much more precious and unique: it was people’s memories and DNA.

As Swiss DNA Bank’s website often states, one’s life experience, knowledge and memories are the most important asset we have. It takes a lifetime to build them.

On the other hand, our DNA trace is something that belongs only to ourselves. The health information contained are crucial not only for the carrier, but also for it’s family. Knowing your biological ancestry can help you prevent or cure many disease. But at the end of one’s life these assets are most likely going to be lost. Our children, our grandchildren and the ones that will come after them are deprived of the chance of getting to know who we where, what we’ve done and what we’ve learned.

This is where the idea of the Perpetual Financial Engine comes from.

The Perpetual Financial Engine feature is the reason why Swiss DNA Bank’s service is Forever. As of today, there is no technological support that you are sure it will be readable in even just 10 or 15 years time. Think about a floppy disc or an audio cassette.

So we figured that the solution to perpetual data storage is not technological, but financial.

The Perpetual Financial Engine, together with a long-lasting and safe structure of a Swiss bank, is the key to being able of founding tomorrow’s technological support renewal.

The user’s subscription fee is partially invested in safe assets, such as Swiss government bonds, in order to guarantee a small revenue, year after year, which allows to keep our storing facilities up to date.

When this whole picture came together, it was time to think of a safe way to store it all. The solution fort the physical storage of the servers which contain the data came from the heart of the Swiss Alps, from a former military nuclear shelter which was converted into server hosting facility.

Once Swiss DNA Bank’s servers were safe behind closed steel doors, the attention turned to on-line security.

The web-development team figured that username and password were not enough to protect such sensible data. So each Swiss DNA Bank user is provided with a Swiss DNA Card, a credit card sized one-time access code generator. The one-time access code is the third field one has to fill to enter the Swiss DNA Bank web application, an amazing tool to organize memories, pictures, documents, and any other file you can think of.

Take a look at your desk. Open some drawers randomly. Check your computer’s desktop. And what about the office’s shelves? Unless you are one of those people naturally gifted with full organizational skills, at least one of those places is a real mess.

And if you are organized, this will be your ultimate tool!

Now you can store it all, safely and Forever.

http://www.swissdnabank.com/

Internet surfers and social network addicts: take a moment to thank Canada for fighting and winning a privacy battle for us all.

Ever took a closer look at that little box you tick before starting the “Which Famous Rock Star are You” or the “How Karmic are You” test on Facebook?

Don’t if you don’t want to feel exposed, naked and cheated on. Data exposed, naked and cheated on, that is.

Because what happens is that in exchange for vital information such as who your superhero twin is you allow “third parties”, typically the application’s (test’s) developer, to access your personal information, letting you wonder what they are going to do with it.

I’m thinking targeting the ads upon your profile, but maybe I’m just being malicious.

Being most of us users reckless and carefree about our info, Canada decided to do something about it. One year ago an Internet policy group at the University of Ottawa filed a complaint about Facebook’s privacy policies, which now resulted in Facebook having 12 months time to do something major about it.

The well-know social network will have to make significant changes to the software code it shares with third-party developers, in order to warn users about which bits of information are being disclosed and to whom exactly.

Dave Morin, senior platform manager at Facebook, sympathizes with the developers who are now facing software-changing issues.

“These changes mean that the privacy of 200 million Facebook users in Canada and around the world will be far better protected,” Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s privacy commissioner, said in a statement.

Another important thing is that the mystery over deactivating and deleting one’s account will be unveiled. If you decide not to use the Facebook application anymore you will most likely bounce into the “deactivate account” option. This only blocks your account temporarily, leaving all your information in their Palo Alto servers. If you want to delete it, it gets more complicated. To find the right option I had to access the Help Center, type “delete” and scroll down the FAQ quite a bit. The link to delete was, in my opinion, kind of hidden. Maybe there’s another easier way but I guess I was not Internet-savvy enough to figure it out

Today personal information is like cash, only (or shall we say, plus?) without inflation: it is precious, it is hard to get, it is desirable. If you must give yours up and spill the beans about your age, lifestyle and interests, at least make it worth your while!

Unless you really need to know who your celebrity boyfriend is.

No matter how much you paid your computer, how carefully, you store your CDs, how gentle you treat to your pen driver, sooner or later they’re going to break down, blow up or become obsolete support.

Take a regular sunday night home cinema experience: just a few years ago it was totally different. Not only because we had to wait the late Eighties for microwave popcorn, but also because our movies came in a big black box. The videotape.
Try find a VCR today to watch the kid’s first trip to Disneyland or that 1985 Back to the Future cassette. That recorder will play hard to get hiding in grandma’s cellar.

Personal information value is skyrocketing: any company today is ready to trick you into controversial terms of use to grant themselves access to your data and make it valuable B to B currency. So the key world to data storage is… professional data storage.

Surfing the web you realize that many companies are offering this kind of service. But what is it you need to look for to get good service and conditions? Here are the top features to look for in a data storage service:

Feature Set Practical features make uploading, storing, accessing and sharing your files easy. Online storage services should offer remote access, public and private file sharing, scheduled backup. All in an easy-to-use and clear layout.

Security Security is exceptionally important when storing data. Online storage services should offer encrypted file transfer and password protection. Latest technologies provide one-time-access code generator devices, more popular in e-banking than data storage. Technology is always improving, so it is important to choose the latest features available and not to compromise. Especially when it comes to your data’s privacy!

Service fees The top online storage services are not the free ones. Many big names free-of-charge services are shutting down because of the collapse of the ads market, which provided the cash to keep the services up and running. In order not to risk losing you data, it is safer to rely on a provider that charges you for the service. Hardware update is also crucial for good data maintenance. This can be done only by a company that has an steady income from its users. Advertisment is not someting you can relyon nowadays. Yahoo learned it the hard way: its GeoCities service, which provided free websites to its users, will be shut down Oct. 29th 2009 for this reason. users have been advised to move all their data on Yahoo’s pay-for service.

Ease of Use Online storage services should be user–friendly and not require a lot of instruction in order to upload and access files. Anyone should be able to learn the basic functions of the service in minutes.

Help/Support Good help and support is necessary with any service. Online storage services should provide self–help through FAQs, user manuals and tutorials. They should also provide customer support through email.