Bathroom Attack of the 'Apless Apps

We live in a time where NSA and PRISM, the Internet of Things and Mobile Apps dominate online and off-line chatter.

Sometimes convergence of these technologies can come together in the most unexpected of ways leaving the user wondering why more robust user testing wasn't in place before release.  And in the context of this article I use the term "release" advisedly!

Those of you who have ever stayed in a Japanese hotel will know that the toilets are high tech with a series of buttons designed for an internal car wash, post purge.

The Satis Smart Design boasts the most sophisticated of toilet innovation according to its manufacturers Laxil, one of Japan's biggest toilet companies.  It's mouth-like lid opens automatically to greet you as you draw nigh and when you step away the toilet flushes automatically.

There is now even a free Android app with a hard-wired Bluetooth code available which means you can operate the Satis remotely, all of which sounds fine in theory.  There is however one fatal flaw that the manufacturers have failed to realise in their rush for innovation - their high tech toilet can be hacked.

IT security firm Trustwave has issued a Bluetooth security vulnerability warning that the app could be hacked. Trustwave issued an advisory that a pin for the Bluetooth app is set at '0000' and can therefore be used by anyone - even remotely. In short, anyone with the 'My Satis' app can control any Satis toilet.

Trustwave advisory

While it remains to be see if bidet hacking will become as popular as gangam style dancing, the temptation for pranksters is obvious. Facing a cyber attack in the bathroom from an out of control two-nozzle bidet spray could have dire consequences.

Related articles

• Smart toilet vulnerable to Bluetooth flushing hack
• High-Tech Japanese Toilets Can Be Hacked via Bluetooth, Experts Warn
• The Hackable Japanese Toilet Comes With An App To Track Poop

Seven Places Where Facebook Isn't Number One

Clearly Japan is still more enamoured with Twitter than they are with Facebook but the latter is catching up fast. A year from now it is quite possible that Facebook will supplant Twitter as the social media platform of choice.

According to comScore who conducted the research in 40 markets, Facebook reached 55% of the world's online audience in October 2011.  It also accounted for three of every four minutes spent networking on social media platforms, and one of every seven minutes on the entire web.

There are six other countries where Facebook is yet to rule.

• In Brazil, Orkut still reigns (232 average minutes per visitor) but Facebook (205 average minutes per visitor) is catching up fast. 298.5% growth in Facebook usage over the past 12 months.
• In Poland the indigenous Nasza-Klasa.pl is about to lose its ranks as #1 to Facebook
• In Russia Facebook does not get a look-in. 

• Naver.com Cafe and Cyworld are vying for top spot in South Korea
• Facebook is not number one in Vietnam although it should be noted that comScore does not collect data from that country
• It doesn't have a presence in China

And here is how Facebook has risen in recent years, overtaking locally-grown platforms

Facebook growth remains highest in countries that are often termed "developing markets" e.g. Indonesia, India, Brazil and the Philippines.

The only country in the world where Facebook's presence over 12 months has actually decreased is Canada, which a -1% growth over 2011.

And lest we forget, the global audience for Facebook currently stands at 797,952,700.

McLobster And L'Affaire DSK - The Best & The Worst of 2011

It's that time of year, a chance to look back over the preceding twelve months and review what  worked and what did not. And maybe, just maybe, take a sip of Xmas cheer to dull the pain.

Twitter has recently released details of its 2011 highlights and once again sports dominates the re-tweets per second ratio.

Tweets Per Second

In terms of actual topics, the year was dominated by political upheaval and natural disasters. Cairo, Egypt, Japan, Libya and Tokyo all featured in the top ten cities and countries list.

As the Twitter blog states, "from news of Mubarak’s resignation in Egypt to buzz about which McDonald’s restaurants serve McLobster, the top trends that emerged on Twitter in 2011 reflect the diverse things that matter to us in our daily lives.

Among other things, we saw history unfold in the Middle East, mourned the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, celebrated National Whipped Cream Day, and cheered for the Dallas Mavericks, Texas Rangers and Wayne Rooney.

We wondered about Charlie Sheen, speculated about the Sony NGP, and raved (or raged) about Rebecca Black. And we tYp3ed LyK tHi5."

Various luminaries put aside their aversion to social media and signed up to Twitter in 2011.  Each no doubt had a different motive for doing so.

Who Joined Twitter in 2011

In its Ten Worst Tweets of 2011 Time ranks the Anthony Weiner on ... Anthony's 'Weiner' as being the biggest faux pas tweet of the year.

Comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried made a complete 'twit' of himself by tweeting 'jokes' about the Japanese earthquake which included tweets such as "Japan is very advanced.They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them".  Not surprisingly he was fired from his role as the voice of the Aflac duck as the manufacturer of said product does 75% of its business in Japan.

