Insights For Success

Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

LinkNYC is the ultimate phonebooth replacement for modern cities and I want it

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Image byEdward Blak used under creative commons license

See that sleek advertising billboard? It's actually a modern day replacement for the 1960's telephone booth. Meet LinkNYC. 

Each big beautiful device delivers 1 gigabit of glorious WIFI(serving hundreds of WIFI users simultaneously). To deliver this much high speed goodness, CityBridge is laying thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable).

 Since it is replacing the old style phone-booth's it's only fitting that the LinkNYC station also allow anyone to make free unlimited calls to anywhere in the US thanks to a deal with Vonage. Call's can be made via the built in speaker and mic or via your own headset (plugged in) . 

What if your device is dead? Are you out of luck? Not you're not. Each device has a power only USB plug which means you can use the station to charge your power-hungry smartphone or tablet. 

And each device has a touch screen tablet that can be used to browser the internet or lookup city services. 

There are over 200 LinkNYC stations currently deployed and more are on the way. I know some readers are freaking out. How can a city force tax-payers to subsidize something like this? Well they aren't. These kiosks are self funded through advertising and may even generate a little extra income for the city. The revenue is from advertising shown on both sides of the kiosks.

The solution is packaged by SideWalk Labs which is a wholy owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. 

And that my friends is how a modern tech savvy city does it. Democratizing technology while being cost neutral to the city. 

iCloud attack was really a phishing

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Image by Christiaan Cole used under Creative Commons License

Remember the "iCcloud hacking" where celebrity photos were stolen and published? Well the man behind it (aka Celebgate) was convicted of accessing more than 300 iCloud and Gmail accounts (30 of which belonged to real legitimate celebrities). You can read the district attorney brief if interested.

Now this is the story that wasn't... While most media outlets were shocked that Apple would allow hackers to "break into" iCloud accounts and steal pictures, it turns out, Apple couldn't have done much. The attack relied on good old fashioned phishing.

“Phishing is the act of faking a popular website or service and tricking users to enter their credentials on the harvesting page.”

So iClous was never compromised but Apple probably could have done more to detect the unauthorized access' and protect its user data. 

So the moral of the story is :

  • be extra vigilant where you use your passwords
  • never re-use the same password for more than one site
  • use complicated (non dictionary) passwords
  • turn on 2 factor authentication

Sawyer Mini water filter review

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

We assume most North Americans just drink the clean municipal tap water available freely everywhere. Then you learn that 50 billion water bottles were consumed last year in the US alone. So obviously some people have concerns about the quality of their water, You add to this travellers, campers and preppers. 

Regardless of why you want clean water, there are hundreds of options. Over the last 10 years, I have tested several dozen and have spoken to scientists & survival experts about their preferences. Thats when I learned about the Sawyer water filters.

The Sawyer mini weighs in at a paltry 1.4 ounces and can filter 100,000 gallons (from any freshwater source). This is an unheard price-usage ratio. 

Reliability

Reliability is critical when you are talking about water filters. A single drop of contaminated water can ruin a vacation and make you horribly sick. With a 0.1 micron hollow fiber membrane, this little wonder filter removes 99.99999% of all bacteria, such as salmonella, cholera and E.coli; removes 99.9999% of all protozoa, such as giardia and cryptosporidium. All of this without any moving parts, no batteries, and no chemicals.

I recently spoke to a water quality engineer for a major US city and he confirmed that during his tests, the Sawyer water filters (the mini and its older bigger brother) performed exactly as advertised. Who am I to argue with science.

It's important to note that the Sawyer mini does not remove chemicals, heavy metals or virus. Virus' aren't a concern in North America but can be if traveling to countries with bad sanitation. If virus' are an issue where you are going, you will need a different type of filter (like the sawyer SP-194 0.02 micron filter or a Steripen UV Sanitizer).

For multi-day use, the only maintenance you have to perform is to periodically back-flush the filter (using the provided syringe) with clean water. 

Use

The other important fact about the Sawyer mini is it's ease of use. You can attach the straw extension and drink from a stream (like you would on a LifeStraw). 

The mini's input side has a standard water bottle threaded screw which means you can use it with most commercial plastic water bottles.

The filter comes with a foldable flexible plastic flexible roll-up water (16 oz) bottle. You can use this to carry water with you and you can then squeeze water from the bottle to a canteen or you can drink straight from the clean end of the filter.

The third option is to use the Sawyer mini inline with a backpack water bladder. To use this technique, you cut the drinking hose of the bladder and insert the mini between the drinking sout and the cut hose. Using this technique means you are in survival mode because you are introducing contaminated water into the bladder which means you are always committing to use it with the Sawyer mini (not the best choice but options are good).

