Last month at CES, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that the commission was moving forward with a plan to clear 195 MHz of spectrum in the 5 GHz band for Wi-Fi use. Those new frequencies, however, abut the 5.9 GHz airwaves the government has set aside for future vehicle-to-vehicle communications networks.

On Monday, the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA) sent a letter to the FCC — signed by a veritable who’s who in the transportation industry such as AAA, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai  – warning the FCC of the potential for these new Wi-Fi networks to interfere with the wireless transmissions between connected cars.

“We support efforts to identify spectrum that may be utilized to expand Wi-Fi applications,” ISTA said in a statement. “But with over 30,000 deaths on our nation’s roads every year, we also believe it is critical that efforts to open up additional spectrum do not come at the expense of revolutionary life-saving technologies.”

As we’ve described before, the auto industry and the U.S. Department of Transportation have big plans to use a highly secure variant of Wi-Fi technology to network vehicles on the road, allowing them to share information about their trajectories, speed, accelerating and braking — even their destinations. These massive ad-hoc networks would allow cars to get early warning of highway conditions, react automatically to avoid accidents and eventually allow cars to coordinate their driving, making them semi-or even fully-autonomous vehicles. (See GigaOM’s infographic on the connected car of the future.)

If the commercial Wi-Fi signals were to bleed out into the protected Wi-Fi signals of the car network, the letter said, the public safety and transportation management benefits of the network could be nullified — along with the hundreds of millions of dollars automakers and the government have invested in developing the technology. The auto industry doesn’t want the FCC’s Wi-Fi plan stopped, but it did ask regulators to guarantee that safeguards would be in place ensuring that such interference doesn’t occur.

That might be easier said then done. Interference issues have killed more than one big spectrum proposal as LightSquared can attest. In this case, the cars and the Wi-Fi devices would be using short-range wireless technologies, which might help mitigate interference issues. But as anyone who has ever turned on their smartphone’s Wi-Fi radio in a car knows, you can pick up a Wi-Fi signal almost anywhere. And as outdoor Wi-Fi deployments become more prevalent, those signals are only going to get more powerful.

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Facebook is testing new features that would give children under 13 access to the giant social network, according to a report published Monday in the Wall Street Journal. Although one version of this new program would require children to have accounts that are linked to an adult so that supervision is easier, some parents have raised concerns about allowing pre-teens access the network at all due to Facebook’s past handling of privacy-related issues. Others, however, argue that plenty of younger children already access Facebook anyway despite the 13-year-old age limit, and that Facebook is wise to make it official.

In fact, the widespread flouting of the 13-year-old limit — a survey by Consumer Reports found that more than 7 million children under that age are on the network — is described as one of the primary motivations behind the proposed changes. The Journal quotes sources “familiar with the matter” as saying that Facebook is afraid it could face governmental scrutiny because of the large numbers of younger users who access the network, in many cases with the help or knowledge of their parents. The company has already been criticized and sanctioned by regulators a number of times over its handling of privacy.

Zuckerberg has said he wants to appeal to younger users

Facebook didn’t confirm that it is working on the kind of features described by the Wall Street Journal, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said in the past that the issue of allowing younger users access to the network was “a fight we [will] take on at some point.” And a comment from the company suggested that it is aware of — and concerned about — the problem of unauthorized access by kids. As a spokesman told the newspaper:

Recent reports have highlighted just how difficult it is to enforce age restrictions on the Internet, especially when parents want their children to access online content and services. We are in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policy makers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.

When I asked the people who follow me on Twitter for their thoughts on the proposed changes, one of the main arguments for not allowing children under 13 to access the social network was that they aren’t old enough to make appropriate decisions for themselves — about what to share with others, what content they should comment on, what kind of behavior is appropriate, and so on — and that many parents might not supervise them properly. Some said they were concerned children would find ways around any restrictions Facebook might impose, such as requiring parental approval for friending other users or posting content.

@mathewi Some adults struggle with privacy settings; under 13s could run into problems in that regard

—
Gary Hilson (@GaryInToronto) June 04, 2012

On a related point, some parents said they were worried about the permanence of Facebook content, and the impact that over-sharing or other bad decisions by younger children might have on their lives as they get older. Just as some university-age users have found that their behavior on the social network can cause problems for them as they apply for jobs, some parents say they don’t want the questionable choices their children might make as 10-year-olds to impact the way their families or friends or others see them. As one child advocacy group told the Journal:

The idea that you would go after this segment of the audience when there are concerns about the current audience is mind boggling.

