I picked up a MiFi card from Sprint this past weekend. While the Palm Pre looks to be a pretty cool phone (no, as an iPhone guy I do not yet see a reason for device envy, especially with OS 3.0 just around the corner), it was almost too bad this device came out during the same week. I think Sprint can make some serious positive noise with the MiFi as well… it’s a cool new toy.

This device is Sprint’s version of a Novatel wireless modem also available through Verizon. Since I already had a Sprint wireless Internet account, I went with the Sprint device. Basically, this card — about the size of a credit card and as thick as maybe four credit cards stacked up — allows you to set up a personal hot spot and connect up to five devices via WiFi to your Sprint 3G Internet. So, that’s you and a few friends, or your laptop and your iPhone or… you get the picture.

In short, this thing is just a little box of awesome. After about a week, I love it. Here are some benefits:

• I’m frequently in client meetings with colleagues where the WiFi is behind a corporate firewall. I could always use my Sprint connection, but now I can share it with up to four other Metzger employees.
• I can turn it on and hook up my iPhone and have WiFi-like access anywhere. Even though it’s only 3G speeds, my iPhone thinks it’s using a WiFi connection, even walking down the street.
• It has it’s own battery, so it doesn’t tap my laptop battery.
• I probably shouldn’t say this, but I can sneak Skype on my iPhone on the Sprint 3G network, as the phone thinks it’s on WiFi rather than 3G.
• It’s got up to 128-bit security, so you don’t have to worry about jerks at the local watering hole jumping on your bandwidth.
• You can name the network whatever you like. In an homage to the movie “Hackers,” my personal hotspot shows up on everyone’s WiFi as “Crash Override.”
• On the downside, you’re still limited to 5GB/month before overage charges kick in, so you have to be a little careful about letting too many people on your card too often. In normal use, even with others on the card, I’m still far below the limit.
• I got one before Dave Taylor did, so I got major geek cred here in Boulder!

Seriously, I love this device. If you’re thinking of getting 3G access for a laptop, this is the only way to go.

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Social media has come to jurisprudence, John Schwartz writes in today’s New York Times, and the result has judges, attorneys and legal scholars flummoxed.

Why is this a problem? Schwartz explains:

Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system’s complex rules of evidence. They can also tell their friends what is happening in the jury room, though they are supposed to keep their opinions and deliberations secret.

A juror on a lunch or bathroom break can find out many details about a case. Wikipedia can help explain the technology underlying a patent claim or medical condition, Google Maps can show how long it might take to drive from Point A to Point B, and news sites can write about a criminal defendant, his lawyers or expert witnesses.

“It’s really impossible to control it,” said Douglas L. Keene, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants.

In this information-wants-to-be-free era, some jurors just don’t understand why they can’t Google the defendant’s name or double-check facts presented by an expert witness. Others claim to be striking a blow for fairness, saying that rules of evidence are “elitist” because the trial court controls what information the jurors see and hear.

In one case, a juror confessed to looking up information on the case during deliberations in a federal drug trial. When the judge questioned other jurors, eight of them said they’d done the same thing. The judge declared a mistrial, “a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers,” Schwartz writes.

In an Arkansas case, a juror sent Twitter messages to his friends that some might call indiscreet: ““So Johnathan, what did you do today? Oh nothing really, I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.” Although the juror insists he said nothing until the trial ended, stories like this are bound to suggest grounds for appeal for the losing side.

As is often the case, the comment thread on the Times story adds a lot of texture. Phil Greene from Houston writes: “As a lawyer who has won most of my cases over the last forty years I can tell you there is nothing magic about courtroom evidence, and the system is based on both sides twisting the truth to their advantage. Information gathered over the internet is much more reliable than the stilted garbage the poor jurors are forced to endure in our medieval court system. Listen to your iPhone, not the judge and the witnesses.” Yikes!

Those little devices we all carry have turned into so much more than just phones.

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Boulder native, New York Times reporter and Rudy Park co-creator Matt Richtel has launched his latest creative project: a novel on Twitter.

Called Twiller, it’s a thriller delivered one 140-character slice at a time. Catch it at  http://twitter.com/mrichtel.  You might want to check the plot summary first before jumping into tweets like this:

Interogators of 10days past asked: how do U no bout China&The hookers? Says I: huh? BAM; Face-punched. again: huh? again: SMACK. blackness about 22 hours ago from web

and this:

any1 no how 2 stop internl bleedin? must avoid hosptls. 11:18 AM Oct 11th from web

Richtel tweets from his PC because, he notes, “im just 2 old 2 create-n-write on a gadget smaller than a hamstr.”

Like everything else in the media world, we’re rethinking what a book is. Must it have cardboard covers and dead-tree pages? Are the books that Doyle reads on his beloved Kindle any less bookish because they’re delivered electronically?

The Denver Post’s Claire Martin conducted a text-message interview with Richtel that ran a few Sundays ago in the Post’s book section.

Q: is Twiller off cuff or plotted out? u no how it will end? or does it change?

A: cuff&plotted. I no 1 big twist-medical in natur, methinks original, but conspiracy still evolvin. current events r drivin plot&muse 2 & sometimes im just in passenger seat

Q: do u have 2 make yrself misspell wordz?

A: comes natrily

I remember that about Matt. I met him in 1990 when we both slaved at the doomed Peninsula Times Tribune in Palo Alto, Calif. I was the business editor; he was the East Palo Alto reporter, alternately filing stories from what was at the time the murder capital of the United States, and pulling shifts as a “petroleum transfer engineer” (read: gas station attendant) because none of us could live on what Tribune Co. paid us.

