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Japan may send chatty humanoid tweet-bot to space (AP) : Technet |
- Japan may send chatty humanoid tweet-bot to space (AP)
- Review: Motorola Atrix a powerful smart phone (AP)
- China appeals to US for fairness in security probe (AP)
- Motorola CEO confirms $800 price tag for Xoom tablet on Verizon (Ben Patterson)
- Report: Android-powered Sony tablet to boast PlayStation “integration” (Ben Patterson)
- North Korea's party daily opens website (AFP)
- Special Report: Al Jazeera's news revolution (Reuters)
- Apple spells out Verizon, AT&T iPhone differences (Macworld)
- AP Source: Facebook founder to meet with Obama (AP)
- Machine trounces man on "Jeopardy!" quiz show (Reuters)
- Avoid Smartphone and Wi-Fi 'Gotchas' with Skype Hotspots (PC World)
- Google may be able to capitalize on Apple’s subscription fallout (Appolicious)
- Video making second mobile revolution (AFP)
- Father of Utah music group charged with abuse (AP)
- Remains of the Day: How many wrongs make a right? (Macworld)
- PowerPoint Alternatives: Presentation-Tool Showdown (PC World)
- After 'Jeopardy!' win, IBM program steps out (AP)
| Japan may send chatty humanoid tweet-bot to space (AP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 09:23 PM PST TOKYO – Lonely astronauts on the International Space Station may soon be getting an android friend from Japan. And for the folks back home, it will tweet. Japan's space agency is considering putting a talking humanoid robot on the International Space Station to watch the mission while astronauts are asleep, monitor their health and stress levels and communicate to Earth through the microblogging site Twitter. Japan's space agency JAXA announced this week that it is looking at a plan to send a humanoid robot to the space station in 2013 that could communicate with the ground through Twitter — primarily feeding photos, rather than original ideas — and provide astronauts with "comfort and companionship." Following up on NASA's "Robonaut" R-2 program, which is set for launch on the Discovery shuttle next week, the Japanese android would be part of a larger effort to create and refine robots that can be used by the elderly, JAXA said in a statement. Japan is one of the leading countries in robotics, and has a rapidly aging society with one of the world's longest life-expectancies. Improving robot communication capabilities could help the elderly on Earth by providing a nonintrusive means of monitoring the robot owner's health and vital signs and sending information to emergency responders if there is an abnormality, JAXA said. "We are thinking in terms of a very human-like robot that would have facial expressions and be able to converse with the astronauts," said JAXA's Satoshi Sano. The robot was being developed with the advertising and communications giant Dentsu Inc. and a team at Tokyo University. The NASA project has human-like head, hands and arms and uses the same tools as station crew members. The "Robonaut" called R-2 — a shout-out to R2-D2 of "Star Wars" fame — is intended to carry out maintenance tasks in the station's Destiny lab. NASA says it hopes that humanoid robots could one day stand in for astronauts during spacewalks or perform tasks too difficult or dangerous for humans. For now, the US$2.5 million NASA robot exists only from the waist up and is limited to activities within the lab. The robot also uses Twitter, but generally just messages relayed from NASA spokespeople. Sano said the agency is considering ways to program the Japanese version to be more original. More importantly, he said, the Japanese project is intended to build on the R-2 idea by providing a more communicative companion for the astronauts themselves. Japan has no manned space program of its own, but its astronauts have been part of the space station crew and Japan also maintains a laboratory, called "Kibo," or Hope, on the station. Sano said that JAXA hopes the robot's communications with Earth while there are no Japanese passengers on the space station will help maintain public interest and support in the mission. He said the first Japanese astronaut to tweet from space was Soichi Noguchi, who returned to Earth in June last year after several months aboard the ISS. |
| Review: Motorola Atrix a powerful smart phone (AP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 02:28 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO – As smart phones get an increasing array of features, they need faster processors. The Motorola Atrix 4G, billed as "the world's most powerful smart phone," arrives with 2 gigahertz of processing power_ the kind you're more likely to find on a laptop than a phone. That's notable because there's an optional laptop dock, which makes the phone function as, well, a laptop. The Atrix is available now for pre-order from AT&T Inc. and will begin selling March 6. It costs $200 with a two-year contract. But if you buy it with the dock, it will cost $500 after rebate, and you'll have to get a more expensive data plan. On its own, the Atrix is a speedy phone, though not necessarily eye-catching. With the skinny, light dock, the Atrix is a Web surfing and e-mailing champ, which could make it a good travel buddy. For heavy-duty computing, though, I'd still stick with my full-featured laptop. The Atrix's black slab exterior makes it look like other smart phones, but start poking around and the difference is clear: This is a fast handset. With tasks that don't require a wireless network, such as taking photos or playing games, the Atrix opened menus and applications without hesitation. The camera seemed to start up faster than those on other smart phones I've used, and I could scroll through applications and contacts on its 4-inch screen with ease. Considering its processing power, I was miffed to see the Atrix is currently running version 2.2 of Google Inc.'s Android operating system, Froyo, rather than the newer Gingerbread version, whose faster performance and better on-screen keyboard would match well with the Atrix. The Atrix works on AT&T's upgraded 3G network, HSPA+, so to try it out I walked to AT&T Park, where the San Francisco Giants play. There, the phone streamed videos as flawlessly as if I were on my home Wi-Fi network. At my office or home I wouldn't even attempt to stream content over AT&T's network as service is unreliable. Not surprisingly, call quality at AT&T Park was also excellent. My mom, a frequent target of my test calls and sharper critic of sound quality than I am, even said that the Atrix sounded "pretty good for a cell phone." But in my office, where AT&T's reception is spotty, I had to try several times to get a call to go through. When I finally did, a friend sounded muffled on the other end (he said I did, too). The phone's display is clear and bright, with good viewing angles that would make it useful for sharing video clips with a friend. When streaming YouTube content, such as Nicki Minaj's "Moment 4 Life" music video, I didn't feel as if the colors were as warm as they could have been, though. Like a growing number of phones, the Atrix can play Flash videos — something the iPhone can't do. The 5-megapixel camera on the Atrix's back wasn't impressive. Photos were crisp, but colors didn't really pop. And there are only a handful of settings and color effects, so if you want to get creative you'll need to download a camera app (free ones include Camera 360 Lite and Retro Camera). You'll also need to snag an app such as Qik if you want to video chat with a friend: The Atrix has a front-facing camera, but it doesn't include video chat software. I expected long battery life, especially with AT&T claiming that you can watch two full-length movies in a row on a single charge. The phone is rated for up to nine hours of talk time, and in a day that included much multitasking and streaming a full-length animated movie from YouTube over Wi-Fi, the battery held up well. I also expected a lot from the dock, especially because Motorola Mobility Inc. isn't the first to come up with the idea of combining a phone with a laptop-like dock: One high-profile example came from Palm, now owned by Hewlett-Packard Co., which in 2007 announced and subsequently shelved a laptop-like device called Foleo. It would have acted as a companion to users' Palm Treo smart phones. Once I plugged the Atrix into the laptop dock, I entered a combination phone-netbook experience, which gave me more functionality than with the handset alone but not as much as I'd have with a dedicated laptop. The dock has a bright, crisp screen that measures 11.6 inches diagonally, a full-but-slightly-cramped keyboard and a large touchpad. There are two USB ports and a standard headphone jack. Because the dock has its own battery, it can charge the Atrix while they are attached. Oddly, the dock doesn't have a front-facing camera, so you can't use it for video chats. With the Atrix attached to the dock, a small "mobile view" on the dock's screen shows you what's on your phone's screen — you can use this to access phone functions like making or answering calls or sending text messages, which is neat. The dock's main appeal is that it includes the Firefox Web browser, allowing you to surf the Web uninhibited by the limitations imposed by the phone's smaller display. The dock is great for checking e-mails and visiting websites, and you could use it for some work, too. Still, it's not a computer. Without the Atrix plugged in, the dock does nothing. It's expensive, and you'll have to add on a $20 per month for AT&T's mobile hotspot feature (on the plus side, this will enable you to connect four more gadgets to the Internet through your Atrix). If you're hankering for a speedy phone, the Atrix is a good bet. I'd hold out on the dock, though. It could be a useful accessory in the future, but for now its price doesn't match up to its limited functionality. |