Is it better to train kids early for online life?

The opposing argument is that social networks and the way they affect our lives are things that children are going to have to come to grips with sooner or later, and therefore it’s better to introduce them to the concept gradually rather than blocking them from it until a pre-determined age like 13. Provided Facebook gives parents enough controls over what their children see and do, this theory goes, allowing kids access to the network not only has positive benefits — since it allows them to connect with family and friends more easily — but can provide a good training ground for broader lessons about internet behavior.

Supporters of this viewpoint point out that most children are already capable of accessing plenty of other much more questionable internet sites without their parents’ knowledge, and that this can cause far bigger problems than Facebook ever could. Allowing kids access to the social network would be a better alternative in many ways, they argue.

On a personal note, I allowed my youngest daughter — now 14 — to set up a Facebook account before she turned 13, even though I knew that this was against the site’s terms of service. At the time, I felt that she was more than capable of handling the responsibilities of being on the network, and I thought it was important that she develop the skills of doing so in a relatively safe environment like Facebook. She also knew that I would be friending her and would be able to see her behavior online (and she has two older sisters who I knew would help me keep an eye on her as well, which made a big difference).

Is it better to try and stop younger users from joining networks like Facebook until they reach a certain age, even if we know that large numbers of them are going to do so anyway? Or is Facebook better off making it easy for them and then requiring certain restrictions on what they do, so that they — and their parents — can get ahead of the problem? Let us know what you think in the comments, or by taking the poll below:

Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr users James Emery and Dutchmassive

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The San Francisco company is branding its tools under the Safely name, which will encompass Safely Locate, a family locator service on AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint and Safely Drive, which prevents people from texting while they’re driving and is available on T-Mobile and Sprint. To those existing tools, Location Labs is adding Safely Social Monitor, a service that lets parents make sure their children are using Facebook in a safe manner.

Safely Social Monitor will allow parents to see who their children are interacting with most on Facebook and what photos they upload. Parents can get alerts when their children are tagged in photos or use phrases or words that are inappropriate. Parents can do all this with a dashboard that easily visualizes a lot of the data and doesn’t require them to sign-into their children’s account. Safely Social Monitor is available for free for Sprint users, who will have early access for a limited time. The service will eventually be made available to subscribers on other carriers.

The Safely suite of products is part of Location Labs’ effort to build a sort of anti-virus protection for families. Tasso Roumeliotis, CEO of Location Labs, said the company is trying to address a spectrum of concerns for parents, from the first time they get their phones, to the time they go online and eventually to when they get behind the wheel of a car. Said Roumeliotis:

“The creation of Safely was a natural next step for Location Labs. Our team has been laser focused on addressing the needs of families with our mobile and location-based services. Keeping up with kids as they engage with new technologies like smartphones and Facebook is a daunting task for parents. Safely answers parents’ primal need to protect their families and gives them valuable services they can trust.”

While Location Labs is branding its services under one name, it’s not creating a bundle with reduced pricing for parents. That’s because the location finder and texting tools are distributed and billed through the carriers while Safely Social Monitor will be more of a direct-to-consumer product. The social service will remain free for families but Location Labs will look to add premium features like special alerts for parents.

It’s interesting to see how family location-based services can serve as part of a larger tool set for safety. Location Labs is betting that parents see all of these risks as part of one larger issue for their children as they grow up, with mobile and social being related threats. Competitor Life360 has also talked of offering more robust family protection by partnering with home security firms to surface safety data all on one dashboard. As I’ve mentioned before, location-based services aimed at security have a lot of opportunity as basic family utilities. And it seems like location protection can be part of a larger suite of products that can be marketed together in some interesting ways.

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Kickstarter-backed iPhone, iPod and iPad accessories

The PadPivot is a versatile iPad (or any other tablet or e-reader) stand that folds up for easy storage, and works both on hard surfaces like a table or desk, or on your thigh for holding your iPad steady while browsing or watching video on the couch. In my review, I wasn’t shy about calling the PadPivot the most practical stand I’d ever come across, and that remains true after a couple more weeks of usage.

PadPivot easily exceeded its funding goal of $10,000, raising $190,352 on Kickstarter, where anyone can pledge small amounts to see the project become a reality. Another project that blew past its initial funding target, the iPod nano watchbands called LunaTik and TikTok, also went on to pick up a prize retail distribution deal, and are now available on Apple retail store shelves.