Don't shoot the messenger or should that be 'elephant?  The largest U.S. web domain registry company, GoDaddy, received a massive backlash when its CEO, Bob Parsons, tweeted a link to a video of himself shooting an elephant in Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile over at Facebook their "Memology" (a terrible piece of IT jargon if ever there was one) echoes many of the Twitter findings.

The Royal Wedding featured highly as did the deaths of bin Laden, Steve Jobs and Amy Winehouse.

There was some regional variation with the UK Riots coming in at #2 in the UK and two abbreviations (lms & tbh) ranking #1 & #2 in the USA.  The Aussies seemed to be more fixated on 'planking' which was their #1 while the French followed the seemingly sordid goings on of Dominic Strauss Khan with great gusto. 'Affaire DSK' was their top status trend.

Finally, Mashable reports that Twitter topped the  list of most-buzzed about social networks this year, replacing 2010′s most-buzzed network, YouTube.

"The annual rankings by digital marketing agency Zeta Interactive measure volume (number of mentions in more than 200 million blogs, social media outlets and online posts) and tone (comparing positive and negative buzz). The Zeta Buzz score is calculated by the volume ranking multiplied by the percent positive ranking divided by 10, using data pulled since January 2011."

Related articles

• #YearInReview: Tweets Per Second (twitter.com)
• Twitter reveals 2011 hot topics (bbc.co.uk)

Web Site Of The Month - UNIQLO Innovation Project

The UNIQLO Innovation Project site is stylish and effective with stripped back Japanese design elements.  The icon design is particularly effective.

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• Robot-Inspired Fast Fashion - The Uniqlo Innovation Project is a Futuristically Minimalist Campaign (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)

Twitter Global Pulse - The Japanese Earthquake

Twitter's visualisations show the flow of information (tweets) during major events; in this case the recent Japanese Earthquake.  There was a 500 percent increase in Tweets from Japan as people reached out to friends, family and loved ones in the moments after the earthquake.

The first clip shows the volume of @replies traveling in and out of Japan in a one-hour period just before and just after the recent earthquake.

Replies directed to users in Japan are shown in pink; messages directed at others from Japan are shown in yellow

The next clip shows the worldwide retweets of Tweets that originated in Japan, showing the spread of information from original Tweets through those who pass them on to others.

Senders’ original Tweets are shown in red; Tweets retweeted by their followers in the hour after the event are displayed in green.

 

Source - Twitter Blog

Japan Sets A New Twitter Record

According to a Twitter blog four seconds after midnight on January 1st, Japan Twitterers set an all-time record in the number of Tweets sent per second (TPS).

At that moment a whopping 6,939 TPS were sent to friends and followers wishing them “Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu” (“Happy New Year!”).

This frenzy of New year bonhomie more than doubled the previous record of 3,283 TPS, set during Japan’s victory over Denmark in the 2010 World Cup.

Twitter reports:

"On New Year's Eve, we saw epic Tweet activity around the world as people in each time zone inaugurated 2011. The East coast time zone alone almost amassed the same amount of Tweets at its peak of 3,000 TPS as the entire world did during the peak moment of the World Cup."

Not to be left out, Facebook has announced that its users had uploaded 750 million photos over the holiday weekend;  although the irony is that they chose to announce this record effort... on Twitter.

Facebook is not so popular in Japan and according to the New York Times, Facebook users in Japan number fewer than two million, or less than 2 percent of the country’s online population.

That is in sharp contrast to the United States, where 60 percent of Internet users are on Facebook, according to the analytics site.

Mixi, Gree and Mobage-town are the local favourites and each has more than 20 million users.

Part of the reason for the aversion to using Facebook is that the Japanese jealously guard their personal privacy, preferring to use pseudonyms or nicknames. Facebook does not allow for this masking of identities.

Related articles

• New Year's Tweets Set New Record (mashable.com)
• Japan's New Year Tweets Help Set Twitter Record (marketingpilgrim.com)

Ever Felt the Urge to Pinch Your TV?

There are some who believe television programming is akin to molding a cake of glutinous rice.  Now the physical television experience is going the same way.

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology has developed the world's first 3D television system that allows users to touch, pinch or poke images floating in front of them.

Senior scientist Norio Nakamura is reported as saying " You can have the sense of touch like poking a rubber ball or stretching a sticky rice cake".

Like many good ideas this one does not yet have any practical application as yet but it looks promising  in the field of surgery and as an aid for the vision impaired,

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• "I3Space Provides New Way to Feel 3D Images" and related posts (aboutprojectors.com)
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