| China appeals to US for fairness in security probe (AP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 10:12 PM PST BEIJING – China appealed Thursday to Washington for fairness as American officials decide whether to block Chinese telecom giant Huawei's purchase of a U.S. computer company on security grounds. Beijing hopes for a transparent review of Huawei's purchase of 3Leaf Systems, a Commerce Ministry spokesman said. Huawei says it was told by a U.S. security review panel that it must sell 3Leaf, which it bought last May, or the committee will recommend that President Barack Obama cancel the deal. "We hope the U.S. security examination laws and regulations can treat a Chinese company fairly, regardless of whether it is publicly traded, state-owned or private, and can carry out a transparent, predictable review," said ministry spokesman Yao Jian. Companies that receive such a verdict from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States often withdraw proposed deals. But Huawei has said it will stick to its plans and recommend that Obama approve the deal anyway. Huawei says it failed to apply for U.S. government approval because it bought 3Leaf's technology and hired some employees but did not purchase the whole company. The Pentagon took the unusual step of demanding that Huawei retroactively apply for a CFIUS review of the $2 million acquisition. A group of U.S. lawmakers appealed to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in a letter last week to examine the 3Leaf deal closely. The California company makes products for "cloud computing," and the lawmakers said the Huawei deal could transfer sensitive technology to China. Huawei Technologies Ltd. is one of the biggest makers of network switching gear and reported sales of $28 billion last year. It has struggled to gain a foothold in the United States against rivals such as Cisco Systems Inc. Huawei was founded by a former Chinese military officer but says it is owned by its employees and has denied that it has any connection to the People's Liberation Army. ___ Online: Huawei Technologies Ltd.: http://www.huawei.com Chinese Ministry of Commerce: http://www.mofcom.gov.cn |
| Motorola CEO confirms $800 price tag for Xoom tablet on Verizon (Ben Patterson) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 10:20 AM PST Those leaked ads showing an $800 sticker price for the Android 3.0-powered Xoom tablet through Verizon Wireless have been confirmed by Motorola's chief exec, who adds that a cheaper, Wi-Fi-only alternative is also on the way. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha told Reuters on Wednesday that the 32GB Xoom will sell for an unsubsidized $799 (we'll go ahead and round that up to 800 bucks) when it lands in Verizon's mobile lineup—about $70 pricier than the 32GB iPad 3G, but considerably cheaper than the $1,199 figure that had been floating around in recent days.
Jha added that a Wi-Fi-only version of the Xoom is also on tap, with a price tag of "around" $600, according to Reuters, the same price as the 32GB Wi-Fi-only iPad. Jha didn't give a specific release date for the Xoom, which is slated to arrive sometime this quarter, although word has it that the tablet could hit Best Buy as early as Thursday. Moto says a 4G version of the Xoom will follow the initial 3G model, which itself will eventually be upgradable to 4G. The Xoom is among the first devices to run on Android 3.0 "Honeycomb," the tablet-centric version of Google's Android OS. The tablet boasts a 10.1-inch display, twin cameras, and a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor under the hood. The Xoom follows such Android 2.2-powered tablets as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Dell Streak 7, with the initially pricey Tab seeing steep discounts in the past several weeks—so don't be surprised if Xoom gets its own price cuts down the road. Other Android 3.0 tablets expected in the months ahead include the LG G-Slate for T-Mobile and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, with non-Android competitors such as the WebOS-powered HP TouchPad, the BlackBerry Playbook, and the expected iPad 2 waiting in the wings. Related: — Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News. |
| Report: Android-powered Sony tablet to boast PlayStation “integration” (Ben Patterson) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 08:44 AM PST Now that the long-rumored PlayStation phone (or the Xperia Play, as Sony Ericsson is calling it) is finally official, what's the word on Sony cranking out a PlayStation-friendly tablet? Sony execs noted briefly at CES last month that they've got a new tablet in the pipeline, but offered nothing in the way of details (or at least, nothing beyond the unsurprising desire for Sony's TV and movie studios to "create content specifically for it"). Now Engadget claims to have the scoop on Sony's tablet plans, complete with word that the Android-powered slate will prominently feature streaming music and videos, as well as PlayStation "integration." Hardware-wise, say Engadget's spies, we're talking a tablet with a 9.4-inch, 1,280 by 800-pixel display, along with an intriguing, "wrap"-like design intended to resemble an "open paperback" or a "magazine folded backward" (check out Engadget for a diagram). The rounded edge will act both as a weight-shifting grip and as a table stand for touch-typing, according to the post. The rumored tablet—which goes by the code-name "S1," Engadget reports—will pack in a Tegra 2 processor, dual cameras, a USB port, and an IR emitter (presumably for controlling your various A/V components), with Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" running the show. The S1 will be "100-percent" focused on Sony's recently launched Qriocity streaming-media service, Engadget continues, complete with a remote-control app for Sony's line of Bravia HDTV sets. But the post also adds that the tablet will include PlayStation "integration," including a selection of "pre-loaded" PS One games. Of course, PlayStation "integration" could mean just about anything, with Engadget noting that it's "unclear" if we're just talking the old Remote Play feature on the PSP or full-on "PlayStation Suite" certification, good for access to an upcoming lineup of Android-powered PlayStation games. Sony Ericsson's just-announced Xperia Play, which comes equipped with slide-out gaming controls (including a D-pad, four PlayStation buttons, and dual touchpads) will mark the first PlayStation Suite-certified device. So, could the S1—ahem, the rumored S1—be the first PlayStation Suite-certified tablet? While I like the idea, the issue of physical gaming controls—which I assume are tied to Sony granting PlayStation Suite status to a device—would seem to be standing in the way. Indeed, PlayStation "integration" may mean little more than the new PlayStation app that lets iOS and Android users chat with fellow PSN gamers and compare trophy collections. Then again, perhaps the 9.4-inch display on the rumored Sony tablet would be big enough for adequate virtual gaming controls—or better yet, how about a wireless, PlayStation-certified gaming pad? Hmmmm. Update: As @gofreak_ie reminds me, the PlayStation Suite certification program does indeed allow for virtual, on-screen gaming controls. In any case, it could be months before we get any hard details, with Engadget reporting that the S1 may not ship until September (potentially with a $599 price tag). Would you be interested in a Sony tablet that could handle PlayStation Suite games? Update: Engadget is now saying that yes, the S1 is indeed a PlayStation Suite-certified tablet. Nice—although again, none of this has been confirmed by Sony. Related: — Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News. |