Kickstarter’s advantage is its ability to act as a focus group (designers will change their product based on feedback during the funding period), test market (pledges act as pre-orders, so retailers have a ready-made sample of prospective buyer interest) and funding round. Thanks to that triple-pronged approach, consumers get to select from some unique accessories that might not have made it through the design-by-committee process that churns out relatively interchangeable designs at established accessory-makers.

When the PadPivot arrives on Best Buy and Future Shop (which is owned by Best Buy) shelves, it’ll bear in-house RocketFish branding. The device will still retain the same design that makes it so handy, and the PadPivot name, however, and should retail for around $39.99. Check it out in action below.

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The Blackbox Bamboo was originally designed based on creator Lance Atkins’ experiences travelling with a MacBook Pro on an African backpack safari, during which time the neoprene sleeve he was using provided inadequate protection, resulting in a broken Mac. He created the first Blackbox Case out of oak in 2010 to provide a heartier alternative to traditional soft sleeves. Now, the company wants to expand their business and provide an entire, new line of cases made out of the more sustainable bamboo.

The Blackbox Bamboo will come in a choice of two colors, either with a carbonized brown stain or in natural bamboo finish. It will also come in a variety of sizes, including one that fits the iPad 2 with or without the official Apple Smart Cover attached, one for both the 11 and 13-inch MacBook Air, and one each for 13, 15 and 17-inch MacBook Pro models. All varieties come with a leather strap with a snap closure for securing your device in the Blackbox Bamboo.

Kickstarter backers qualify for pre-orders starting at $79, which gets you the iPad 2 version, and range up from there depending on which model you’re interested in. It’s a pretty cool product that appeals to the outdoor adventurer in me, though I’m not sure I wear that mantle often enough to qualify. Anyone else’s fancy tickled by the Blackbox Bamboo? Be sure to check out the video below before you answer.

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Life360 isn’t a hot new app embraced by the digerati; it’s a family safety app that has been around since 2008, when it won the Android Developer Challenge. But you wouldn’t know that by looking at its growth over the last six months, which has skyrocketed to 2 million families or about 4 million downloads, up from 300,000 families in November. After signing up 3,000 to 5,000 new users a week for much of last year, the service took off in November and has been on a tear, reaching 125,000 new sign-ups last week.

What’s behind this recent success for the San Francisco-based service? It got a bump from more media exposure, including coverage from the Japan earthquake and tsunami, in which about 1,600 families used Life360 to let their family members know they were OK and reconnect with them. Life360 lets families locate each other online through iPhone and Android apps and get information about local threats. Another boost occurred with Life360′s decision to add a check-in button in November, in addition to a panic button. With one click, users can push out their location to a spouse or parent and confirm where they are and that they are safe. That has helped boost daily engagement with about a quarter of all users checking in every day. The fact that location sharing has also become more common has also certainly helped Life360.

But the big story appears to be that Life360 is finally reaping the benefits of the rise of smartphones, which are becoming family utility tools, said founder and CEO Chris Hulls. Hulls said as smartphone penetration has risen and phones have matured and become more reliable, people have started using them for more things, and families have begun to understand the potential for the devices to promote safety. Hulls said it has taken a while, but Life360′s message is now resonating with its target audience of users in their mid-30s and up. And it’s getting great traction in the south and midwest and in suburbs, where families are embracing the tool, said Hulls.

“What’s really changed is smartphones have moved into the mainstream and people are understanding there are more things they can do with these advanced features,” Hulls said. “This isn’t the early adopter crowd, this is middle America looking to make their daily lives more helpful.”

Hulls said many of Life360′s users are spouses using the service to let each other know where they are. But as smartphones have proliferated to younger users, the app’s demographics have shifted. Now 40 percent of the people being tracked on Life360 are teens and a smattering of children as young as seven and eight, said Hulls. He said 2011 is shaping up to be the year of the smartphone as utility tool.

As Life360 sees more traction with smartphones, it’s doubling down on mobile, with the acquisition of Atlanta mobile developer MacSpots. The deal, Life360′s second acquisition, allows the company to double its engineering team and focus more on mobile. Previously, the service was focused on the web as well.

Hulls said the company is hoping to build off its newfound momentum and create a more comprehensive safety service for users. He said Life360 is talking to home security firms to integrate their information into one dashboard for consumers. But he’s also talking to them about marketing opportunities that might unlock Life360′s future business model. Hulls said the company could use its user data to know when a family has moved to a new location, which could be useful for home security companies who want to sell them on a security system. He said there are other ways that Life360′s data could be used to provide more robust premium protection for users and better marketing information for corporate customers.

