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Many US schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks (AP) : Technet |
- Many US schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks (AP)
- Digital Doppelgangers [OPEN THREAD] (Mashable)
- Sony Tablet S and Tablet P photo gallery (Digital Trends)
- Android App Tablet Review: USA TODAY (Appolicious)
- AP IMPACT: 35,000 worldwide convicted for terror (AP)
- Internet Explorer usage to plummet below 50 percent by mid-2012 (Digital Trends)
- Suzanne Somers takes a step that is new on the iPhone (Appolicious)
- Google+ launches suggested users list similar to Twitter (Digital Trends)
- Opinion: Ultrathin laptop wars: Sony Vaio Z and Lenovo Ultrabooks vs. Apple MacBooks (Digital Trends)
| Many US schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks (AP) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 01:25 PM PDT HARTFORD, Conn. – For incoming freshmen at western Connecticut's suburban Brookfield High School, hefting a backpack weighed down with textbooks is about to give way to tapping out notes and flipping electronic pages on a glossy iPad tablet computer. A few hours away, every student at Burlington High School near Boston will also start the year with new school-issued iPads, each loaded with electronic textbooks and other online resources in place of traditional bulky texts. While iPads have rocketed to popularity on many college campuses since Apple Inc. introduced the device in spring 2010, many public secondary schools this fall will move away from textbooks in favor of the lightweight tablet computers. Apple officials say they know of more than 600 districts that have launched what are called "one-to-one" programs, in which at least one classroom of students is getting iPads for each student to use throughout the school day. Nearly two-thirds of them have begun since July, according to Apple. New programs are being announced on a regular basis, too. As recently as Wednesday, Kentucky's education commissioner and the superintendent of schools in Woodford County, Ky., said that Woodford County High will become the state's first public high school to give each of its 1,250 students an iPad. At Burlington High in suburban Boston, principal Patrick Larkin calls the $500 iPads a better long-term investment than textbooks, though he said the school will still use traditional texts in some courses if suitable electronic programs aren't yet available. "I don't want to generalize because I don't want to insult people who are working hard to make those resources," Larkin said of textbooks, "but they're pretty much outdated the minute they're printed and certainly by the time they're delivered. The bottom line is that the iPads will give our kids a chance to use much more relevant materials." The trend has not been limited to wealthy suburban districts. New York City, Chicago and many other urban districts also are buying large numbers of iPads. The iPads generally cost districts between $500 and $600, depending on what accessories and service plans are purchased. By comparison, Brookfield High in Connecticut estimates it spends at least that much yearly on every student's textbooks, not including graphing calculators, dictionaries and other accessories they can get on the iPads. Educators say the sleek, flat tablet computers offer a variety of benefits. They include interactive programs to demonstrate problem-solving in math, scratchpad features for note-taking and bookmarking, the ability to immediately send quizzes and homework to teachers, and the chance to view videos or tutorials on everything from important historical events to learning foreign languages. They're especially popular in special education services, for children with autism spectrum disorders and learning disabilities, and for those who learn best when something is explained with visual images, not just through talking. Some advocates also say the interactive nature of learning on an iPad comes naturally to many of today's students, who've grown up with electronic devices as part of their everyday world. But for all of the excitement surrounding the growth of iPads in public secondary schools, some experts watching the trend warn that the districts need to ensure they can support the wireless infrastructure, repairs and other costs that accompany a switch to such a tech-heavy approach. And even with the most modern device in hand, students still need the basics of a solid curriculum and skilled teachers. "There's a saying that the music is not in the piano and, in the same way, the learning is not in the device," said Mark Warschauer, an education and informatics professor at the University of California-Irvine whose specialties include research on the intersection of technology and education. "I don't want to oversell these things or present the idea that these devices are miraculous, but they have some benefits and that's why so many people outside of schools are using them so much," he said. One such iPad devotee is 15-year-old Christian Woods, who starts his sophomore year at Burlington, Mass., High School on a special student support team to help about 1,000 other teens adjust to their new tablets. "I think people will like it. I really don't know anybody in high school that wouldn't want to get an iPad," he said. "We're always using technology at home, then when you're at school it's textbooks, so it's a good way to put all of that together." Districts are varied in their policies on how they police students' use. Many have filtering programs to keep students off websites that