| North Korea's party daily opens website (AFP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 07:45 PM PST SEOUL (AFP) – The newspaper of North Korea's ruling party, Rodong Sinmun, has launched its own website as the communist state builds up an online presence. It was unclear exactly when Rodong's homepage (http://www.rodong.rep.kp) went online, but it apparently opened in time for leader Kim Jong-Il's 69th birthday Wednesday. Pyongyang also has an official propaganda website Uriminzokkiri (http://www.uriminzokkiri.com) The North has recently revived the use of its Internet domain name .kp, an expert reported last month. The name was assigned in 2007 and managed by a company based in Germany. But the domain and a handful of sites also managed by the company disappeared in the second half of last year for unknown reasons. They have now been revived in a joint venture with a Thai telecoms company, Martyn Williams of IT research group IDG said in January. In recent months, the North has also opened accounts on Twitter and YouTube but these were recently hacked by South Korean users who posted derogatory comments about the ruling regime. The North also posted pictures on a Facebook site last year. Despite the cyber propaganda campaigns, the communist state strictly limits its own people's access to outside information. Rodong's new website has conventional content. One story related how top communist party officials and National Defence Commission members heartily greeted Kim Jong-Il when he arrived for a celebratory dinner party Wednesday. It also announced that the 92nd volume of Kim Il-Sung's writings and speeches has been published. The founding president died in 1994. |
| Special Report: Al Jazeera's news revolution (Reuters) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 09:18 PM PST DOHA (Reuters) – A journalist throws open the wide front door of Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters, cell phone pressed against his ear. "They were arrested last night," he bellows into his phone. "We can't get through to the producers. All the material was confiscated, and some of the equipment was destroyed." Inside the newsroom, the atmosphere is alive with energy. Journalists sit transfixed to their monitors, which show live feeds from central Cairo -- where hundreds of thousands of protesters are on the brink of pushing another strongman from power and where Al Jazeera crews have faced repeated police harassment and detentions. Tapes are piled high in a corner, labeled in scrawling Arabic. "This is our story," says one Al Jazeera English journalist, who asks not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media. "This is the story that proves to the naysayers of the world what we can do. We took the lead and everyone followed: CNN, Christiane Amanpour -- in spite of harassment, having our tapes stolen, people being beaten up. If you want to know about Egypt in the U.S., you're watching Al Jazeera." Over the past few weeks, much has been made of the power of Al Jazeera, the Qatari news channel launched 15 years ago by the Gulf Arab state's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani with the goal of providing the sort of independent news that the region's state-run broadcasters had long ignored. It was Al Jazeera that first grasped the enormity of the Tunisia uprising and its implications for the region, and Al Jazeera which latched onto -- critics would say fueled -- subsequent rumblings in Egypt. And audiences around the world responded: the network's global audience has rocketed. During the first two days of the Egyptian protests, livestream viewers watching the channel over the internet increased by 2,500 percent to 4 million, 1.6 million of them in the United States, according to Al Anstey, managing director of Al Jazeera's English-language channel. "This is a real turning point for us, in terms of recognition of the integrity of the product we're producing, and showing that there is a true demand for our content and information," Anstey told Reuters. But even in its moment of triumph, questions about Al Jazeera remain. Despite its stated independence and brave journalism, the network unavoidably plays a political role. Is it, as many in the region charge, sympathetic to Islamist parties such as Hamas and Hezbollah? Does it target some Middle East regimes while treating others more softly? And what role, if any, does its wealthy Qatari backer play in all this? Perhaps ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said it best during a visit to Al Jazeera's Qatar headquarters seven years ago: "All that trouble from this little matchbox?" ANGER IN EGYPT Al Jazeera, Arabic for "the island", has earned the resentment of leaders in the Arab world -- as well as the admiration of many ordinary Arabs -- almost from the day it launched in 1996. The first Arab network to put Israeli officials on the air, the channel has also hosted guests as varied as Saudi dissidents, feminist activists and Islamist clerics. "When Israelis first appeared on our screens, people thought we were funded by the Mossad," one employee said. In his final weeks in office, Mubarak made little secret of his anger with Al Jazeera's broadcasts of the protests against his government. The network broadcast live from Cairo's Tahrir Square throughout the 18 days of protest, despite its office being closed, journalists beaten and detained, and tapes and equipment confiscated and destroyed. In phone calls with western leaders during the uprising, Mubarak complained about Al Jazeera's -- and Qatar's -- role in fomenting unrest, according to senior political sources in Europe. Mubarak told them he believed the emir was focusing attention on the unrest in Egypt at the behest of Iran. It's a complaint that has been made before over the years. Executives of the station dismiss the charge and say they are solely interested in good journalism. Critics point to instances where Al Jazeera has pulled its punches as evidence of the political role it can play. Initially, the channel's coverage of Saudi Arabia -- the Arab world's leading political and economic power -- was extensive, but in 2002 the kingdom withdrew its ambassador to Doha partly in protest over Al Jazeera shows on Saudi politics. Relations between the two states were restored six years later, and observers say Al Jazeera toned down its Saudi coverage. A clash last March between the United Arab Emirates navy and a Saudi patrol vessel after a dispute over water boundaries, for example, wasn't covered by the network. "They'd have brought on a world of trouble," said one UK-based source, declining to be named because he feared it would hurt his employment prospects. A July 2009 diplomatic cable from the U.S. embassy in Qatar published by WikiLeaks puts it this way: "Al Jazeera, the most watched satellite television station in the Middle East, is heavily subsidized by the Qatari government and has proved itself a useful tool for the station's political masters. The station's coverage of events in the Middle East is relatively free and open, though it refrains from criticizing Qatar and its government. Al Jazeera's ability to influence public opinion throughout the region is a substantial source of leverage for Qatar, one which it is unlikely to relinquish. Moreover, the network can also be used as a chip to improve relations." Al Jazeera insists the government has zero input. "There's been no interaction from Qatar whatsoever," Anstey says. "(In Egypt) we were on the ground very quickly, with force, in the first minutes and hours, with total editorial independence." Editorially, the Qatari government is "completely hands-off," he says. "Egyptian authorities have put a great deal of pressure on us to stop coverage from Egypt. But we're on the ground, talking to people in the square, to politicians. We're resolute in the face of a considerable degree of pressure." Some experts suggest that Al Jazeera, like media organizations in many parts of the world, has probably already learned to exercise a degree of restraint rooted in self-preservation. "I think Al Jazeera itself conducts self-censorship to ensure no red lines are crossed," said David Roberts, researcher at Durham University in Britain. "But in general, the Qatari government is not cherry-picking stories or censoring. They let them run with any story they want, up to a certain point." THE VIEW FROM WASHINGTON Washington initially welcomed the channel as an example of burgeoning media freedom in the Arab world. But after the attacks on the United States in 2001, the U.S. attitude began to change. The Bush administration accused it of propaganda and even links with al-Qaeda. The U.S. military bombed Al Jazeera bureaus in Kabul and Baghdad, where one journalist was killed. The United States has said both incidents were accidental, but some Al Jazeera insiders believe they may have been targeted. The tone from Washington has softened markedly since the change in the White House. President Obama has acknowledged watching Al Jazeera English, and the Twitter feed of a State Department spokesperson in recent weeks called for the release of detained journalists in Cairo. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the network's Doha headquarters last year, a tour that was described by Al Jazeera officials as "cordial." A State Department source told Reuters that Arabic speakers there have "quietly preferred" Al Jazeera "to any other news source based in the Arab world, but I don't think we made it a very public preference, given its nasty reputation in the U.S." While Arab viewers dismiss the far-fetched notion that the channel is in bed with al Qaeda, many say Al Jazeera can appear sympathetic to extremist groups such as Hamas, which defeated the more secular Fatah in Palestinian elections in 2006. That belief appeared to be underlined in January with Al Jazeera's publication of leaked documents revealing that the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority had offered multiple concessions to Israel in peace talks. The revelations, which Al Jazeera shared with Britain's Guardian newspaper, made the Palestinian Authority and Fatah look weak and led to the resignation of Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who has accused Al Jazeera trying to bring down the Palestinian Authority. Tensions within the Arabic-language channel were highlighted last year when several female anchors resigned over its conservative dress code. 'THE RIGHT KIND OF CULTURE' "It's electric," says a Doha-based journalist of the atmosphere in the network's headquarters as events unfold in Egypt. "Being in the newsroom is all hands on deck. We know that we're one of the only ones on the ground doing this. People are chasing journalists in Tahrir Square shouting 'Al Jazeera!'" For a region whose authoritarian governments are usually able to squash stories they don't want published, Al Jazeera represents a sharp cultural shift, and, many believe, a positive one. Launched with a startup budget of $137 million and a target of generating revenue within five years, the network was able to draw talent from the just-folded BBC Arabic. "They started with the right kind of culture," says Mohamed Zayani, professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and author of a book on Al Jazeera. "In terms of the way things were run, the structure was looser, less bureaucratic and red-tape laden. That was good, because it meant they could get things done. It's something very important in the business of news, where time is of the essence." Zayani points out that Al Jazeera has integrated social media into what they do. "That has been a tremendous asset for them. Social media is becoming center-stage, and has been blended into and intertwined with regional media. That's new, and is profoundly changing the model we have seen in the past, and transforming audiences beyond just passive consumers," he said. Crucially in the Arab world, the use of social media has enabled Al Jazeera to skirt some censors. "It's been a necessity, a survival mechanism," says Zayani. "And it's exciting, it's experimental." The bureau's headquarters lie just outside Doha's central business district, tucked away in a compound on a dusty side street off a main road. The offices of the older Arabic channel are somewhat frayed around the edges, while those of the younger English service are more polished. Viewers of both services say Al Jazeera's reporting on its Arabic channel tends to be more emotive and sensationalist, whereas the English service plays it straighter. The journalists and others who work there are quick to point out that Al Jazeera's images of foment in Egypt and Tunisia have come from the streets. "Our strength is in the field, with headquarters playing a supporting role." said Satnam Matharu, Al Jazeera's director of communications and international relations based in Doha. COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY Al Jazeera does not disclose how much funding the emir gives it, but Anstey says: "We're funded to be able to eyewitness report around the globe." Its main backer has said in the past that he would like the channel to become self-funding. So far, though, advertising revenues have been decidedly hard to come by. The UK-based analyst said that though Al Jazeera is the most popular brand in the Middle East, its business model has been hampered by a perception that anyone who advertised with it would risk damaging their business in Saudi Arabia. The boost in viewer numbers on the Egypt story has encouraged Al Jazeera to launch a renewed push to get its English service on more U.S. televisions. At the start of the Cairo protests Al Jazeera English was available in only a few cities in the United States, in part, many of those who work for the network believe, because of lingering doubts about the channel's bona fides. But the last few weeks have helped change perceptions -- triggering public calls on Facebook and elsewhere for much wider access. A spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable, the U.S.'s second-largest cable company with 12.5 million subscribers including in New York and Los Angeles, said that while it doesn't have a carriage agreement with Al Jazeera English, it remained "willing to talk with them". Cablevision, which has 3 million subscribers in the New York area, declined to comment on Al Jazeera specifically, but said it is continually evaluating the channels it carries. "We'll renew efforts to talk to the operators, put the facts on their desks and show them that there are many, many people asking for high-quality content and balanced journalism," Anstey says, pointing to plans to add one or two more bureaus in the Americas this year. Some warn that the U.S. market may not prove as enriching as it sounds. "I don't think even they know yet how much they can bank on the success in Egypt," said Joe Khalil, assistant professor of communication at Northwestern University in Qatar. "The difficulty is really in the U.S., with the scarcity of space on cable channels, which is already an impediment." Beyond America, the network will launch a bureau in South Korea in coming weeks, and plans soon to launch Al Jazeera Turk, a Turkish-language station as well as a Balkan station based in Serbia. "What underpins the future of the network is the quality of the content," Anstey says. "As we move into new markets, we take the standards and spirit of what we do across 60-plus bureaux around the world, with eyewitness reporting of events as they happen. That's an extraordinary reach." Whether or not Egypt proves a money-spinner for Al Jazeera, it has certainly earned the network a bigger share of Arab leaders' attention. "Perhaps, after garnering such plaudits for their role in Tunisia and Egypt -- and particularly after they found so many ways around attempts to censor them -- they will be accorded more fearful respect by other states," Durham University's Roberts said. "Now states might realize that they cannot simply turn off Al Jazeera." (Additional reporting by Sara Ledwith in London, Andreas Rinke in Berlin and Yinka Adegoke in New York; Editing by Simon Robinson) |
| Apple spells out Verizon, AT&T iPhone differences (Macworld) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 01:40 PM PST We already know that the CDMA (Verizon) and GSM (AT&T and international) iPhones are ever-so-slightly different physically and internally—but just how different are the two iPhones in terms of actual, real-world usage? On Wednesday, Apple published a new support document with the catchy headline iPhone: Understanding phone features. As it turns out, various rather mundane phone features work differently, depending on whether you're using a GSM iPhone or a CDMA one. GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) are two competing cellular network standards. In the U.S. both Verizon and Sprint largely use CDMA-based networks, with AT&T and T-Mobile using GSM. Internationally, GSM is far more commonplace, with CDMA used prominently in only a handful of countries. Because of the two different network protocols, some calling features are toggled differently on the two phones. On a GSM iPhone, to turn Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, and Caller ID on or off, you launch the Settings app, tap Phone, and then adjust the appropriate control. Changing those same settings on a CDMA phone, however, requires dialing special codes—*72, *70, and *67, respectively. And for disabling Call Waiting or (outgoing) Caller ID, you need to dial those unique codes every single time you place a call. Apple's new document also highlights differences between how the two phones handle conference calls. GSM iPhones can support up to five simultaneous