All those drive-by shootings must have sunk in, because Richtel also wrote a dead-tree thriller called Hooked. He also comes up with the words for the “Rudy Park” strip and files an occasional story for the Times, where he landed after taking my biz-ed job when I fled the PTT, then bouncing across the bay to the Oakland Tribune.

Even in his early days, Matt was always getting in trouble for filing too many stories. I remember eavesdropping on the editor-in-chief chewing Richtel out in his distinctive beer-fueled growl. “Nobody cares about East P.A.,” he said. Only poor black and Hispanic people lived there, and as far as he knew, none of them read newspapers or patronized any of our advertisers.

This was the same place that used to trim my weekly mutual fund listings for space, usually around the letter S, back in the days before you could look them up on the Net. That’s right, if you owned shares in Twentieth Century or T. Rowe Price, you were S.O.L. That’s the kind of high-quality operation it was.

The PTT folded and Tribune sold the valuable city block it sat on for condos. Normally I mourn the death of a daily paper, but in the case of the Times Tribune, I can make an exception.

In <140 chars, I raise my elitist Boulder latte 2 Richtel, CU prof Mike McDevitt, John Hendren@ABC and all the other PTT survivors.

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Dean Rizzuto of Metzger Associates and Zena Weist of EMBARQ did a great job of outlining an underutilized application by marketers – the mobile phone.

The most salient point of the presentation to me was that sometimes simple marketing using SMS is the most poignant way to reach people. After two separate unsuccessful trips to Cherry Creek Mall to pick up the iPhone (I mean really? Four hours in line for something that will still be available in a week?), it’s hard not to get caught up in the hype that the iPhone is the only device that matters. The iPhone (or Guy Phone as Dean referred to it) is a highly touted option but represents a limited sample of the 86 percent of the US population 13 and older who own a mobile device.

It was also great to hear from Zena how EMBARQ is using Twitter as a customer service tool to stay on top of customer feedback as it’s happening. If you’re unsure about Twitter, Gwen Bell had a great point to use Twitter first as a person before you use it as a CEO or company. You get a better handle on the lingo and that @ is a way to reply to someone and  # is put before a location. Two other companies who are doing a great job with Twitter are Comcast and Zappos.

Global mobile ad marketing spend will be $16 billion by 2011, so in three short years marketers need to have a solid handle on effective mobile marketing. Dean and Zena clearly outlined the three ways that mobile marketers need to incorporate to be successful.

1. Permission (opt-in)
2. A clear way to opt-out
3. Designed to offer the consumer more choices/more convenient means

The recent launch of Loopt, a location based device on the iPhone that notifies your friends of your GPS locale clearly brings these three elements home. Loopt is quickly racking up criticism where people feel they haven’t opted in, are getting spammed for invites and can’t figure out how to opt out.  To avoid major snafus like Loopt, the Mobile Marketing Association is a great site to check out if you’re getting started in this space.

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Like I’ve said before, if the Apple Store would just put in a bar, I’d just hang out there… especially on days like today!

So close…

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Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow…

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If you type in “liquor” it finds the five or six closest liquor stores. That just plain rocks. Clearly, it’s not that useful in your hometown, but last weekend in Overland Park, Kansas, this feature was AMAZING. The Nuvi found me great wine, so I fell in love! I was driving around like I lived there!

The Nuvi I was using was borrowed. I’m buying one tomorrow. Anything that allows me to type in things like “liquor,” “suhsi,” “coffee” (even “Starbucks”) or, well, you name it — this is what technology should be!

Check out a Nuvi… you’ll be glad you did!

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The Nuvi is a small (not much bigger than my iPhone) GPS device. You enter the address you’d like to visit, the Nuvi figures out where you are and gives you turn-by-turn directions as you drive.

Simply, it’s great!

When I’m in a city I’m not familiar with, I use Mapquest and the mapping function on my iPhone, and they’re both adequate. With the Nuvi, however, getting around is almost effortless. Some things I really like:

• Since the GPS is real time, you’re not constantly slowing down at intersections looking at street signs. The Nuvi tells you, and also gives you a color map so you can see, for example, if the street you’re crossing is 1st or 2nd.
• It talks, so you really don’t have to take your eyes off the road much to get around.
• I really like how it tells you what you’re going to do next in plenty of time, as in “turn right on 1st in one-half mile.” It’s already helped me avoid last minute lane changes. The other drivers in Overland Park appreciate that!
• Best of all, it’s allowed me to “explore” a bit. Last night, I wanted sushi (yes, there is good sushi in KC, and I’ll have more than my fair share of BBQ over the weekend!) so I used Google on the iPhone to find a restaurant close to my hotel, entered the address into the Nuvi and took off. And, since my hotel was already entered in the Nuvi, I just recalled that address and headed home after dinner.

One recommendation: provide the option of a QWERTY keyboard. I hate entering words on the alpha listing of letters.

If you travel, or go to areas of your own city you’re not familiar with — or are just directionally challenged! — you’ll appreciate the Nuvi.

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Worth it? Absolutely.

For those of you now familiar with Jawbone, it is, in my humble opinion, the finest Bluetooth headset available. I felt that way about First Gen, and the new one is even better. Check out the online demos of the device’s noise cancellation feature. It’s not an exagerration. I used my First Gen at the CES Show in Las Vegas, and people often didn’t believe I was on a trade show floor.

I’ve had four different bluetooth earpieces, and they were all just OK. The First Gen Jawbone was great, and they made the new one that much better. I recommend it highly.

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