Some filters introduce a delay between wanting water and being able to drink. You have to either pump until your arm falls off. You have to chemically treat your water with tablets. Or you have to use one of the larger gravity feed systems. With the Sawyer mini, you simply attach and drink. No waiting, which is great while sweating. Plus typically water from a moving stream is cool so drinking it immediately mean it is also refreshing.

Conclusion

After everything is said an done, I now carry a Sawyer mini and Steripen anytime I travel and the Sawyer actually stays in my Everyday Carry bag. It is cheap ($25), effective 99.9999% against bacteria, fast, easy and reliable. When travelling to questionable locales, I'll fill a canteen up from the Sawyer then zap it with my Steripen for added piece of mind (to ensure there are no virus').

The only filter I want to test but haven't yet is the Grayl Water filter. The Sawyer mini get's 2 thumbs up. 

Discussion with Roujeh Ramadan, CEO of Chill Telecom

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

There has been a lot of discussions about Chill Telecom and it’s young founder (Roujeh Ramadan). And much of the rhetoric has been negative some verging on distasteful. Wanted to present a fair and balanced view, I reached out to Mr Ramadan (who was in Israel) and had a pleasant conversation.

Too young to lead a company

Like many observers, I noticed that his Facebook page indicates he is 20 years old and he confirmed that he was 19. He explained that he started working for a large multinational internet company at the age of 16 (in Israel) then moved to the UK at 17 to join a major engineering organization.

He understands why people may be concerned about his age but assured me he is an experienced engineer with a strong technical background.

Failed IndieGoGo campaign


Many bloggers (myself included) quickly found a failed IndieGogo campaign for his other company’s car heads up display campaign (the Nuuk from Sirius Plus). Mr Ramadan acknowledges that the campaign didn’t go as planned but he assured me that Sirius Plus is a well funded organization with good support in Israel. He also mentioned that the company had a very successful show  in Tel Aviv recently where the product was the star of the show.

$$He acknowledged that his strengths lie in engineering and that he will need to hire business people to handle the non-technical aspects of his business (business development, marketing, communications, etc).$$

Why is the website so bad
 

A regular complaint is that the launch site is poorly designed and poorly copy-written with clear grammatical mistakes. Mr Ramadan acknowledged this gap and said he speaks 4 languages and his proficiency in writing marketing material is lacking. To compensate, he recently hired a specialist to revamp the website and ensure the content is appropriately written in local English.

He started the company only 8 days ago and didn’t expect the kind of media splash he received. He extended he would have a measured ramp up period but instead he has been thrust into the limelight.

Where is he?
 

Many blogs refer to his location tag on Facebook that says he is in the UK. Mr Ramadan confirmed that he has moved to Canada (as of 2 months ago) and intends to build the business based out of here. He setup shop in a technology incubator in Kitchener and believes that is the perfect environment to launch his company. He said the location is geared towards tech companies, he city offers highly trained resources and it is in proximity to Canada’s business center (Toronto).

The avalanche
 

He reiterated many times that the response was overwhelming and completely unexpected. He received 200,000 registrations on his website in the first week and secured $180,000 from early adopters.

He expected a soft launch where he could slowly build his website and marketing/PR material but the coverage was almost immediate and overwhelming.

The demand was so strong that 2 major Canadian carriers took notice and initiated partnership discussions. MR Ramadan will ultimately chose one of them to start the service but isn’t ruling out the possibility of having multiple back end network wholesalers (if the price and terms make sense).

The price
 

I asked Mr Ramadan about his confidence in being able to offer an unlimited everything plan with international roaming for $45 and he said the business case is solid.

He says he intends to copy the model of an Israeli provider that built a similar model and was sold 4 years later for several billion dollars. He says the model works.

As an example, he said he did not have a Canadian cell phone for the first 2 months he was here because his Israeli provider offers free international roaming within Canada.

His longer term vision is to become an well rounded telecommunications company offering television, home phone, home internet and mobile phone services.

Time frame
 

Mr Ramadan understands the excitement around his company and will try to bring the service to market as quickly as possible but the current launch timeline is sometime in 2017.

The team
 

The company was started 8 days ago but currently consists of 5 people (2 business specialists and 3 engineering specialists). They hired a web specialist today to update their website and web content.

The hope is to continue steadily increasing the team (which should reach 20 people in the next 4-5 months)

No Twitter?
 

I asked why they didn’t have a twitter account and was told the team is already overwhelmed with email and FB support. Mr Ramadan is not ruling out Twitter support in the future.

Conclusion
 

My conversation with Mr Ramadan was pleasant and felt genuine. He clearly intends for this to be a real business and only time will tell if he can get it off the ground. Truth be told, the Canadian wireless telecom market is in deep need of competition and we shouldn’t frighten brave newcomers.

I am not willing to bet the farm on this venture but am more inclined to  believe the team will try to make this venture work.

The content in this article was double checked with Mr Ramadan before publishing to ensure I properly captured his views and explanations. He did not influence the questions and did not ask me to re-write any sections.