The company, which is part of the Facebook Fund and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, has raised $2 million to date from Founders Fund, LaunchCapital, Mark Goines, Seraph Group, Kapor Capital and Venture51. Hulls said Life360 is in the process of raising another round of funding.

Life360′s growth is an interesting story that illustrates the reach of the smartphone. It’s not as hip as some check-in services, but its rise shows there’s going to be a sizable market in serving up “boring” utilities to families. As smartphones get cheaper and reach down to younger ages, it’s only going to grow the opportunity for developers and entrepreneurs who pay attention.

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Dubbed “The Other Side of Apple,” the report is the product of a consortium of 36 environmental groups including China’s Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPEA) and lists what it claims are environmental and worker-safety violations committed by component suppliers working for multinational corporations including Apple, Toshiba and HP. The report claims that Apple’s suppliers are the worst offenders, responsible for the poisoning of “dozens” of factory workers exposed to hazardous chemicals.

The timing of the report — published in the same week that Apple announced record-breaking quarterly earnings — seems intentional, given the following excerpt from the report;

While Apple’s been busy updating their sales records, its employees have been enduring poisonous chemicals, with their rights and dignity being seriously trespassed on and the surrounding areas and environment being polluted by dirty water and emissions.

The IPEA’s spokesman Ma Jun spoke with Reuters yesterday, expressing frustration with Apple’s lack of transparency and the company’s silence in the face of the report’s findings;

Apple only care about the price and quality of their products and not the environmental and social responsibility issues. In some ways they drive the suppliers to cut corners to win their contracts. Apple’s lack of responsiveness eventually made us quite shocked. It’s the whole complacency that it doesn’t have to be accountable to the NGOs, to the communities, even to the poisoned workers.

Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu responded with a brief statement, saying, “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base. Our supplier responsibility reports document the progress of our extensive auditing programme since 2006.”

So on the one hand we have an assembly of NGO’s accusing Apple of a lack of corporate oversight and social responsibility, and on the other we have Apple — as tight-lipped as ever. As is usually the case, the real story lies somewhere in between.

Standards Strictly Enforced

The consortium’s report is in Chinese, so I can’t examine the data for myself. We can only take on face value the claim that ‘dozens’ of workers have been poisoned while manufacturing components destined for Apple products. But should Apple be held accountable for its supplier’s health, safety and environmental protection policies?

Apple does already have a strict Code of Conduct (PDF) to which its suppliers must adhere. Apple enforces the Code with regular audits, described in detail in their 2010 Supplier Responsibility Report (PDF). It’s pretty dry reading, but here’s a succint excerpt;

We drive compliance with the Code through a rigorous monitoring program, including factory audits, corrective action plans, and verification measures. Apple audits all final assembly manufacturers every year, regardless of their location and past audit performance.

OK fair enough — Apple keeps a close eye on ‘final assembly’ manufacturers. That seems reasonable, given that it’s at these factories where components are brought together at one end and finished Apple products come rolling off a conveyor belt at the other. Since the final product is a MacBook or an iPad, any right minded person would conclude that Apple should take responsibility for matters of environmental protection and worker safety at these places.

But does this mean Apple pays no attention to early stage component suppliers? Not at all. The following also comes from the 2010 Supplier Responsibility Report (it’s more execu-speak, but bear with me);

We select component and nonproduction suppliers for audits based on risk factors, such as the prevailing conditions in the country where a supplier facility is located and the supplier’s past audit performance — enabling us to focus our efforts where we can have the greatest impact.

We continue to extend our compliance-monitoring program by auditing more and more suppliers across our supply base.

Apple takes its responsibilities seriously, and makes an effort to publicly report the findings of its audits. What’s more, Apple doesn’t claim to have a perfect record, but its reports show a sustained, annual increase in the breadth and depth of its supplier audits, and a steady improvement in audit results. Take a look for yourself and decide whether this is the behaviour of a company guilty of a serious lack of corporate oversight in China today.

Monsters?

It’s easy to criticize multinational corporations for a perceived lack of social and environmental responsibility; much-publicized controversies surrounding major brands like Nestlé and Nike have planted the seeds of mistrust in the minds of consumers. We often assume most multinationals are planet-killing, child-labor-employing soulless monsters, at least to some degree.

