It's rare that I clap for [watch] TV commercials. But Verizon just took AT&T to the mat -- er, map.

Technically, this is off-topic, but I think I can apply a little broad discretion when it comes to bad data -- That is, the data that every U.S. cell phone company uses to claim to be the best.

I know I spend a lot of time picking on Apple -- especially the the iPhone. But when something falls just short of great, it leaves room for criticism. That, however, doesn't describe Apple's choice of service partner. Verizon customers love their coverage. T-Mobile customers love their customer service. Sprint customers love their features (and free 3G roaming to Verizon). AT&T customers love their iPhones, and tolerate their service. Now Verizon is taking them to the map.

Watch and see what I mean.

When searching a spreadsheet containing the drug test results of 104 professional baseball players federal prosecutors went too far, says the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

After lawfully executing a warrant on a Long Beach, CA drug testing lab for the test results of 10 players, agents uncovered a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with results of every player that was tested in the program. The government argued that 94 of those results were in "plain sight".

In a 9-2 decision, the court ruled:

"The government should, in future warrant applications, forswear reliance on the plain view doctrine or any similar doctrine that would allow it to retain data to which it has gained access only because it was required to segregate seizable from non-seizable data. If the government doesn’t consent to such a waiver, the magistrate judge should order that the seizable and non-seizable data be separated by an independent third party under the supervision of the court, or deny the warrant altogether."

Citing US v. Hill, 322 F. Supp. 2d 1081 (C.D. Cal. 2004), Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, writing for the majority states the objective to,

"maintain the privacy of materials that are intermingled with seizable materials, and to avoid turning a limited search for particular information into a general search of office file systems and computer databases. If the government can’t be sure whether data may be concealed, compressed, erased or booby-trapped without carefully examining the contents of every file...then everything the government chooses to seize will, under this theory, automatically come into plain view. Since the government agents ultimately decide how much to actually take, this will create a powerful incentive for them to seize more rather than less: Why stop at the list of all baseball players when you can seize the entire Tracey Directory? Why just that directory and not the entire hard drive? Why just this computer and not the one in the next room and the next room after that? Can’t find the computer? Seize the Zip disks under the bed in the room where the computer once might have been."

Four players whose names also appeared in the seized spreadsheet were leaked to The New York Times. Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Sammie Sosa were not included in the search warrant, but Kozinski added, "those players suffered harm as a result of the government's seizure."

The decision crafts Miranda-style guidelines for prosecutors and judges to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights while conducting computer searches.

I have participated in testimony to a similar effect, whereby courts have ruled that spouses cannot provide consent to search an entire hard drive when directories are clearly controlled by one individual. Likewise, I have been asked by the court, on many occasions to parse data applicable to a search warrant from a mountain of otherwise inadmissible data.

Although this decision only addresses computer hard drives, it clearly has long-reaching implications. After all, nearly every electronic device has become, or will become, computerized to some extent.

While the US government is considering its next move, I expect this may be a sign of things to come.

Normally, tech industry news is a huge unhealthy personal interest of mine, but just left of my professional purview. (E.g., a waste of time, better spent earning a living.) So, I had to dig real deep to figure out how to get in on the Facebook-Friendfeed news before it hits the TV networks, and 90% of the first-world population utters a simultaneous, "What's Friendfeed?", over morning coffee.

The other ten percent of us are aware that Friendfeed is, in so many ways, technologically and mechanically superior to both Twitter and Facebook, yet not nearly as hip, cool, or demographically desirable (I think the male-female user ratio is worse than Alaska's) in so many other ways. Then again, maybe only five percent of us might agree with that assessment. There's probably another five who know exactly what Friendfeed is, and would sooner drink bleach than cede any advantages to Friendfeed over Twitter. But, most of those people don't have anything nice to say about Facebook either.

From a practical standpoint, it doesn't matter. Most of the free world has already aligned themselves with either Facebook, Twitter, or both. And, thanks in part to services like Ping.fm and Posterous.com, a few of us have managed to keep at least one toe in Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Plurk, Linkedin, Tumblr, Identi.ca, Brightkite, Plaxo, Bebo, and Hi5--but won't admit to ever having used MySpace. (Yes, I have 11 toes--Get over it!)

So, here's my spin: The Facebook-Friendfeed marriage ("Facefeed"?) is arguably the biggest merger in the online social space since AOL bought ICQ back in good ol' 1998. (Again, 90% say, "ICQ?") With it, Facebook will be acquiring various bits of personally-identifiable information from over 1,000,000 active and inactive Friendfeed users. Granted, next to Facebook's exhaustive, and arguably invasive (creepy?), profile settings, Friendfeed doesn't even allow for more than four pieces of information: a full name, user name, password, and an email address. But, Friendfeed does encourage users to scan their various email accounts and social networks for other users, and, like other social networks, it stores whatever the user puts into it. While Friendfeed encourages it's users to make their feeds public, similar to most Twitter feeds, it does have a "private feed" option. Presumably, this information has been purchased along with the public feeds. Though Friendfeed's numbers might pale in comparison to Facebook's quarter of a Billion users, it serves as a reminder, lest some even bigger fish (say Google) might one day swallow Facebook. And, one million people might still want to know what's going to happen with their data.

Read more @ Cloud Ave (http://www.cloudave.com/link/facefeed-no-surprises-here)

Black Hawk County, Iowa has become the first in the nation to start accepting text messages sent to 911.

For now, the service only works for T-Mobile customers, and only those in the Black Hawk County area. Also, the physical hardware and software does not allow emergency operators to automatically locate callers, like they can using the E-911 (Enhanced-911) capabilities of most cellular and POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines--so dial-access is still the way to go for most people, in most circumstances. But, for those with physical impairments (all-thumbs?), or even temporary physical restraints (think hiding under a desk during an armed robbery), this could literally be a life-saver.

"Texting" has another advantage: it tends work where and when voice calls often can't, and requires very little battery life. Even stranded outside coverage area with a near-depleted battery, a text message is far more likely to "connect" than a voice call, and doesn't require a sustained signal to get the point across. Which, coincidentally, makes T-Mobile customers good candidates for the service.

Unfortunately, it's probably not going to do anything for response times, or T-Mobile's subscriber numbers. But, if it saves just one subscriber's life, that could make it all worthwhile--at least for T-Mobiles stockholders.

Via AP (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQRysLdp0it9uIqDi_ytuMGxpotAD99ST5RG1)

Remember when Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of choc'o'lates. You never know what you're gonna' ge'ut"? Well, same goes for the ever-popular Twitter. At least, when it comes to shortened links.

URL-shortening is popular with Twitter users because--well--it's hard enough to make your point in 140 characters, or less. Let alone, add in some outrageously long URL. But, up until now, when you clicked on one of those shortened links, you never knew what you were going to get. What you might have gotten was a browser-full of malware (malicious-software)--that icky code that takes over your computer and makes it do things you didn't want it to do.

So, if you love to click on all those up-to-the-minute Twitter links, today is a good day! Because Twitter is FINALLY scanning for malicious links.

Hallelujah! It's about time! Your turn Facebook.

Via Techie Buzz (http://techie-buzz.com/social-networking/ma)