have not been pre-approved, and some require the students to turn in the iPads during vacation breaks and at the end of the school year. Others hold the reins a little more loosely. "If we truly consider this a learning device, we don't want to take it away and say, `Leaning stops in the summertime.' " said Larkin, the Burlington principal. And the nation's domestic textbook publishing industry, accounting for $5.5 billion in yearly sales to secondary schools, is taking notice of the trend with its own shift in a competitive race toward developing curriculum specifically for iPads. At Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for instance, programmers scrambled to create an iPad-specific secondary school program starting almost as soon as Apple unveiled the tablet in spring 2010. The publisher's HMH Fuse algebra program, which became available at the start of the 2010 school year, was among the first and is a top seller to districts. Another algebra program and a geometry offering are coming out now. The HMH Fuse online app is free and gives users an idea of how it works, and the content can be downloaded for $60. By comparison, the publisher's 950-page algebra text on which it was based is almost $73 per copy, and doesn't include the graphing calculators, interactive videos and other features. For a school that would buy 300 of the textbooks for its freshman class, for instance, the savings from using the online version would be almost $4,000. Jay Diskey, executive director of the Association of American Publishers' schools division, said all of the major textbook publishers are moving toward electronic offerings, but at least in the short term, traditional bound textbooks are here to stay. "I think one of the real key questions that will be answered over the next several years is what sort of things work best in print for students and what sort of things work best digitally," Diskey said. "I think we're on the cusp of a whole new area of research and comprehension about what digital learning means." |
| Digital Doppelgangers [OPEN THREAD] (Mashable) Posted: 02 Sep 2011 03:31 PM PDT "This username is already in use. Please try again." People have taken our vanity URLs, our names and our SEO. We've gotten into wars over Twitter handles, over names on Google+ and gotten to new social networks just a moment too late. At Mashable, we like to refer to these people as "Digital Doppelgangers." Here are some of our stories.
Christina Warren Christina Warren has more than 22,500 followers on Twitter but still can't properly search for herself by name on the site. Why? Our resident @film_girl became an almost real-life movie star when a second Christina Warren became prominent on the web: the lead character of the movie Source Code. Now, whenever she searches for herself, she tends to get movie references.
Charlie White Charlie White doesn't own CharlieWhite.com. A photographer does -- or at least he did. There's also an ice dancer -- and Olympic silver medalist -- by the name of Charlie White, as well as a politician in Indiana and a legendary fishing guru who had a fishing show on television before his death last year. All this name overcrowding means a severe SEO issue.
Meghan Peters This isn't only a story about Meghan, but one about her sister Meredith as well. There are not only one but two Meredith Peters who live in Brooklyn who have sisters named Meghan. Meredith, a nurse, was actually contacted by her doppelganger on Facebook. She was just saying hello!
Adam Ostrow & Robyn Peterson. These photos say it all:
Poor Other Robyn and Other Adam. Sidenote: Other Adam got it wrong. Adam Ostrow is Mashable's editor in chief, not founder. That's Pete Cashmore's title.
Do you have a Digital Doppelganger? Have you ever contacted someone with your name? Do you specially code your website somehow to have better SEO then theirs does? Have you tried to buy a handle or URL off of someone who wouldn't give? We've tried all of these things -- but we want to hear your story, too. Tell us in the comments below! This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Sony Tablet S and Tablet P photo gallery (Digital Trends) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 02:44 PM PDT Take a look at some pictures of Sony's new Tablet S and Tablet P. Sony's latest devices both utilize the Android engine and feature distinctive designs. The Tablet S carries a wedge shape design and a 9.4-inch display, while the Tablet P features twin 5.5-inch displays that fold together. The feature rich tablets both utilize a 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, with the Tablet S sporting both WiFi and Bluetooth. Additionally, the Tablet P also features Wi Fi and Bluetooth, but will also be available with a 4G option from AT&T. Pre-orders for the Tablet S have opened now, with a 16 GB version coming in at $499 and a 32 GB version costing $599. Pricing will be aggressive as Sony aims to take on Apple's popular iPad 2 when it lands on shelves next month. Sony has yet to release a price or release date for the Tablet P. |
| Android App Tablet Review: USA TODAY (Appolicious) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 03:00 PM PDT |