calls, while CDMA iPhones top out at two simultaneous calls. The document also directs CDMA iPhone owners to the iPhone User Guide, which spells out more limitations in CDMA's implementation of conference calls: you can't merge calls if the second call is incoming, and you can't switch between calls if the second call was outgoing—though you can, in that case, merge the calls. And on CDMA iPhones, if you end the second call or the merged call, both calls are terminated. These conference call limitations are endemic to all Verizon CDMA phones, not just the iPhone. Another difference highlighted in Apple's knowledge base document is the way the two phones handle dialing pauses—a feature you might need if, for example, you're dialing into an automated phone system. Soft pauses work identically: you tap and hold * (asterisk) while dialing; when editing a contact's number, you tap the +*# key and then Pause. But if you want to dial a hard pause—one where the remaining digits aren't dialed until you tap Dial a second time—your only option is a CDMA iPhone, because GSM iPhones don't support hard pauses at all. To trigger the hard pause on a CDMA iPhone, you hold down # while dialing, or tap that +*# key and then choose Wait when editing a contact's number. If you like putting your callers on Hold—as opposed to merely muting your end of the call—you'll need a GSM iPhone. (You tap and hold the onscreen Mute button while on a call to trigger Hold.) CDMA networks don't support that functionality. Apple also acknowledges in the document that CDMA iPhones may have issues in certain cases when you attempt to dial phone numbers that contain alphabetic characters if they exceed the normal ten-digit limit. The only proposed solution is to manually edit the numbers as necessary. So, why all these differences? As Verizon once advertised, "It's the network." While the two network technologies achieve the same end result—i.e., making your cell phone work—they do so in vastly different ways behind the scenes. CDMA networks package up data—your voice calls and your Internet usage—very differently from GSM phones. These calling differences, much like the fact that CDMA phones don't support simultaneous data usage while on the phone, are simply related to differences in the core technical makeup of the networks themselves. Whether these calling differences should influence your decision about whether to go with AT&T or Verizon for your next iPhone is, in the end, a personal decision. Obviously, if you're already accustomed to the limitations of one network, you needn't fear using the iPhone on it; the differences Apple describes in the new document are really true for all Verizon and AT&T phones, not just the iPhone. If, on the other hand, you're considering a network switch, make sure you won't lose a feature you rely on, like 5-way conference calls. Presumably, neither Apple nor its customers—and probably not even Verizon—are happy with some of the limitations of CDMA networks. It's hard to say which of those three entities—Apple, Verizon, or consumers—is more eager for Verizon to complete its upgrade to the next-generation LTE standard, which should eliminate most of these frustrations. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| AP Source: Facebook founder to meet with Obama (AP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 11:34 AM PST WASHINGTON – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is among a group of technology business leaders that President Barack Obama plans to meet with Thursday in San Francisco. A person familiar with the list of attendees confirmed Wednesday that the young billionaire is expected to attend. Obama is spending part of Thursday and Friday on the West Coast. The White House says Thursday's session will focus on creating jobs. On Friday, Obama travels to Hillsboro, Ore., to visit Intel Corp. to draw attention to the role of education in preparing Americans for new high-tech jobs. The White House says the meeting is part of the president's ongoing dialogue with the business community. Zuckerberg is the 26-year-old wunderkind behind Facebook. The social networking site has more than 500 million users worldwide. |
| Machine trounces man on "Jeopardy!" quiz show (Reuters) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:28 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) – Under the category of artificial intelligence, it represents both a loss and a triumph for humans. What is "Watson"? An IBM computer handily beat two human competitors on the popular U.S. quiz show "Jeopardy!" in a three-day showdown that ended on Wednesday, highlighting at the same time the progress people have made in making machines able to think like them. The supercomputer, named after former International Business Machines Corp president Thomas Watson, is a showcase of the company's expertise in advanced science and computing. Watson showed off its encyclopedic knowledge of topics ranging from ancient languages to fashion design, along with a few glitches. "Vedic, dating back at least 4000 years, is the earliest dialect of this classical language of India," was one of the clues given by host Alex Trebek. "What is Sanskrit?" Watson answered in the show's question-as-an-answer style, before going on to solve clues ranging from agricultural policy in the European Union to the designer Marc Jacobs. The latest challenge shows that IBM -- which turns 100 years old this year -- wants to stay at the forefront of technology, even as companies such as Google Inc and Apple Inc have become the industry's darlings. What makes Watson particularly advanced, even compared to Deep Blue, IBM's chess-playing supercomputer that beat world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, is its ability to find answers from ambiguous clues, such as this one: "It's a poor workman who blames these." "What are tools?" answered Watson. Watson wasn't perfect, however, and made some baffling errors such as coming up with "Dorothy Parker" instead of "The Elements of Style" and repeating other contestants' mistakes. In the end, however, Watson won with $77,147 while Ken Jennings, who won 74 games in a row during the show's 2004-2005 season, came in second with $24,000. Brad Rutter, who has in previous appearances won a total of $3.3 million, followed with $21,600. "I for one welcome our new computer overlords," Jennings wrote next to his last answer, displaying one human quality conspicuously absent in Watson -- a sense of humor. IBM plans to donate all of Watson's winnings to charity. The Armonk, New York-based company spends around $6 billion a year on research and development. An unspecified part of that goes to what it calls "grand challenges," or big, multiyear science projects such as Watson and Deep Blue. IBM has said it plans to use Watson's linguistic and analytical abilities to develop new products in areas such as medical diagnosis. (Editing by Eric Walsh) |
| Avoid Smartphone and Wi-Fi 'Gotchas' with Skype Hotspots (PC World) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 03:00 PM PST Voice and Internet communications while traveling are fraught with "gotchas" as road warriors try to wade through the minefield of price structures from cell phone carriers and Wi-Fi hotspot providers. Roaming charges can be ridiculously expensive, especially when traveling overseas, and prices for Wi-Fi access at hotels, airports, and other public locations around the world are often very high. The rates I've ended up paying have ranged from just expensive (after spending over $20 for Wi-Fi access at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris) to the absurd (when Vodaphone charged me hundreds of dollars to use my Blackberry in Ireland to check e-mail and browse the Internet intermittingly for a week). To make matters worse, the poor customer service that you get when you call a mobile provider for detailed information about roaming charges for voice and data communications is far from clear, whether it's Verizon in the United States or Vodaphone in Europe. A good practice is to shut off your smartphone when traveling overseas and rely on your PC for all communications, including voice connections. You can do this with Skype (in France at least, you have to use your PC for Skype because mobile phone carriers lock phones against Skype). After offering affordable voice communications for International calls and free voice, chat, and video connections over the Internet between PCs for years without too many hiccups, Skype has formed an agreement with Wi-Fi providers so you can pay with Skype credits for Internet access while on the road. The announcement might not mean much if Skype charged gouge rates for Wi-Fi connections at public hotspots, but it looks like Skype is attempting to offer an affordable alternative. Skype says prices will start at 6 cents per minute, which