David Weinberger, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and the more recent Everything is Miscellaneous received a letter today from Verizon. A "legalistic pamphlet" that informed him he has 45 days to opt out of 'agreeing' to let Verizon share his personal information.

This information includes "services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info. They promise to only share this with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies.' It will definitely not be shared with 'unrelated third parties' ... unless, perhaps that third party pays Verizon to become an affiliate, whatever the heck 'affiliate' means," Wienberger wrote.

While getting this in the mail is great, what about those people who only receive electronic copies from Verizon? Did they too receive a message? I didn't, so I decided to investigate, and sure enough, after logging into my Verizon Wireless account I couldn't find a mention of the CPNI. As Weinberger pointed out, there is a link to it in my messages, but alas, as he also mentions, the link is "not available."

Verizon has not been having a great run recently. Sure, in January Microsoft opened its wallet to Verizon and struck a five year partnership with the wireless carrier in hopes of getting access to its more than 80 million subscribers, but what if those subscribers begin to slowly dwindle away?

Verizon was dealt a blow last month when the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the company's request to overturn a decision by the Federal Communications Commission regarding its marketing tactics. Earlier this month the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission decided Verizon's customer service "stinks" and sought a settlement to improve customer service. Next week, Delaware customers with complaints about their telecommunications service will have the opportunity to air them during the states Public Service Commission hearings.

Verizon spokesman Harry Mitchell, in discussing next week's public forum said the company still does not believe the hearings are necessary. "There were some issues we did have, but we worked through those, in collaboration with the commission staff, and made great improvements," he said.

While they may have fixed the problems associated with gripes about their old copper pipes in Delaware, they clearly haven't yet addressed their customer service issues.

For a company that prides itself on operating the nation's most reliable and largest wireless voice and data network, and spends an absolute fortune on creating masterful ads (YouTube link) to entertain us, it clearly still has a way to go. Perhaps it's time the company started putting some of its energy into the Twitter account it set up, and got up close and personal to its community and their needs.

Note: David Weinberger's post walks you through the process of opting out of Verizon's 'share your information' default setting. If you haven't done it yet, we highly recommend you do.

With the DSRC system in place, cars can become nodes on Muni-Wi-Fi networks, Wi-Fi hotspots, and home Wi-Fi networks. The possibilities are nearly limitless for what that could mean. Dealerships can diagnose vehicles cable-free, cars can receive real-time downloads of maps and traffic conditions, they could communicate wirelessly with toll stations, and the vehicles could even automatically download music from home PCs. (Or maybe iTunes Wi-Fi store? We don't see why not.)

In addition the numerous applications that would make a connected car both useful and fun, there's a public safety element to the system as well. Vehicles could alert their drivers of congestion and accidents, could help drivers safely perform maneuvers like lane changes, could help prevent collisions, and much more. As you traveled, the data about what lies on the road ahead could be relayed from car to car so there is no lag between when the tractor trailer overturned and when you, the driver five miles back, is informed of this. "This technology essentially equips vehicles with the ability to see around corners and predict and avoid dangerous situations," said Professor Alex Grant of the ITR project.

Lest you think the connected vehicle is just a pipe dream that won't be realized until sometime in the distant future, listen to this: Cohda Wireless has already completed over than 700 DSRC trials, for 15 distinct DSRC use-case scenarios, in the U.S., Italy and Australia. These trials covered over 10,000 km during which 100GB of random data was transmitted. The results of the trials proved how Cohda Wireless' technology excelled over other in-vehicle Wi-Fi chipsets. The company is now saying the technology will be in wide release by 2012. That's not too distant at all.

For more information about internet-connected objects, see "5 Companies Building an Internet of Things."

Recently, we've seen a handful of companies attempting to develop technologies that could build an "internet of things." One example is Tikitag, a company that presented at the DEMO 08 conference.  With a Tikitag starter kit and some client software, you can program your own RFID tags so that they can do anything you want them to do. They can launch an application, deliver you to a URL, and so much more.

What's great about Tikitag's tags is that you don't need a specialized RFID reader in order to scan them - they're compatible with third party readers like NFC (Near Field Communication) enabled mobile phones. There are already over 40 million of these phones available and analysts expect over 250 millions to be sold in 2012.

You can get the Tikitag starter kit with one reader and 10 tags for 34.95 Euro + VAT/$49.95 U.S. Additional Tikitag RFID tags are sold for 19.95 EURO or $29.95 U.S.

Mir:ror

Mir:ror is a device from a company called Violet that detects the objects you show it and gives them powers. As you wave a device over the USB-attached mirror, you can trigger applications and multimedia content automatically. The "magic" mirror isn't actually sensing the object itself, but is reacting to an RFID tag placed on the object which then tells your computer what to do.

Those tags are embedded in the company's Ztamps, colorful RFID stamps that you stick on the objects you want to connect. They also work with the company's other more well-known internet-connected object: the Nabaztag, an adorable rabbit that can deliver anything from ambient information through lights and sounds to verbal information - like when he reads your email or RSS feeds to you.