| AP IMPACT: 35,000 worldwide convicted for terror (AP) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 09:01 PM PDT At least 35,000 people worldwide have been convicted as terrorists in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. But while some bombed hotels or blew up buses, others were put behind bars for waving a political sign or blogging about a protest. In the first tally ever done of global anti-terror arrests and convictions, The Associated Press documented a surge in prosecutions under new or toughened anti-terror laws, often passed at the urging and with the funding of the West. Before 9/11, just a few hundred people were convicted of terrorism each year. The sheer volume of convictions, along with almost 120,000 arrests, shows how a keen global awareness of terrorism has seeped into societies, and how the war against it is shifting to the courts. But it also suggests that dozens of countries are using the fight against terrorism to curb political dissent. ___ EDITOR'S NOTE: After the 9/11 attacks, the world launched a war on terror. Here, in the first tally of anti-terror prosecutions ever done, The Associated Press examines how many people have been put behind bars under anti-terror laws, and who they are. AP reporters in more than 100 countries filed requests under freedom of information laws, conducted interviews and gathered data for this story. ___ The AP used freedom of information queries, law enforcement data and hundreds of interviews to identify 119,044 anti-terror arrests and 35,117 convictions in 66 countries, accounting for 70 percent of the world's population. The actual numbers undoubtedly run higher because some countries refused to provide information. That included 2,934 arrests and 2,568 convictions in the United States, which led the war on terror — eight times more than in the decade before. The investigation also showed: • More than half the convictions came from two countries accused of using anti-terror laws to crack down on dissent, Turkey and China. Turkey alone accounted for a third of all convictions, with 12,897. • The range of people in jail reflects the dozens of ways different countries define a terrorist. China has arrested more than 7,000 people under a definition that counts terrorism as one of Three Evils, along with separatism and extremism. • The effectiveness of anti-terror prosecutions varies widely. Pakistan registered the steepest increase in terror arrests in recent years, yet terror attacks are still on the rise. But in Spain, the armed Basque separatist group ETA has not planted a fatal bomb in two years. • Anti-terror laws can backfire. Authoritarian governments in the Middle East used anti-terror laws broadly, only to face a backlash in the Arab Spring. "There's been a recognition all around the world that terrorism really does pose a greater threat to society," said John Bellinger, former legal adviser to the U.S. State Department. "Also, more authoritarian countries are using the real threat of terrorism as an excuse and a cover to crack down in ways that are abusive of human rights." Since 9/11, almost every country in the world has passed or revised anti-terror laws, from tiny Tonga to giant China. Turkey, long at odds with its Kurdish minority, tops all other countries AP could tally for anti-terror convictions and their steep rise. The Kurdistan Workers' Party is responsible for much of the violence in the country of 75 million. Naciye Tokova, a Kurdish mother of two, held up a sign at a protest last year that said, "Either a free leadership and free identity, or resistance and revenge until the end." She couldn't read the sign, because she cannot read. She was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison under anti-terror laws. "Of course, I'm not a terrorist," said Tokova, who is free on appeal. She was defiant, replying curtly to questions after long pauses. Turkey passed new and stricter anti-terror laws in 2006. Convictions shot up from 273 in 2005 to 6,345 in 2009, the latest year available, according to data AP got through Turkey's right to information law. Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says the country is fair to its Kurds. "We have never compromised on the balance between security and freedom," Erdogan said. Turkey clearly reflects the saying that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. What makes a terrorist depends on where you are and whom you ask. In the U.S., the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Department and the State Department don't agree on what terrorism is. "If anything should have revealed to the world the essence of unacceptable terrorism, it was 9/11. Unfortunately, a decade later, we seem no closer to reaching agreement," said law professor Kent Roach at the University of Toronto. China considers terrorism part of a vague charge of "endangering state security," and calls strong laws necessary to ensure safety. The people arrested under the laws come mostly from Xinjiang, known as East Turkistan to ethnic Uighurs fighting for an independent homeland. Two years ago, Uighur entrepreneur Dilshat Perhat warned visitors to his popular Uighur-language website not to post political comments. Even so, someone posted a call for a demonstration in the middle of the night. Perhat deleted the comments the next day and informed the police, as required. But he was arrested anyway, convicted in a one-day trial and sentenced to five years in prison. "They wanted to use him as an example, to threaten and show their power to the Uighur people," said Perhat's brother Dilmurat, a graduate student in the U.S. "Inside China, any peaceful protest by the Uighurs is labeled as an act of terrorism by the Chinese government." The increase in anti-terror prosecutions worldwide reflects how much they have become a weapon, however blunt, against terrorism, but their record is spotty. Pakistan had the steepest rise in terror arrests of any country the AP examined, with the help of