is very reasonable, especially in Asia and Europe. Skype has offered the service in beta form through Boingo since 2009, but now you should also be able to benefit from the more reasonable Wi-Fi connection prices abroad, where connectivity can command some hefty fees (especially taking the deflated dollar into account). Another promising proposition is that you will be able to pay for Skype's service by the minute. This will serve as a welcome alternative to the often ridiculously high prices that Wi-Fi access commands at places like airports and hotels, where you often have to buy increments of 30 minutes or an hour. Have a wait of 45 minutes at the Paris airport? Then you have to pay for 60 minutes worth of Wi-Fi to stay connected the entire time. If you pay for 30 minutes, the service shuts off with little warning when your time is up. Aggravating is a polite way to describe the experience. Skype says it will offer its pay-as-you-go service through Wi-Fi providers around the world. The providers include BT Openzone, Fon, M3 Connect, Row 44, Skyrove, Spectrum Interactive, Tomizone, and Vex. All told, Skype says users can access the Internet by buying Skype credits at 500,000 hotspots around the world, including 500 airports, 30,000 hotels, and "numerous cafes, trains, planes, offices buildings, and convention centers." While Skype did not list the places in which its Wi-Fi service will be available, it mentioned the United Kingdom and Germany in Europe, as well as South Africa and South America--in addition to the United States, where Skype says it will bring its service out of beta testing. It's unclear how ubiquitous the Skype service will become, but I look forward to using it is as an affordable alternative to smartphone roaming and Wi-Fi access charges when traveling abroad. Bruce covers tech trends in the United States and Europe and tweets at @brucegain. |
| Google may be able to capitalize on Apple’s subscription fallout (Appolicious) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 11:43 AM PST |
| Video making second mobile revolution (AFP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 08:26 PM PST BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) – Smartphones and tablets are driving a mobile revolution, allowing video to take the lead in a business once dominated by voice calls, industry players and experts say. Video already does or will soon account for the majority of mobile data traffic, according to companies that monitor traffic, and with the proliferation of tablet computers that is likely to increase. "If you want to put 2011 into a nutshell you can say that for the mobile phone companies their business is changing from an ears business -- people speaking and hearing -- into an eyes business with people looking at little screens," said Stefan Zehle, CEO of Coleago Consulting. Cisco chief John Chambers told the mobile industry's annual trade fair in Barcelona this week that the visual medium would soon become ubiquitous in mobile communication. "It won't be fifty to sixty percent of traffic on networks in five years out that will be visual. It will be eighty to ninety percent. Everything you do will have visual capability." Currently most of the visual traffic is video streaming, with video-sharing site YouTube the single top application accounting for 17 percent of total mobile data traffic, according to network firm Allot Communications. However 2011 could be the year that video telephony finally takes off, nearly a half century after it was first invented. Skype, which pioneered voice calls over the Internet, brought video calls to PCs in 2006 and says 42 percent of its calls are now video. And now video calling is now moving to mobile handsets. Skype launched last month video calling for the iPhone, and Apple has its own application, which is so far limited only to WiFi connections. Another firm, ooVoo, now supports iPhones and smartphones running the Google-backed Android operating system for its free high-definition-capable video calling service. ooVoo has gone from nine million users in January 2010 to 21 million last month. "I really see 2010 as having been the tipping point for video calling," the company's chief executive, Philippe Schwartz, told AFP. Stuck only to PCs, video calling would remain a niche service but "mobile is the enabler to make it mass market," he said. US-based Syniverse Technologies announced this week at the Mobile World Congress a deal to provide a video calling service for Korea Telecom, the country's top fixed-line and second-largest mobile operator. The service is highly interoperable as it does not require receiving handsets to have pre-installed software. Another company, Aylus, announced a similar video calling service for operators which allows users to start conversations as audio calls and then freely switch over to video. Both ooVoo and Aylus video calls can be made over existing 3G networks, and the video quality in demonstrations matched or exceeded PC video calls on fixed Internet conditions. Not everyone is convinced video telephony will take off, however. "I think the value for the end user to actually watch each other while talking is limited," said Magnus Rehle, managing director of Greenwich Consulting. The consulting firm Deloitte said in a recent report it "believes that in 2011 video calling wil be cheaper, better and more widely available than ever; yet a boom in demand is unlikely." It said for most calls audio is sufficient for users, and that many remain uncomfortable with video calling as it makes them self-conscious. However a Skype representative said people don't want to be bound to their PCs and that mobile video calls "give users the opportunity to share personal moments wherever they are and whenever they want." Smartphone handset makers, as well as tablet manufacturers, would not be equipping them all with front-facing cameras if they thought video calling would remain a niche service, he said. Skype's success with PC-based video calling showed "that if there is an easy and intuitive application to use to see the other party then there is a big number of people" willing to use it, said Aylus chief executive Mark Edwards. Syniverse's Tony Holcombe said consumers have been ready for mobile video calling for some time, "but the key to unlocking widespread uptake is full-scale interoperability" so all camera-equipped phones can be called. With many smartphones now equipped with high definition cameras, they are likely to become increasingly used as camcorders. A company called muvee expects to start shipping this year on Android phones the first application for users to edit their videos directly on their smartphones. "Whenever you film you always get a bunch of rubbish that you want to trim and cut out," said muvee founder and chief Terence Swee. "You don't want to go through the hassle of transferring video to a computer to edit, you want to do it on your phone directly and with muvee you can." |
| Father of Utah music group charged with abuse (AP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 04:02 PM PST SALT LAKE CITY – The patriarch of a prominent family musical group has been charged with sexually abusing his three daughters in a stunning revelation that was followed four days later by the father careening his Porsche off a 300-foot enbankment into an icy stream. Keith Brown, whose daughters are part of The 5 Browns, survived the crash and faces one first-degree felony count of sodomy on a child and two second-degree felony counts of sexual abuse of a child, according to Fourth District Court records obtained Wednesday. The 5 Browns are a classical piano group from Utah that features the three sisters and their two brothers. The Juilliard-trained siblings have achieved critical and popular acclaim while appearing on "Oprah," "The View" and other shows, and being profiled by "60 Minutes." Their CDs have topped the Billboard classical music charts and their concerts often sellout in all 50 states and in Japan, Germany, France, Korea, Mexico and England. The records filed Feb. 10 in the abuse case don't identify any victim by name or indicate the relationship between Keith Brown and the alleged victims. However, Kimball Thomson, a spokesman for The 5 Browns, said the charges involve Brown's daughters and group members Desirae, 32, Deondra, 30, and Melody, 26. He declined to release further information on the women. "We can confirm that Keith Brown has been charged with sexual abuse involving his daughters," Thomson said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. The AP does not generally identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but the Brown women have chosen to be identified and are cooperating with police, Thomson said. Attorney Steven Shapiro, who represents 55-year-old Keith Brown, said he would not comment on the