Quick hit: I lost my phone in a cab last night, and while the sweetest kid EVER found it and got it back to me, it made me think twice about my mobile contingency plan. I realized I had a few holes, so I wanted to share what I’ve already done, and how I’m patching the holes. All of these are Android-specific; I haven’t investigated iOS options for my iPad yet.

• Contacts. All of my contacts are through my Google Apps account for deannazandt.com, so we’re good there.Apps. I’ve rooted my phone, so I use Titanium Backup Pro to create regularly scheduled backups of the application and application data on my phone. The free version sends the backups to your SD card; I bought the Pro version so I could have those apps backed up to Dropbox, too.SMS & MMS. I use Backup to Gmail for this. It automatically sends your SMS, MMS and Call Log to your Google account, and files them in the Archive with appropriate labels.

  Photos. This was the big one for me: I have a lot of photos on my phone that aren’t shared on my social networks. I was mourning the potential loss of some precious Christmas photos, for example. I’m now trying out SugarSync to back these up to SugarSync’s cloud, and then to my laptop; I chose this one because many services wanted to use public social networks for the backup. That was too risky for me. Plus, it seems that SugarSync has good reviews on managing battery and scheduling, and you get 5GB of free space.

  Locator. Tara Hunt turned me on to Prey, which is a full suite of services for a lost phone. You can locate the lost device, send messages to it for the finder to tell them how to get in touch with you, and if they don’t comply, you can brick the device.

  Those were the biggies for me. What else am I missing?

Just back from a trip to Germany, while over there I ended up in several serendipitous conversations about our increasing embrace of technology to help organize and memorize our everyday lives.

From the many appointments and conversations to ad-hoc thought streams, new log-ins, phone numbers or email addresses, we increasingly love to tether ourselves to nearby hardware and software managing our lifes’ personal and professional data streams – preferably instantly and on the go.

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Yup! It’s that time of the year again. I am headed for Las Vegas, to scan the halls of the #1 annual electronics bonanza – CES – short for Consumer Electronics Show.

Probably the key highlight for this year’s show – more electronics OEMs find religion in portable mobility. As far as exhibitors’ new devices announcements go, the excitement is virtually palpable.

Especially with 4G connectivity helping to better connect them all.

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Forget it. Nope! It can’t be done. I for one am unable to fully shake the Interweb.

Mentally prepared to ditch all calls, emails, texts, and social network pings, I was convinced I would be able to enjoy my nine day beach vacation in good old fashioned peace and quiet, exactly for the courage to disconnect myself from constant digital connectivity.

I know, probably no small feat for someone otherwise “always on” (I work in New York, on Wall Street, and for a telco. Oy!), the idea was, just once, no Blackberry voice or office email, no laptop, no iPod or iPad, or whatever else would get me to the Web.

Yet, come Monday (day three), I was back “on the wagon”, scouring for IP access as if I had money riding on it.

Turns out, according to The Economist I do!

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Grab a seat, sit back, and enjoy the show as the two uncontested giants of their field appear destined to wage a battle of epic proportion…  If it’s Google and Apple we’re talking about, developments on several fronts just this past week have only contributed to the inevitability of just such a scenario:

• Apple goes into advertising (the iAd platform that’s an integral part of the just-released Iphone OS 4)
• Google’s Android mobile OS makes solid advances in the high-growth Smartphone market (Gartner recently reporting that Android will overtake Apple’s iOS by 2012)
• Both companies continue to quietly work away on the last frontier: the stubborn problem of implementing a viable lean-back  internet video solution (I have a hunch that Apple is leveraging their monitor expertise and building a television)
• Both CNET and the WSJ report that Google is planning to unveil a music streaming/download service tied to their search engine, while Apple works to move iTunes from a desktop app to the cloud.

Meanwhile, although largely overshadowed by World Cup soccer, this past week also saw the start of Wimbledon – so if the uncontested giants we’re talking about are Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, recent events also offer the possibility of a similar clash of the titans.  If the two can manage to make it to the mens’ singles finals, tennis fans around the world will grab a seat, sit back and enjoy a show of their own: a rematch of the 2008 Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final, often considered the greatest tennis match ever played.

It’s maybe a good time, then, for a few thoughts on Google (arguably the Roger Federer of consumer internet technology) and Apple (perhaps the Rafael Nadal of consumer electronics)…

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Yup! Still in Vegas, still big, the annual consumer electronics bonanza we fondly refer to as CES drew to an end yesterday.

First off, although more crowed compared to last year, the popular trade show giant still seemed somewhat off from its previous record attendance. But hey, who’s counting, or not happy about the lack of past years’ never-ending cab and bus lines in front of hotels.

Instead, relative to previous years anyway, CES 2010 seemed much about “quality before quantity”, with some really interesting and innovative nuggets across a still impressive line-up of exhibitors.

So, what are my primary take-aways?

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CeBIT, held each year in Hannover (Germany), is the biggest technology show in the world.  What makes it larger than CES is that rather than limit itself to consumer electronics, it includes both home and office technology – in other words, all things digital.  I’m not at the show, but having read a few of the articles starting to show up online (the show’s currently running until March 8th), one company stands out as having at least a few good ideas:  Asus.

I’ve already written about how the time is right for netbooks – Asus has a 60% share of the European market and a 30% share of the worldwide market – so they’ve been doing something right.  In addition, the company has some serious plans for bring the Google Android operation system to the netbook.  It’s worth noting that while Android has had the iPhone headwind to fight in the smartphone market, no such incumbant hands-down winner exists in the netbook operating system market.  In fact, with netbooks gaining traction, Android evolving, and a lightweight netbook version of Windows 7 on the horizon, the netbook OS market could prove to be a major front in the epic battle between you-know-who and you-know-who.

But I digress.  Let’s talk some gizmo. At left is an Asus “concept netbook.”   It starts with the tablet computer concept from a few years back and takes it a step or two further – a completely touch screen-based interface, and a second monitor.  Although not yet commercially available, a few thoughts do come to mind:

• The clamshell design nicely solves the problem of maximizing screen real estate while at the same time protecting the portable device’s touch screens.
• To the extent a touch screen Netbook interface becomes popular, XP Home becomes obsolete as a netbook OS, forcing Microsoft’s hand in getting a Windows 7 Netbook OS out there quickly.
• Is this the perfect Kindle platform, or what??



Speaking of touchscreens – here’s an interesting device, looking very much like the result of crossing a computer keyboard with an iPhone.  While adding a touchscreen to a keyboard is a cool enough idea in and of itself (and as the most cost-effective way to enjoy the next generation of touch-enabled operating systems, probably something we’ll see a lot of), there’s more here than meets the eye: this is actually a netbook running XP Home! With an 802.11g wireless interface and a wireless HDMI interface (that’s a new one on me), you’ve yourself got a cable-free internet streaming solution, as well as a computer for the coffee table and the couch.  It’s my feeling users would be more interested in the former than the latter, but either way, a pretty cool device – and another idea that’s hard to imagining not becoming popular.