Open up your mind and say, ahh...

101010: That’s the number 42 represented in binary, which is the mathematical way today’s binary computers see every single piece of information flowing through them, whether it’s a stock price, the latest Adele track, or a calculation to generate an MRI of a tumor. But now IBM believes it’s made progress in developing quantum computers, which don’t use binary coding. It is not overstating the matter to say this really may be the ultimate answer in computing machines. Quick, mop your brow and don’t worry: The science isn’t too hard to grasp and the revolution, when it comes, could rock the world. In a very good way.

First, a little background: Computers today, everything from the chip controlling your washing machine cycle to the screen you’re reading this on, rely on binary math to work. This reduces the information in problems you ask a computer to a counting system based on just “1″s and “0″s. That translates beautifully into the electronics of a computer circuit: A “1″ matches up with a little burst of electricity, a “0″ means none. By shuttling trillions upon trillions of these pulses, called bits, through tiny silicon circuits and transistor gates that flip their direction or trigger an ongoing signal, the chip does math with these ones and zeros. It’s a mind-bogglingly complex and very swift dance that ultimately results in Angry Birds playing on the screen of your iPad. Or, after kajillions of calculations more in a supercomputer, it results in a model predicting climate change.

Now, what if instead of simply being able to do math with ones and zeros, a computer chip could work with bits that included other numbers? You’d have to design more complex circuitry, for sure, but it means every single one of those tiny electronic calculations that’s happening every millisecond could tackle more information at once, and would ultimately mean a more powerful computer that may calculate faster. Got that? Good. Now how about if instead of a one or a zero, your computer’s “bits” could have any one of an infinite number of values?

That’s quantum computing. Essentially this moves way beyond the well-known physics of electronics, and on into the weird and wonderful world of quantum physics–where bizarre twists of the laws of the universe mean a “bit” in a quantum computer could hold both a “1″ and a “0″ and any other value at the same time. That means the circuits of a quantum computer could carry out an incredibly huge number of calculations at the same time, handling more information at once than you can possibly imagine.

By using some other very strange physics (superconducting materials cooled to hundreds of degrees below freezing) IBM’s research team is trying to build some of the core components of a quantum computer, and has made big progress. They’re now saying they’ve made the quantum “bits” of information, also called qubits, live a lot longer before they essentially get scrambled. They’ve also worked out how to speed up the actual quantum computing circuit. IBM’s progress is so impressive that they’re now confident a quantum computer could be made sooner rather than later, perhaps as close as 15 years away.

Whenever it arrives, the world will change.

On a very simple level, this is because instead of asking a supercomputer to work with endless strings of “1″s and “0″s to calculate all the variables in, say, a global warming simulation (performing trillions of small math calculations one after the other to work out the dynamics of the climate over a period of hours or days) a quantum computer would be able to process much of the math at the same instant instead of sequentially. Which could reduce the compute time to a second or less. Which ultimately means better and more accurate models of the climate. Similar processing tricks could improve medical imaging, or maybe even simulations of your own particular disease’s spread, which may improve treatment.

And there are many ways this tech would touch your life on an everyday basis, as well. Tasks like image recognition in Google Goggles or voice recognition in Apple’s Siri rely on whisking your data off to a powerful computer, running it through a process, and sending you the results back (identifying that photo of a building as the Eiffel tower, or answering your question about the rain in Spain). These recognition problems are partly based on how good the recognition algorithm is, but also on how much time the computer can afford to spend on your problem. A quantum computer would work so swiftly that there would be no issues with spending more time trying to accurately understand your query, meaning we could reach near-perfect image and voice recognition. Perhaps even in real time, from a video feed. Imagine the sort of augmented reality tech that that would enable, with a head-up display on your view of the world constantly delivering relevant info about everything you see.

Then think about security–most encryption systems nowadays rely on clever math that means they couldn’t be cracked even by a supercomputer running for years. A quantum computer could try every single combination of passwords to crack the security in a single second, which is pretty terrible news. That’s going to force all sorts of changes with how we protect information, and yet it could also lead to more secure encryption, made by a quantum computer. There’s also the matter of surveillance: Recognizing every word of every phone conversation on the planet and identifying every single face on every CCTV image would defeat all of today’s supercomputer power…but maybe a quantum computer could do it. George Orwell would’ve loved that. Also on the dark side, ponder how insurance firms would use or abuse this phenomenal power (“our simulation says it’s 75% more plausible the accident was your fault”), or how worried nations could simulate social dynamics to try to predict crime.

Next, on the lighter side, consider art. Or at least the movies. Look at computer graphics in films: The computers in render farms that companies like Pixar use to make Brave take hours to put together a single frame, and that limits how truly amazing the image can be made. A quantum computer could tackle a render of today’s Pixar movies in a blink of an eye. And that has all sorts of implications, maybe meaning CGI actors could be even more realistic.

Which leads on to artificial intelligence–a sci-fi promise that’s so far been very difficult to make real, although IBM’s Watson has recently wowed everyone. What if quantum computing suddenly enabled such swift, complex calculations that a system like Watson or Siri could talk back to you convincingly, reading the nuances in your voice enough to ask, as a friend might, if you’re a little stressed today and wondering if they could help?

Quantum computers won’t necessarily be able to speed up solving every class of problem you throw at them, but it’s undeniable that they’ll change modern life in many ways, at times small, at others great. As for questions on life, the universe, and everything? Those still require the human element to try to answer.

Image: Flickr user Ruth Flickr and Janne Moren

Could America’s electrical grid be targeted by terrorists or hostile foreign states? Anything’s possible. Is a catastrophic electrical grid attack likely? The House of Representatives held a hearing this morning on “smart grid” attacks–and it appears that modernization of electrical utilities nationwide has left huge security loopholes that hackers can exploit.

The hearing, held by the Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, featured testimony by officials from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Congressional Research Service (CRS). National Security Agency head Gen. Keith Alexander has previously told the White House about his fears that Anonymous could attack America’s electric grids and cause blackouts.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D–CA) expressed concerns about “unexpected terror attacks or hacking attempts” against America’s energy infrastructure. Another subcommittee member, Rep. Diana DeGette (D–CO) noted that smart grid technology–which connects electrical grid infrastructure to the Internet for cost-savings, ease of use, and added services for consumers–is also uniquely at risk from damage by malicious hackers.

Our Representatives are right about the risk… though, to Gen. Alexander’s detriment, it’s not from Anonymous. Gregory C. Wilshusen of the GAO gave sobering written testimony. While the conversion to a smart grid has modernized America’s electrical infrastructure, neither the government nor utility firms have been acting to close urgent security gaps. No monitoring is taking place of electrical utility providers to guarantee that even minimal cybersecurity standards are being put into place. No trade group or coordinating organization has created metrics to measure cybersecurity for energy suppliers. Information-sharing between utility providers is still the exception to the rule. Most worryingly of all, new smart grids still do not include basic event logging and forensic capabilities.

Anonymous spokespersons have explicitly stated that the hacktivist collective is not interested in smart grid attacks. In a post on the quasi-official AnonOps Communications blog, Anonymous responded, saying “Ridiculous! Why should Anonymous shut off power grid? Makes no sense! They just want to make you feel afraid.”

However, the threat to the electrical grid likely is not from Anonymous–it instead lies with foreign states interested in damaging the USA’s economy. In 2009, it was revealed that Chinese and Russian cyberintruders routinely break into American electrical companies. The bulk of the break-ins were discovered by American intelligence officials, not the victimized utility companies.

For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Email Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, here or find him on Twitter and Google+.

Image: Flickr user Lydiashiningbrightly

The Senate is currently debating a key piece of cybersecurity legislation which could change the way American tech firms operate. It is impossible to understate the need for the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2012–the United States, in the midst of a historic surge in online crime and espionage, has decided to act to reduce the problem. However, critics argue that the Cybersecurity Act is wasteful and threatens privacy. As currently written, the Cybersecurity Act could lead to massively increased costs for American tech and Internet firms.

The Cybersecurity Act dramatically increases the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in combating cybercrime. Responsibility for commercial and civilian online security would be explicitly placed under DHS’s supervision; responsibility currently lies with a host of federal, state, and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies. A new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC) would be established within DHS, and would be headed up by a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee. Information sharing between government agencies would be streamlined. And the DHS will be responsible for establishing federally mandated “cybersecurity performance requirements” for critical Internet infrastructure.

The latest aspect of this bill has especially rankled critics. The DHS, once it decides what constitutes “critical internet infrastructure”–as the bill does not give an explicit definition–will lay down security requirements for the owners and operators of relevant services. Owners and operators will be required, at their own expense, to alter their Internet security choices in accordance with government requirements. This will be an extremely pricy proposition for hardware providers, Internet infrastructure providers, and web giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

As currently written, the bill merely defines “critical Internet infrastructure” as anything “whose disruption from a cyber attack would cause mass death, evacuation, or major damage to the economy, national security, or daily life.” This is a broad definition that gives Homeland Security a huge mandate for overseeing Internet security standards by American tech firms.

A bipartisan group of Senators, led by John McCain (R-AZ), has argued that the Cybersecurity Act will lead to federally mandated Internet security requirements for private firms. Meeting federal benchmarks for online security will lead, ironically, to reduced security for critical Internet infrastructure providers. Rather than being able to introduce innovative responses to new threats, critical infrastructure providers will be tied to federal benchmarks from 2012 for at least the next five years.

Government cybercrime and cyberespionage protection is currently covered by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. This 10-year-old bill does not cover aspects of modern security culture such as smartphones and spearphishing.

On the one hand, a new cybersecurity bill is a much needed thing. However, the current version of the bill clocks in at over 200 pages. Rather than being restricted to protecting the government from cyberattacks (a worthy goal), the bill was intentionally written in ambiguous and confusing language that could hypothetically lead to many American firms falling under its mandate. The Department of Homeland Security has not been known for cutting costs down, for providing clear regulatory definitions, or for working effectively with the private sector. Fast Company just reported on the awful mess of Homeland Security’s social media surveillance program.

While McCain is upset about the potential for increased government regulation and increased expenses for tech firms, he’s mostly angry that the bill doesn’t increase the NSA’s spying powers. In a statement submitted to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, McCain stated his wish for U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA to oversee cybersecurity, rather than DHS. McCain’s statement explicitly stated that part of his vision was for the NSA to engage in real-time monitoring of Internet traffic in order to prevent cyberattacks.

It is important to note that the Cybersecurity Bill is still in its infancy and that the bill’s contents will change markedly before passing. An earlier version of the bill inadvertently fueled fears of a government Internet kill switch thanks to sloppy writing. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives is pushing through a similar cybersecurity bill.

However, whatever form the government’s final cybercrime legislation takes, we know two things. Tech and Internet firms will see increased security costs thanks to stricter regulation, and the government’s power to spy on the Internet will likely increase.

Image: Flickr user Harald Groven

For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Email Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, here or find him on Twitter and Google+.

At a Congressional hearing this morning that veered into contentious arguments and cringe-worthy moments, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spilled the beans on their social media monitoring project.

DHS Chief Privacy Office Mary Ellen Callahan and Director of Operations Coordination and Planning Richard Chavez appeared to be deliberately stonewalling Congress on the depth, ubiquity, goals, and technical capabilities of the agency’s social media surveillance. At other times, they appeared to be themselves unsure about their own project’s ultimate goals and uses. But one thing is for sure: If you’re the first person to tweet about a news story, or if you’re a community activist who makes public Facebook posts–DHS will have your personal information.

The hearing, which was held by the Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Intelligence headed by Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), was highly unusual. Hacktivist collective Anonymous (or at least the @AnonyOps Twitter feed) sent a sympathizer to the visitor gallery to liveblog the proceedings under the #spyback hashtag.

Interactions between the DHS officials and representatives were often strained–both Chavez and Callahan were scolded and chastised by Representatives from both parties. Reps. Billy Long (R-MO), Meehan, Jackie Speier (D-CA), and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) all pointed out issues relating to what they variously saw as potential First Amendment violations, surveillance of citizens engaged in protected political speech, the fact that an outside contractor handles DHS’ social media monitoring, DHS’ seeming inability to separate news monitoring from disaster preparedness, and a massively unclear social media monitoring mandate on the DHS’ part.

Video footage of the hearing has already been made available on YouTube, and the written testimony of both DHS experts has been made publicly available. Privacy watchdog group EPIC also filed a formal disclosure to Congress on the results of a FOIA lawsuit. DHS appears to have also stonewalled EPIC regarding their social media monitoring project. The results are staggering.

According to testimony, the Homeland Security Department has outsourced their own social media monitoring program to an outside contractor, defense giant General Dynamics. General Dynamics was the sole party to the original DHS contract, which was not offered to any outside parties–and Chavez was caught misleading the Committee about General Dyamics’ sole status.

General Dynamics employees responsible for the DHS social media monitoring contract are required to attend a training course in DHS privacy practices several times a year. If General Dynamics employees misuse the personal information of journalists, public figures or the general public (to include Twitter or Facebook users) in any way, their punishment is restricted to additional training classes or dismissal from the project.

General Dynamics and the Department of Homeland Security are primarily engaging in keyword monitoring of social media. Callahan admitted in sworn testimony that the bulk of the keywords used by DHS were chosen as the result of being included in commercially available, off-the-shelf bulk packages. These bulk keyword packages were later customized according to DHS specifications.

The DHS, meanwhile, is truly interested in breaking news tweets. The Twitter handles, Facebook names and blog urls of first witnesses to news events (the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and a January 2012 bomb threat at an Austin, Texas, school were specifically cited) are being recorded. Homeland Security claims this information is only used to verify reports, and that dossiers are not being assembled on private citizens and that personally identifying information is regularly scrubbed from their servers.

Another worrying tendency is the fact that DHS appears to be keeping tabs on individual American citizens engaged in community activism and hot-button political issues. EPIC’s evidence package to congress included FOIA-obtained data on community reaction to the housing of Guantanamo detainees in a Standish, MI prison. Against the DHS’ own guidelines, the agency compiled a report titled Residents Voice Opposition Over Possible Plan to Bring Guantanamo Detainees to Local Prison-Standish MI. This report contained sentiment gathered from newspaper comment talkbacks, local blogs, Twitter posts, and publicly available Facebook posts–something expressly forbidden by the DHS’ own policies. Chavez and Callahan claimed that the report was not disseminated and that privacy policies forbid similar things from occuring; nonetheless the report was made and not obtained by EPIC until they sued the DHS.

In testimony, the DHS representatives appeared unclear on what the collected data would actually be used for and which agencies would be using it. Hurricane Katrina was constantly bought up as a talking point, but Committee members were constantly blocked when they asked how Homeland Security would be using their social media findings. In addition, barriers preventing other government agencies from obtaining sentiment information from DHS on individual journalists or private citizens is extremely flimsy; when Rep. Chip Cravvack (R-MN) asked Chavez what he would do if, say, the Attorney General was asking for information, Chavez simply answered that his agency’s mandate forbid him from doing that. While that answer is fine and good, it also infers that the DHS has not put proper inter-agency data security safeguards in place.

The hearing was less Big Brother then sloppy-kid-down-the-block… only with a big fat government contract. When numerous Committee members, including Long, questioned Chavez about the existence of similar social media monitoring projects at other government agencies, Chavez said he didn’t know of any. Meanwhile, the Associated Press–in a major story–reported on Monday about the FBI putting out a contract for an almost identical project. As a mid-ranking official responsible for analysis operations, it is assumed that Chavez would have a vested interest in knowing what other government agencies were up to in the same field.

At other times, neither Chavez nor Callahan could answer to the Committee’s satisfaction why a contractor was hired for the job nor why the federal government was misled on the duration of General Dynamics’ social media monitoring contract.

According to testimony, a second, classified, Committee meeting on the subject of DHS social media monitoring was held on February 15 as well.

For more stories like this, follow @fastcompany on Twitter. Email Neal Ungerleider, the author of this article, here or find him on Twitter and Google+.

Dallas Lawrence is the chief global digital strategist for Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s leading public relations and communications firms. He is a Mashable contributor on emerging media trends, online reputation management and digital issue advocacy. You can connect with him on Twitter @dallaslawrence.

If an individual or activist group broke into an organization’s office, raided confidential materials and then burned the building to the ground, local, state and federal officials would have swarmed the crime scene in an all out effort to bring the perpetrators to justice for an act of terrorism. Meanwhile, savvy online audiences and members of the media almost dismissively refer to the online versions of these raiders as “hacktivists,” conjuring up images of harmless school kids having fun pushing the boundaries of online security.

As we saw this morning with the Susan G. Komen Foundation website hack -– and again as “Anonymous Brazil” signaled they had successfully “taken down” the website of Brazil’s largest state bank — these groups are anything but harmless. One study from 2011 identified the average financial impact of these types of breaches to be just north of $7 million per incident.

Airline passengers will face the long lines, interminable delays and frustrating backups that come with holiday travel. Through it all, they’ll also have to decide whether to submit to one of the 500-plus x-ray or radio wave scanners found in airports nationwide and wonder about their safety.

Much of the debate surrounding the increasingly common security scanners revolves around their effectiveness and privacy. But the health implications are coming to the fore as the European Union bans x-ray scanners because of health concerns. Many EU nations will instead use millimeter-wave, lower frequency scanners.

Both types use a beam of electromagnetic energy to create an image of a passenger — sans clothing — in an effort to detect weapons and other contraband. Millimeter wave scanners use a portion of the spectrum close to microwaves, while x-ray scanners, of course, use the higher frequency x-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Both devices collect the scattered waves that reflect off the body to create an image.

The dose of radiation from the x-ray scanners is very low. But whether it is low enough to be harmless remains a lingering question.

A recent report by ProPublica and PBS uncovered concerns over the level of radiation passengers are exposed to. Although the dose is very low, the scanners still violate “a longstanding fundamental principle of radiation safety — that humans shouldn’t be x-rayed unless there is a medical benefit,” the report states. There also is the concern that repeated exposure to even low doses of radiation could be a problem.

According to the story, research suggests “anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the x-ray backscatter machines,” based on roughly 100 million passengers flying annually. The report also questions why the decision to deploy x-ray scanners was made by the Transportation Security Administration, not the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drugs and medical devices that can affect public health.

The TSA argues the radiation poses very little threat to human health compared to the security provided by the devices.

“It’s a really, really small amount relative to the security benefit you’re going to get,” Robin Kane, the agency’s assistant administrator for security technology, told ProPublica.

In response to the ProPublica/PBS report, the FDA said the risk of getting cancer is just 1 in 400 million. The agency also clarified several points made in the story.

And as our colleagues at Threat Level noted, Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory analyzed the Rapiscan 1000 x-ray scanner and published the leading and most often-cited study (.pdf) in October 2010. The 49-page report, released in a redacted form, says the machines leak virtually no radiation to TSA staff and nearby passengers and expose the person being scanned to a fraction of the maximum exposure level deemed medically safe.

“You would have to go through the scanner 1,000 times to equate to one medical x-ray,” said Peter Kant, Rapiscan’s executive vice president, summarizing the study. “You get twice as much radiation when eating a banana than when going through the scanner.”

But critics note the mechanical beam’s intensity level has not been published, making it impossible to evaluate the safety claims. Moreover, medical x-ray machines disperse radiation throughout the body, whereas the airport scanners penetrate to about skin level. That means there is a high concentration of radiation on a single organ — the skin.

Questions remain regarding the safety of the scanners and whether such tests were bungled, the manner in which they were placed into widespread use and just how effective they are. There also have been questions about the connection between Rapiscan, which produces the scanners, and former TSA boss Michael Chertoff. Chertoff’s consulting firm had done work for Rapiscan. Both companies deny anything inappropriate occurred.

Beyond the health concerns and the EU ban on x-ray scanners, France and Germany stopped using millimeter wave radio scanners because of numerous false positive results.

According to a separate story about the effectiveness of the scanners, of all the passengers singled out for closer scrutiny after being scanned by millimeter wave machines, pat-down searches revealed more than half of them posed no threat at all. The most mundane things, like sweat and folds in clothing, were among the things contributing to false positives.

Several tests of both types of scanners have shown they are effective at detecting items like guns and knives, but no more so than much cheaper metal detectors already in use. Other tests have shown explosives can be hidden on the body in a manner unlikely to be detected by those monitoring images generated by the scanners.

Passengers do not have a choice whether they are being scanned in a millimeter wave scanner, which resembles a phone booth with glass walls, or an x-ray scanner in which they stand between two large boxes. Airports often have one or the other, but they typically are not used for every security line.

There are roughly 250 x-ray machines and 260 millimeter wave machines in use nationwide. The TSA plans to deploy a total of 1,800 scanners by 2014.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet is no Apple iPad — and it seems that most Fire owners are quite okay with that.

In a recent open thread on Mashable regarding the product’s recent troubles, freshly minted Kindle Fire owners shared their stories — and mostly, love — for what could end up being Amazon’s most successful gadget ever.

Many users did report frustration with the poorly placed power button, lack of volume-control buttons and too-small fonts for certain features, and a few even said they returned the device. However, time and time again, the majority noted how they paid just $199 and not the near $500 you’ll spend for an entry-level Apple iPad — and they declared themselves more than satisfied.

To date, Apple’s 9.7-inch tablet has been the industry-dominating device in the market, selling at least 40 million units over nearly two years. No other tablet, Android-based or otherwise, has come close – until now. The Kindle is, reportedly, selling extremely well. One analyst thinks it could sell 6 million units before the end of the year. Those are iPad-esque numbers.

Still, even as Amazon celebrated this success, there were naysayers. As I pointed out in my own review, this is clearly a 1.0 device, where the marriage between hardware and software is somewhat imperfect. I was unhappy with the power button, disliked the super-small fonts and ran into the same bugginess as others. Nielsen grabbed some consumers and showed the Fire to them, and they seemed unhappy too. What’s important, to note, though, is that those users didn’t choose the device and probably have not had the Amazon membership experience, which is key to the Kindle Fire’s appeal.

Amazon is promising a software update in a couple of weeks, which could address some of these issues.Though Amazon’s statement concerning the matter never directly addressed the complaints, its timing made clear that Amazon has heard the unhappy voices.

So Mashable took it to the people who did buy the Amazon Kindle Fire. They likely chose it over an iPad or Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet (another Android-based 7-inch tablet) and surely use it every day. What do they really think of Amazon’s 7-inch content consumption device?

Repeatedly, commenters outlined the very same problems found by me, Nielsen and others. Yet, they invariably came to the same conclusion: These are minor issues easily fixed with a software update, and the Kindle Fire’s a great bargain for $199.

Anthony Fontana listed almost every single Kindle Fire deficit: uncontrollable carousel, poor Amazon Prime movie selection, a sluggish OS, small text. However, he ends with this: “The good news: Most of the above can be fixed with software updates and adding better apps to the app store. …As for the 5″x7″ size, it’s the only quality of the Fire that’s perfect. I can’t wait for a 5×7 iPad!”

PMarks loves his Kindle Fire and added this insight, “Nielsen’s ‘usability’ criticism is especially misleading: It really applies to 7″ tablets in general, not the Fire in particular.“

He also echoed a common theme: Kindle Fire’s price. PMarks called it “Dirt Cheap.” Dave Armstrong, for example, complained about the easy-to-hit on-off button, but still recommended, “Toss the Kindle in your pocket along with the 300-800 dollars you saved by not buying an iPad and off you go.”

BethReads wants Amazon to take care of “the annoying carousel issue,” but still sounds quite pleased with the device, and maybe a bit perplexed over the complaints, “It does what I needed to do, and if you paid $200 expecting an iPad, you deserve to be disappointed.”

A number of commenters extolled one of the Kindle Fire’s primary benefits: The Amazon ecosystem and the near frictionless environment for consuming content.

LoriFromPeru explained, “If I were using this as my main computer I might have different feelings but for a portal entertainment device that allows me to watch videos, read magazines and books and newspapers and do some light web surfing, it’s perfect.”

Code Honor recognized one of the other oft-repeated complaints: Lack of parental controls. It’s a valid concern for families. Digging in to the Kindle’s settings leads you to a Security dead end with no perceivable way of setting up parental controls. On the other hand, getting around this is fairly easy for Code, a single guy who says, “nobody else will be using my tablet.”

Some users have been concerned about one-click purchases and how easily family members can rack up significant Amazon bills. Still, I saw no complaints in our open thread about one-click buy. One savvy user, Nicholas Hooper, explained he disabled it by going into the Prime settings. He added, “Reading books is fine and I enjoy listening to audio books on it before I go to sleep at night. Web browsing is not lightning quick but it’s usable and streaming movies from Netflix or Prime look beautiful. So far it is worth every penny of the $199 price tag.”

If these comments are any barometer, then Amazon has little to worry about. The software update should arrive within two weeks and will likely make the Kindle Fire less buggy and a bit more useable. It won’t correct the hardware issues like that annoying power button or a lack of physical volume control, but that’s what we can expect from the Amazon Kindle Fire 2, right?

Part 13 in a series introducing my new book, The End of Business as Usual…this series serves as the book’s prequel.

These days, customer service seems to be a contradiction of words and intentions. Year after year, customers are appealing for attention, efficiency and a communicated sense of being appreciated. After all, what is the value of customer acquisition if retention itself isn’t valued? Now with social networks becoming the preferred channel of communication among connected consumers, businesses are losing ground and faith. The reality is that customers will share their experiences whether positive or negative and they will influence the decisions of others. The question is, how are you changing your service model to shape and steer experiences that deliver value to customers and also back to your business?

Social networks are emotional landscapes that are populated by human beings, not consumers. It is for this reason that many existing customer service approaches to social networks are the equivalent of the tips of icebergs we see above water. The real opportunity lies underneath the waterline and as you can imagine, it is beyond formidable. As part of this special series, my good friend Frank Eliason decried that social media customer service is a failure! He surely startled everyone including those who are championing change from within. To explain, I’ll provide a bit of context to his position. In order to do so however, we’ll need to peel back an additional layer to demonstrate where customer service and social media are missing confluence. I refer to this phenomenon as the horseshoe effect.

On either end, social media and customer service are either established or developing within the organization. While each exist, they do not naturally co-exist in regards to process, systems, vision, or collaborative workstreams. Allow me to clarify. Today, social media is mostly owned by one of three functions within businesses today, 1) marketing, 2) marketing communications, or 3) public relations. Social media essentially exists within its own silo and is largely disconnected from other divisions.

When a customer tweets at the company with a problem, the social media team is either unqualified to respond or chooses only to focus on those interactions that correspond with their focus or the company’s marketing efforts. Either way, the customer doesn’t see, nor do they care about, who owns social media. They see one company and they simply need an informed and empathetic response. Even when a company has a service team dedicated to social media, it is often a progressive front with a traditional infrastructure – or perhaps said another way, making something appear better than it is. When a customer is engaged, they’re often prompted to take the interaction offline, say through email or phone with a specialized representative, or they’re simply referred to a particular web address, phone number, or email address to start the process from the beginning through existing, less preferred channels.

With social media on one side and customer service on the other, a gap emerges where the social customer is left to fend for themselves. Businesses must look at creating a holistic experience where customer service extends to social media, providing engagement and resolution at the time and place of the social expression.

Case in point, Niklas Femerstrand is a web developer who discovered a security gap in a particular web page owned by American Express. Long story short, the security hole left an administration panel for Web site debugging wide open for anyone to access and provided a potential avenue for attackers to target AMEX customers. Rather than exploit the gateway, he alerted AMEX via the channel he relies on for personal and professional communication…Twitter. What happens next only demonstrates the horseshoe effect and why closing the gap sooner than later will benefit customers and the company alike.

In his own words, Femerstrand expresses his disbelief when he could not get through to the company on a network where it maintains multiple presences,  “When somebody voluntarily contacts a company and repeatedly mentions words like ‘security vulnerability’ and ‘hacker’ one would think the company would act as quickly as possible.”

If you follow the exchange below, you’ll see that Femerstrand made an honest to goodness attempt to reach what he deemed to be the most direct channel to the company, @AskAmex. Please do take a moment to read each line item so that you can both see and feel his frustration and also visualize the horseshoe effect that separated social media from customer service.

As you can see, the exchange is priceless. Poor ^Courtney…

Femerstrand was clear. He didn’t want to be referred to a traditional service backend.  While Courtney was staffing the shift for @AskAmex, she was obviously not trained to handle such a situation and therefore demonstrated the horseshoe effect perfectly. So what is Femerstrand left to do when he was insistent that he wanted to help the company, but did not have time or patience to go through a “technical support jungle?” He blogged not only about the experience, but he also exposed the code and tipped security publications everywhere.

What’s the ROI of a Good Customer Experience

In his post about the failure of social customer service, Frank Eliason also notes that part of the problem has to do with how customer service is measured or valued within the organization today. Traditional metrics that are deeply rooted within the call center today are used as a baseline for an entirely new paradigm. Fortunately or unfortunately, the connected customer defines the rules of engagement and based on the interaction, will in turn share their experience whether it’s positive or negative.

As Eliason explains…

This brings me to the failure of social service. The other day someone tweeted me asking about current costs of phone calls versus the cost per Tweet for customer service. Ugh! This is new media and yet we’re already focusing on old metrics. The truth is that the service world has been broken for years because of the emphasis of handle time or calls per hour. Companies do not want to talk to you, and it shows. The fact is most do not want to Tweet with you either. Since they are worried about brand sentiment, they may appease you to shut you up. Sorry, shutting your customer up is not customer service and trying to expedite resolution isn’t a metric for the new world of consumer influence.

The time is now for new metrics. And by new metrics, I’m not referring to those that simply measure time to resolution, cost per tweets, wait times or Tweet reduction. The opportunity for increased engagement is the real opportunity for customer service. This isn’t about getting away from the customer or simply about solving problems. This is about creating exceptional and shareable experiences! Customer service can contribute to engagement, advocacy, loyalty, and what I call NPS 2.0 aka SPS (Social Promoter Score). It’s not the traditional NPS of whether or not someone would refer a product or company. In social media, we can see if someone actually did and compare that to those who are clearly public detractors. We can also view those detractors that recommend against a purchase.

Additionally, the new doors that are opening to customer service and customer engagement don’t simply have to be relegated to negative experiences. For example, I recently flew United Airlines and I was fortunate enough to have an exceptional experience on a flight from New York to San Francisco. I was so elated with the wonderful customer focus of one flight attendant in particular, that I decided to share it with @United.

I wasn’t surprised when the response was the equivalent of digital crickets. But, I had high hopes for some form of acknowledgement. And even though I know I was daydreaming, I would love to have seen the semblance of a system where that feedback would get back to both Meg Callan and her manager. All too often, social customer service focuses on optimizing the systems and strategies to contend with experiences when they negatively impact social streams. But I believe that if businesses can provide mechanisms where customers, employees, and positive experiences are rewarded, more people will become willful advocates than detractors.

If you’re unclear where to begin, then simply ask. When Google+ was new on the scene, prior to the release of its official brand pages, several companies such as Dell and Ford asked customers how they can use the new network to engage more effectively with customers. In one such case, Michael Dell personally asked followers on his profile if they would like to connect with Dell service via video directly on Hangouts.

The response, to say the least, was phenomenal. Customers were elated that Michael Dell would ask people what they want while also demonstrating how an organization could use new tools to improve customer experiences. The result is support, loyalty, and advocacy. Additionally, the result of one simple post resulted in an array of influential press. I guess that says everything about that state of customer service. If businesses ask how to better help customers and press breaks out as a result, well…at least we’re on the right track.

Closing the social customer horseshoe to create a complete circle is the equivalent of a holistic experience. Fixing customer service is not the goal here. Improving customer service and delivering an integrated experience will not only help customers feel valued, but also establish a competitive advantage. In the end, businesses that invest in customer retention and acquisition to deliver positive experiences, regardless of platform, will strengthen relationships and loyalty and additionally contribute to organic advocacy.