charges until Brown makes an initial court appearance set for Thursday in Provo. Court documents state the allegations stem from separate occasions between November 1990 and October 1992, November 1990 and November 1992 and March 1997 and March 1998 in Utah County. There are no statutes of limitation in Utah that prevent prosecutors from filing such sex crime charges. Thomson said the Brown children severed their professional relationship with Keith Brown in October of 2008. He was once the manager of The 5 Browns but now has no connection, Thomson said. Keith Brown and Lisa Brown, 54, the mother of the group members, were hospitalized after the Valentine's Day crash that mangled the Porsche beyond recognition in Little Cottonwood Canyon on the east side of the Salt Lake valley. The couple had dined at Snowbird ski resort prior to the accident, said Unified Fire Authority Battalion Chief Mike Ulibarri. The Browns were initially knocked unconscious, but Keith Brown woke and was able to call 911 from a cell phone. The cause of the crash remained under investigation, although Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal said speed appeared to be a factor. Investigators found tire marks from braking near the spot where the Porsche left the road. "That's part of the evidence that leads us to believe it was a traffic accident and that speed left him unable to negotiate the turn in the canyon," Hoyal said. Investigators have sought a blood sample from Keith Brown to check for drug or alcohol use as another possible factor in the crash. No updates were available on the medical conditions of Keith and Lisa Brown. Shapiro would not confirm reports that Keith Brown had been released from the hospital. The Lone Peak Police Department, which investigated the sex abuse allegations, referred all questions about the case to the Utah County attorney's office. A telephone message left for Deputy County Attorney David Sturgill was not immediately returned. If convicted, Keith Brown could face a sentence of up to life in prison on the first-degree felony and up to 15 years each on the second-degree felonies. The children had visited their parents at hospitals and were hopeful for speedy recoveries, Thomson said. Their performance schedule would not be affected by the developments, he said. |
| Remains of the Day: How many wrongs make a right? (Macworld) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 04:30 PM PST Logically speaking, if two wrongs don't make a right, then it must take at least three. Fortunately, we've got at least that many: a supposed revolt of Nokia shareholders? Bzzt. Apple and a game company having a tiff? Nope. And don't even get me started on a Dell marketing stunt—who ever thought that would go right? If being wrong is right, then the remainders for Wednesday, February 16, 2011 don't want to be, uh, right. Nokia Plan B was just a hoax all along (Engadget) You may have heard something in the last couple days about "Nokia Plan B," a supposed proposal by some shareholders of the Finland-based cell phone maker that aimed to wrest control from CEO Stephen Elop in the wake of the company's deal with Microsoft. As it turns out, the story, which even made it to the Wall Street Journal , was a complete and utter hoax—the nine investors were actually "one very bored engineer who really likes his iPhone." Hey, has anybody seen that industrial-strength can of Doh!? Capcom Says Apple Never Scolded Them Over Smurfberry Cash (MacLife) Capcom's Smurfs' Village came under fire earlier this month for its undocumented feature of "letting children squander their parents' money on worthless virtual goods." But after whispers that Capcom and Apple were sparring over the app, the game company went on record stating that those reports were patently false and that, in fact, Apple had just agreed to purchase an oil tanker's worth of smurfberries for $2 million. Accelerating the Windows Phone Ecosystem (Windows Phone Blog) Speaking of undocumented features, Microsoft's Brian Seitz took time out to respond to a comment on the company's Windows Phone blog about why Windows Phone 7 resets its camera software to the default settings on launch: it's a feature, not a bug! But don't worry, Microsoft's looking into it: "feedback from folks like you has the team seriously looking at that option to see if there is a more optimal option." I'm thinking maybe Seitz was hoping that reading that sentence would cause your head to explode, which I guess is one way to solve the problem. AT&T CEO: Apps should run on many devices (USA Today) He's back! After Tuesday's comments that the Verizon iPhone would help AT&T, CEO Randall Stephenson has returned to explain that phone users should be able to buy an app once and use it on any platform. I'll give you one guess as to who should get to sell those apps. The name of Stephenson's plan, if you're curious, is "Hey, That Whole 30 Percent Gig Sounds Pretty Good, Actually." Two arrested in Dell marketing stunt (KXAN) How do you know your marketing stunt is a success? When the cops show up and arrest people. That's what happened at Dell's Round Rock, Texas campus when a black-clad biker with a skull mask paraded around the building carrying metallic objects and telling people to "go to the lobby." Turns out it was an attempt to show off the company's Streak tablet, which can apparently interface with Harley-Davidson motorcycles. So, I guess we've proved that not even the threat of mortal peril can get anyone interested in Dell's tablet. |
| PowerPoint Alternatives: Presentation-Tool Showdown (PC World) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 06:35 PM PST Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business--or even free. We've zeroed in on five of the most compelling online alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint, and held them up together to compare features and examine compatibility. If you're in the market for a new presentation maker, you'd be wise to keep your wallet in your pocket until you've read what we found. Google Docs Presentations Since Google Docs is arguably the most commonly used name in cloud-based office software, let's start there. Users of the free service can import existing presentations or create new ones from scratch and then access, edit, and share them from anywhere using just a Web browser. Google Docs is well known for its excellent sharing and collaboration capabilities, which include simultaneous editing by up to 10 people and sharing with as many as 200 people. You can publish presentations to a unique URL or embed them in a Website (including in LinkedIn profiles). Although you can't edit the presentations on a smartphone, you can view them on a mobile OS that supports HTML. Export capabilities include PowerPoint, PDF, and text formats, though not all characteristics will be preserved. Presentations you create in Google Docs can be up to 10MB, or about 200 slides in size. For businesses, Google Presentations is part of the paid Google Apps service, which includes Gmail, Google Calendar, and more. Hands-on: Google Presentations has a fairly basic, spartan interface, and you must first select and convert presentations imported from elsewhere. When we imported a PowerPoint presentation, transitions weren't preserved but everything else seemed to make the move intact. A fairly limited selection of themes and backgrounds is available for presentations, but the Google Docs Templates Gallery makes up for that somewhat with a variety of user-created options. One nice touch is that when you indicate that you'd like to insert a video, Google Docs automatically presents a list of options from YouTube featuring keywords similar to those on the slide you're working on. You can then preview those options by clicking on them. Most options on Google Docs feel pretty basic but solid. Google Docs offers no support for transitions, which is too bad, though it does have an option for incrementally revealing text and objects. Audio files are not accepted. We also aren't crazy about the fact that even in full-screen mode, presentations don't actually play full-screen; a toolbar remains at the bottom. Price: Free, or $50 per user per year as part of Google Apps for businesses Languages: Many License: Proprietary Import/export: Import from PowerPoint, export to PDF and PowerPoint Unique features:
Next page: A presentation tool that doesn't use slides Prezi takes a radically different approach. Rather than structuring presentations as a linear sequence of slides, it treats them as a unified whole that you can zoom in and out of at will. To begin, you place ideas, images, and videos on a blank "canvas" in a way that naturally tells your story. Next, you connect these elements by creating a deliberate, linear path that designates the order in which the elements will appear during your presentation. You can zoom in the focus of the presentation to explain a detail, or zoom it out to emphasize the big picture. Due to the completely different paradigm it uses, however, Prezi can't import or export files from other presentation packages. A free version permits online-only presentation creation. That edition comes with 100MB of storage but adds a small Prezi watermark to the resulting presentations, which are included on the site's public exploration area. A version with 2000MB of storage and additional privacy, branding, and offline capabilities costs $159 per year. Prezi Desktop software is available for PC, Mac, and Linux users with paid accounts, offering a way to create and save zooming presentations offline. With Prezi Meeting, meanwhile, as many as ten people can access and edit presentations. A Prezi app for the iPad is also available. Hands-on: For anyone accustomed to traditional presentation software, working with Prezi takes some mental reprogramming. We had a lot of fun playing around with the service, but we soon realized that it was going to be very difficult to compare with our other contenders. Much as the vast emptiness of a blank word processing screen can paralyze writers, the initial emptiness of the Prezi canvas felt intimidating at first. The absence of the enforced linear sequence also meant that we had to think a little more purposefully about what kinds of elements should be included, and where. In many ways, Prezi feels more like mind-mapping software than a presentation tool. adding polls to presentations, you can track who viewed them and where, how much time a person spent on each slide, and what follow-up actions they took, such as click-throughs, form submissions, or forwarding to other users. Viewers can leave virtual comments, too. In the mobile realm, SlideRocket allows iPhone and Android users to attend remote meetings, play presentations, and view embedded presentations. Videos, audio, transitions, and builds work with HTML5-compliant Web browsers. Hands-on: SlideRocket has a beautiful interface for getting a new user up and running quickly. Importing presentations from PowerPoint was no trouble, though existing slide transitions were not preserved. SlideRocket is an extremely powerful service, and everything felt intuitive while we worked on a presentation. We encountered a few very small lags--as seems to be typical with online software--but the option to incorporate dynamic content from sites such as Twitter is great, as is the built-in ability to look for images and videos quickly and easily on Flickr and YouTube. Both features feel like a natural reflection of the way Web-enabled users work today. Microsoft Office alternatives, it's definitely less feature-rich than PowerPoint in the presentation realm, and it also doesn't quite match up with SlideRocket. Still, it feels like a much better tool than Google Docs, and it's a solid choice for most presentation purposes. Price: Free for individuals; business pricing ranges from free for up to 1GB of storage and one workspace to $5 per user per month for 20 workspaces Languages: Many License: Proprietary Import/export: Import from PowerPoint, OpenOffice.org, and Google Docs; export to PowerPoint, OpenOffice.org, HTML, and PDF Unique features:
Next page: A free, fledgling service. Plus, which presentation tool should you choose? 280 Slides is rudimentary and rough around the edges. Features felt extremely basic--even more so than Google Docs in many ways, despite a more attractive interface. Price: Free Languages: English License: Proprietary Import/export: Import .pptx only from PowerPoint; export to PowerPoint 2007 in .pptx format only Unique features:
Which Presentation Maker Should You Choose? All five of these Microsoft PowerPoint alternatives have pros and cons, but SlideRocket clearly steals the show. Zoho is a close second, but SlideRocket really seems to have every single detail covered. Its interface, compatibility, features, and collaboration tools are particularly stellar. While Prezi is an extremely interesting contender, it didn't grab the top spot for this review mostly because it's still so different as to require a whole new way of thinking--and to make imports and exports impossible. However, that doesn't mean it won't gain ground in the future. Google Docs remains a good, solid offering--particularly given its price--though it's certainly not as feature-rich as SlideRocket and Zoho. Finally, 280 Slides feels like an incomplete effort--which, in all fairness, it may well be, given that it's still in beta testing. Which of these offerings is best for your work? That depends on many factors, including how heavy a user you are, the kinds of features you need, and how much collaboration you do. Most companies would be happy with Zoho, as it's part of a larger productivity suite. The higher-end SlideRocket is sure to please even the most demanding heavy user. If you're in the market for a new presentation package, you'd do well to check out both. |
| After 'Jeopardy!' win, IBM program steps out (AP) Posted: 16 Feb 2011 09:16 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO – Fresh off its shellacking of two human champions of the "Jeopardy!" television show, a computer program developed by IBM Corp. will soon get a workout in two hospitals that have signed up to test the technology. The agreements with the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine will be the program's first real-world tests outside of the trivia game show and IBM's laboratories. Watson, as IBM has dubbed the program, represents a breakthrough in the ability of computers to understand human language and scour massive databases to supply the most likely answer to questions. It's not always right; some of its errors in its "Jeopardy!" debut this week were amusingly off-base. But it holds promise for doctors and hedge fund managers and other industries that need to sift through large amounts of data to answer questions. Eliot Siegel, a professor at the Maryland university's medical school, said other artificial intelligence programs for hospitals have been slower and more limited in their responses than Watson promises to be. They have also been largely limited by a physician's knowledge of a particular symptom or disease. "In a busy medical practice, if you want help from the computer, you really don't have time to manually input all that information," he said. Siegel says Watson could prove valuable one day in helping diagnose patients by scouring journals and other medical literature that physicians often don't have time to keep up with. Yet the skills Watson showed in easily winning the three-day televised "Jeopardy!" tournament Wednesday also suggests shortcomings that have long perplexed artificial intelligence researchers and which IBM's researchers will have to fix before the software can be used on patients. "What you want is a system that understands you're not playing a quiz game in medicine and there's not one answer you're looking for," Siegel said. "In playing 'Jeopardy!', there is one correct answer. The challenge we have in medicine is we have multiple diagnoses and the information is sometimes true and sometimes not true and sometimes conflicting. The Watson team is going to need to make the transition to an environment in which it comes up with multiple hypotheses — it will be a really interesting challenge for the team to be able to do that." Siegel said it would likely be at least two years before Watson will be used on patients at his hospital. It will take that much time to train the program to understand electronic medical records, feed it information from medical literature, and test whether what it's learned leads to accurate analyses of patient symptoms. He said he wasn't bothered by Watson's on-screen blunders; even highly trained medical professionals make dumb mistakes. "I will take an assistant that is that fast and that powerful and that tireless any time," he said. "This is going to be something that 10 years from now will be a completely accepted way that we wind up practicing." Watson could be a boon for IBM, the world's biggest computer services company, if it works as promised in the real world. IBM makes a mint on "analytics" software that helps companies mine their data and predict future trends, such as shopping patterns at a retailer, for instance. Watson currently runs on 10 racks of IBM servers, but computing power generally doubles every two years so the amount of hardware needed to run the same program will soon be significantly less. And the program can be tweaked to run slower, or scan less information, to make the program easier to deploy in a business setting. IBM hasn't disclosed prices for the commercial sale of Watson, nor details of the financial arrangements with the hospitals. |
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