Sometimes that’s a fair assumption, but not always. Let’s exercise a measure of rational thinking before we start condemning Apple for neglecting its duty of care to the environment and workforce. In fact, in recent years, Apple’s efforts in these areas have set new standards in the consumer electronics industry, and it still does much more than is required by law and regulation.

And what of this report? Apple simply presents itself as a choice target and one that has the most power to effect change. By focusing on Apple and not just the companies it does business with, the report’s authors are able to draw the collective attention of the Western media — which is always hunting for anything Apple-flavoured.

And as is often the case, timing is everything for this story; China is undergoing a wave of reforms set to improve working conditions and worker’s rights, but political support for those reforms has traditionally been weak or ineffectual. The collective might of politically and economically influential multinationals like Apple and HP — pushed into action by bad PR — seems too good an opportunity to miss.

What do you make of this? Are these violations of worker safety a problem for Apple to solve? Or is this little more than canny political wrangling from a consortium of NGO’s? Corporate evil-doing, or sound public opinion manipulation? Sound-off in the comments below.

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After resisting the idea for months, Facebook has agreed to allow British users to install a so-called “panic button” application that will allow younger users to report harassment or abuse on the social network to a child protection agency. Police forces and child advocacy groups in England, Scotland and Wales have been pressuring the site to add a button that would take under-age users directly to a page of information about how to report abuse. This campaign intensified last year after a 17-year-old girl was kidnapped and murdered by a man who posed as a teen on the social network. Facebook had argued that its existing protections and advice for younger users, available through the site’s Safety Center, were sufficient.

British users will now have the option of installing an application called ClickCEOP, which was created by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, an agency headed by Jim Gamble — the former head of a Northern Ireland anti-terrorist intelligence unit and the former deputy director of the National Crime Squad. The center tracks registered sex offenders and works with police forces throughout Britain to promote child safety and online awareness. More than 44 police chiefs and other authorities signed a letter drawn up by the CEOP Centre asking Facebook to install a panic button for children that it said would make it easier to report abuse.

The current agreement with Facebook stops short of meeting all the agency’s demands, however. The campaign had asked that the social network install the button or application on all its pages, but Facebook resisted this suggestion and users will now simply have the option of adding the app. Some critics have suggested that this makes the idea substantially less effective, since many of the children who might be most in need of protection will likely not install the application. However, Facebook has agreed to advertise the app to users under 18 years old, recommending that they install it.

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Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Krysten N

Facebook said today that it’s upgraded its Safety Center — which contains advice for parents, young people, teachers, law enforcement and other groups about how to use Facebook responsibly and safely — based on suggestions from its Safety Advisory Board. But the site stopped short of adding a so-called “panic button” to its pages that would take users younger users directly to a page of safety information, which is something critics and advocacy groups in Britain have repeatedly requested, most recently in a meeting between Facebook representatives and the head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

British groups want a button that would take younger users to a page with information about how to respond to various behavior such as cyberbullying and sexually suggestive material or otherwise inappropriate content. Chief constables from England and Wales, including the head of Scotland Yard, have signed a letter supporting the panic button. The campaign gained steam following the death of a 17-year-old female student last October: Ashleigh Hall was raped and murdered by a man she met on Facebook, who is now in prison. It’s not clear, however, what use a panic button would have been in the girl’s case, or how it would have stopped her from meeting the man.

The Facebook blog post describes how the site has changed its Safety Center:

It offers new safety resources for parents, educators, teens and members of the law enforcement community. We’ve quadrupled the safety content available, and we’ve created cleaner, more navigable interfaces to help you find answers to safety questions fast. This portal — which we’ve been testing during the past few weeks — draws multimedia content from Facebook and from independent organizations specializing in safety and security online.

The site’s Safety Advisory Board consists of representatives from several organizations in the U.S. and Europe, who describe themselves as follows:

* Childnet International: a UK-based charity working domestically and internationally to help make the Internet a great and safe place for children and young people, alongside enabling them to use interactive technologies safely and responsibly.

* Common Sense Media: an independent non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing trustworthy information and education that kids and families need to thrive in a world of media and technology.

* Connect Safely: the leading interactive resource on the web for parents, teens, educators — everyone — engaged and interested in youth safety on the fixed and mobile social web.

* The Family Online Safety Institute: works to make the online world safer for kids and their families by identifying and promoting best practice, tools and methods in the field of online safety, that also respect free expression.

* WiredSafety: the largest online safety, education and help group program in the world and provides help, information and education to Internet and mobile device users of all ages, especially on cyberbullying matters.

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Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons