Remember when being “wired” as a kid meant knowing how to use a rotary phone to call granny? (Or that you snuck a snip of mom’s coffee?)

Well, Technology has hit warp speed and today’s tots are more wired than ever. New research reveals that a full 81 percent of children under the age of two in ten surveyed nations boast some sort online presence and 8 percent even have their own email address. (WHAT? Really?!!)

All these tiny-sized digital footprints may seem cute now, but what happens when little Billy applies for a job and potty training pictures show up in his Google search?

See the full article from AVG: Would you want a digital footprint from birth?

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki/Annie Colbert for the link and text above.

I found this great short clip above of Guy Kawasaki speaking about “the meaning of meaning” and making a difference in the world. He says ion the clip above that it doesn’t matter whether you are a business or a non-profit, small or large business, first focus on making a difference — not on ‘making money’ — and you will be a successful company.

I agree! I have worked before at a company where we began our day with a company meeting and then someone in charge finished the day, each day, with “Alright. Let’s go make some money.”… something about that just rubbed me the wrong way. while I agree that you should be focused on your company, making it successful — because that is what you are there for — let your focus be on doing good and then be successful out of that and not the other way around.

Much like Google, the billionaires they are, I feel do a lot of good and provide many useful services, many of them for free (email, online documents, phone/voice services, blogs, online calendars, photo programs, open source phone platforms, and of course online video sharing through YouTube) to name a few, and they are always developing new items and free updates all the time! — not that they aren’t making money on ads, but the service they provide makes us go to them again and again.

I hope this blog post make you think and helps you re-think why you do, what you do. If all you do is focus on the “Benjamin’s” then you might need to re-direct your thinking to a more positive direction on doing good for others above yourself.

Yesterday, it was reported that Apple has lifted some of the restrictions that it has on iPhone App development in which shot off two additional stories of Google and Adobe smiling across all the micro-circuits of their smart phones.

Story Number 1:

Google Voice May Be Returning To The App Store
More than a year ago, Google voice had submitted it’s own app to the app store to try and allow users to make calls, not through their carrier (AT&T or Jailbroken to T-Mobile), but through an app, allowing user to save minutes and use the new (acquired) service from Google. The app never saw the light of day, rejected and not even the last one picked in playground kickball.

– At least Google was smart enough to make a browser based version of this app to allow Apple connoisseurs to use the Google Voice Service. But with the new contract restrictions lifted, there may be hope for the Google Voice App — an app that would be one of the first I’d install on my iPod Touch, that I would like to get.

Cross you’re fingers! the app that is available to blackberry and android users might actually make it over the iPhone!

Story Number 2:

Adobe To Resume “Dev Work” On Flash-to-iPhone Tool
The battle on the Apple iPod front and App development in recent months has been that apple says it will NEVER support Flash, a product from Adobe… Well, maybe that has changed with the new restrictions being lifted. While Apple says that it will not support it in the mobile safari browsers for the iPod Touch and iPhone devices, the new news may allow for continued support for developing Apps in Flash…. Sweet! Score one for the *non-programmers-but-wanna-be-app-developers* team! I might be cool enough to be a developer yet! Now just to get Flash CS5; my little gnome is working on that as we speak.

I do understand that that this story is still evolving and only REALLY beginning — and Apple may fire back with the notion to kill Adobe’s efforts — but I sure hope that we can all get along and play nice, and make the world a better place for you, me, Android, Blackberry, and the iPhone.

Technorati.com is the leading source, next to Google in my opinion, for indexing blogs and blogs posts around the web. In their own words, “The leading blog search engine, Technorati.com indexes millions of blog posts in real time and surfaces them in seconds. The site has become the definitive source for the top stories, opinions, photos and videos emerging across news, entertainment, technology, lifestyle, sports, politics and business. Technorati.com tracks not only the authority and influence of blogs, but also the most comprehensive and current index of who and what is most popular in the Blogosphere.”

Taken from Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009, here are 10 facts that you might not have known about the online culture of blogging:

1. 77% of Internet users read blogs.
2. There are currently 133 million blogs listed on leading blog directory Technorati.
3. 60% of bloggers are between the ages 18-44.
4. One in five bloggers update their blogs daily.
5. Not so surprising to me: Two thirds of bloggers are male.
6. Corporate blogging accounts for 14% of blogs.
7. 15% of bloggers spend 10 hours a week blogging.
8. More than half of all bloggers are married and/or parents.
9. More than 50% of bloggers have more than one blog.
10. Bloggers use an average of five different social sites to drive traffic to their blog.

For more interesting ideas about the web and where things are going, see this web/technology clog that I just found: http://thefuturebuzz.com/.

(I am thinking of using it as  teaching tool for when I have to “explain” to people why their blog is not magically at the top of Google right away as soon as they hit publish to the web…. I could (and might) write a blog post about the mild annoyance o-mine!)

Click on the How Google Works Infogrpahic below for the full version.

This great image was taken from PPCBlog.com.

(Some text taken from Techdirt.com)

There have been plenty of stories over the years of drivers blindly following their GPS over a cliff or onto railroad tracks. After doing such things, it may be natural for the driver to blame the technology, though it’s unlikely to help you out much in court. However, it appears that one pedestrian has taken things a step further. After using Google’s “still in beta” (for a good reason) “walking directions” while trying to get somewhere in Park City, Utah, she found herself on a highway, where she was hit by a car. So, in response, she’s suing both Google and the driver of the car. Danny Sullivan explores the issue in much greater detail at that link, and comes to the same conclusion I assume many of you already jumped to: at some point, you just have to assume some sense of responsibility if you’re the pedestrian. Sullivan pops out the following two Street View images showing the road in question, and wonders why the woman didn’t realize that this road was not designed to be crossed. The first photo is of the intersection she would come to before crossing (note: no crosswalk).

My thought is that the person that she is suing should counter sue her for negligent stupidity for WALKING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! C’mon… have some sense lady. — and who is not to know if she jsut didn’t want to get hit so that she could get some recognition or sue for money?

Well, did you know that you can continue to play the ’80′s favorite arcade classic still on google? Keep playing at http://www.google.com/pacman/ — just hit “Insert Coin” at the bottom right where the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button usually is…. and for the geeks in the room, this is NOT flash based, but I hear it is all HTML and CSS. Crazy huh?

Do you enjoy playing Pac Man growing up?

I think that the classic Pac Man was the best, but then there were cartoons, 3D Pac Man games and even lunch boxes in the ’80′s.

For April Fool this year, all people are doing funny April Fool’s joke, like Google “changing it’s name to Topeka,” and youtube.com turning videos in ASCII text (which is pretty ingenious, I think),…

And even GroupOn.com built a small microsite to allow people to buy “elite” items like metal shirt’s with only sleeves and no shirt (pictured to the right) for $6100, faceless watches for $14,500, or Royal crowns for $68,099. this may sound silly, but the site sells it much better than I can explain it.

See the site Groupöupon at http://www.groupoupon.com/.

Even once you click to try and buy some of these ridiculous items, you are prompted to be scanned for coolness to make sure that you are even cool enough to even buy such items. The text reads: “Please align your eye with the retinal scanner below so we can check your identity against our online database of confidential tax records and confirm your worthiness as a potential member of Groupöupon.” — Funny stuff.

For other great listings of April Fool’s jokes from the tech world for 2010, see Mashable’s best of April Fool’s post.

Chosen on this memorial day of *ahem* April Fools, Google has chosen to honor the city of Topeka, Kansas; since this city recently chose to change it’s name to Google, they had to think how to honor that, and they chose to officially change it’s name to Topeka.

Thank you Google for honor the great city of Topeka. Since I honor the company’s commemoration, (and my ego tells me that I want some attention myself),  instead of naming my new son Joshua Zavier Armstrong in the next coming months, I wish to honor you by naming him Google Armstrong. My love and adoration go out the company and I wish to further brand the greatness of this company with naming my first born son after this awesome company.

Rock on, Google. Rock on. — And by this I mean the company, not my son. (Sorry, son. I will celebrate you soon enough when you come in May. This is Google’s time to shine for the time being.

See the referring April 1st blog entry at: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/different-kind-of-company-name.html