Pachube

Pachube is a service that lets you "tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world. The key aim is to facilitate interaction between remote environments, both physical and virtual." On their web site, you can either input a feed or use one of the feeds available. The feeds come from devices, buildings, or interactive installations that are already connected to the internet or that send out SMS messages. Also supported are Second Life installations.

By registering a feed on the site, you can share your real-time data with other objects, keep historical records of your data, or create online graphs to use in a web page.

Arduino

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform made up of open source hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments - that is, "the internet of things."

For an example of the type of internet-connected objects you can build with Arduino, look at this presentation where the author configured a kid's toy ray gun to react when anyone posted on Twitter about the #barcampliverpool hash tag.

ZeroG Wireless

ZeroG Wireless is a semiconductor company that's focused on building low-power wireless chips. Their low-power Wi-Fi chips can be embedded into any system including consumer electronics, smart energy devices, home and building controls, portable medical sensors, and sensor networks. The company was founded "based on the belief that a new paradigm of wireless connectivity is upon us. According to their web site, they envision a "4th Age of Wireless™ -- the Internet of Things."

Back in 1998, only one third of adults had online access and a desktop PC cost around $1800. At this time, it was mainly upper income Americans, and mostly men, using computers and the internet.

But now, it's mobile access that is bringing the internet to more people. Building from the affordable and easy-to-use cell phone, adoption patterns are different for mobile users than for those accessing the web via traditional PC-based methods. Specially, cell phone internet users include groups that had, before now, lagged in internet adoption, like some minorities and senior citizens. For example, as of December 2007, 50% of Americans age 65 and over had cell phones compared with only 36% who used the internet.

Out of all the cell phone users, on an average day 58% of adults use the devices, including PDAs, for at least one non-voice data application like text, email, photos, looking up maps or directions, or recording video.

The study groups these cell phone users into a demographic called "Mobile Centrics," a diverse group that is more oriented to the cell phone than to desktop internet access. The Mobile Centrics aren't into blogging or idle web surfing, but they do love their mobile games.

If you combine this group of mobile device users (58%) with the 41% of Americans that have logged onto the internet using a laptop or mobile device when away from home, and you have a group of 62% of Americans who have some experience with access to digital data and tools.

Wi-Fi Hotspots Everywhere

Wi-Fi is still growing. The Mobile Broadband Index put out by iPass, a global roaming service that forms relationship with ISPs around the world, summarizes their internal data representing usage behavior across its base of more than 3,000 enterprise customers, including more than 400 of the Forbes Global 2000 and across more that 80,000 hotspots in over 85 countries.

Users at a Wi-Fi Hotspot

Their most recent study showed that Wi-Fi hotspot usage by business users increased 89% worldwide over the second half of 2006, with Europe now overtaking the U.S. in usage. Business use of Wi-Fi nearly doubled.

2007 also showed a rapidly accelerating growth rate, with the number of sessions up 68 percent in the first half of 2007.

In the Wi-Fi hotspot analysis (period July 1-December 31, 2007), Wi-Fi users were logging into their wireless sessions at the usual places: cafes, restaurants, bookstores, transit stations, and office services locations.

What's different now is the length of these sessions. The increase from 2006 to 2007 had the typical café user logged in for 66 minutes, up 35 percent from the previous year; restaurant users were logged in for 44 minutes, up 217 percent; train stations, averaged 26 minutes per user, up 238 percent; bookstores had users online for 79 minutes, up 26% from last year. Only office services (Kinko's et al) saw a lost in number, losing 10% of users from 2006 to 2007. "Other" venues which didn't fit into any of these categories saw growth up 103%.

Says Rick Bilodeau, senior director of marketing at iPass, "We were very confident that there would be growth, but the fact that the growth showed at these levels really came as a surprise."

Mobile Broadband

3G Mobile Broadband use also increased during 2007. From the first quarter to the last saw an increase in overall data transfer, with the average monthly data transfer rate up 25% over the course of the year. (the iPhone effect?) Users transferred an average of 202.5 MB of data over the course of the year. Monthly usage averaged 188 MB in Q1 and 225 MB in Q4, indicating that usage seems to rise with experience.

Over 2007, 62% of users required 2.5G at some point each month. While only 3% of users relied solely on 2.5G during a given month, iPass believes this low number may reflect some users abandoning mobile data for Wi-Fi hotspots or home broadband when they can't get a high-speed 3G connection

Conclusion

It's apparent that mobile web access is a trend that is growing fast and will continue to grow. Breakthrough devices like the ultra-portable PCs and the Macbook Air make it even easier to to take full computers, and not just cell phones, anywhere and everywhere.

However, a lot of users are still using cell phones and for some it's if not the only way, then the most common way, for them to use the internet. For these users, I hope to see cloud computing initiatives that given them access to the tools and resources PC users already have such as mobile/web office suites, online RSS readers, and social networking access. Although there are some applications that provide these types of things to cell phone users today, none are truly stellar. There is still a large, untapped market of potential cloud computing customers who might stop texting and playing games for a minute if given the tools to do more.