billions of dollars from the U.S. Pakistan amended its terror laws in 2004. Arrests went up from 1,552 in 2006 to 12,886 in 2009, partly because of four military operations that year. Yet terrorism in Pakistan is still on the rise, and only Iraq beats Pakistan for deaths from terror. One reason may be a conviction rate of only 10 percent in terrorism cases, compared to 90 percent in the U.S. Like Pakistan, Spain is no stranger to terrorism, but has had some success fighting it. Spain has about 140 convictions a year, according to data from AP's freedom of information request. ETA, the Basque separatist group, once was responsible for killings every month. Today it is severely weakened. "The terrorist attacks 10 years ago on the World Trade Center and the Madrid bombings helped forge a strong feeling of rejection toward ETA," said Spanish journalist Gorka Landaburu, who is Basque and himself a victim of an ETA mail bomb in May 2001 that blew off his thumb and fingertips. "Society lost a bit of its fear." Under tough new anti-terror laws passed after 9/11, convicted terrorists in Spain face a maximum of 40 years, 10 more than for other crimes. "Every democratic country has to resort at one time or another to exceptional measures to defend itself," said Roman Cotarelo, a political science professor at Spain's Open University. For Landaburu, the terror is still there, in his pinched brow and in the two bodyguards who follow him. When he gestures with his hands, which he often does, there's a stump where his thumb once was. But he feels ETA's days are numbered. "Things are much calmer," he said. "People can breathe more easily." Anti-terror laws are still playing out in unexpected ways, particularly in the Middle East, long seen as the cauldron of terrorism. After 9/11, many Middle Eastern countries quickly adopted strict anti-terror laws. Secular Tunisia used its 2003 laws to crack down on piety and protect against Islamic militancy. It convicted 62 people under the laws in 2006, 308 in 2007 and 633 in 2009, according to the U.N. Former prisoner Saber Ragoubi joined an anti-government group in 2006 because he says he wanted religious freedom. The group was trained by an Algerian group that later declared allegiance to al-Qaida. Ragoubi says he never held or planned to hold a weapon, but he did support plans to attack the police. When the police found him, Ragoubi was tried and sentenced to life in prison. For years, he said, he was kicked and beaten, his hands and legs chained to an iron bar in what was called the "chicken on a spit" position. He said he was shackled to a metal chair and electrically shocked, and told his mother and sisters would be raped in front of him if he didn't sign a confession. "To this day, I don't know how I bore all that torture during that time," said Ragoubi. He was just fitted with two new front teeth to replace the ones kicked out of his mouth by the heavy boot of a prison guard, he said. Under former leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, as many as 2,000 Tunisians were detained, charged or convicted on terrorism-related charges. The U.N. says some were tortured. But five days after Ben Ali fled in January, the new ministers released everyone convicted under the anti-terror laws, even those who had indeed committed violent crimes. The role of anti-terror laws in — and against — the Arab Spring continues. Bahrain and Syria have charged protesters under anti-terror laws. Saudi Arabia, citing concerns about al-Qaida, is considering an anti-terror law with a minimum prison sentence of 10 years for disloyalty to the king. Ten years after 9/11, the push for a global assault on terrorism still runs strong. Mike Smith, director of the U.N.'s Counter-Terrorism Committee, calls prosecuting terrorists "incredibly important." But almost everyone, including the U.N. and the U.S., agrees that the cost is some erosion of human rights. "Originally the approach was the more the merrier, the stronger counter-terror laws, the better for the security of the world. But that was a serious mistake," said Martin Sheinin, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism. "Nowadays people are realizing the abuse and even the actual use of counterterror laws is bad for human rights and also bad for actually stopping terrorism." ___ AP staff writers who contributed to this report include: Christopher Torchia from Turkey; Christopher Bodeen from China; Paul Schemm from Tunisia; and Ciaran Giles from Spain. |
| Internet Explorer usage to plummet below 50 percent by mid-2012 (Digital Trends) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 12:14 PM PDT
According to new data posted this week from a company called Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer appears to be continuing a downward spiral. Over the last ten months, Microsoft has lost five percent of the web browser market while Google's Chrome has gained about six percent. The amount of people using Internet Explorer is expected to fall below the 50 percent mark around late May of 2012. One bright point for Microsoft is that usage of its latest version of Internet Explorer, IE9, increased by about two percent from July to August. However, IE9 is limited to usage on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows XP users are limited to Internet Explorer 8 until upgrading. Mozilla's Firefox has remained fairly stagnant over the last 10 months, but has only lost about one percent of the browser market. Mozilla recently switched to an upgrade cycle identical to Google Chrome as the inability to roll out quick updates made the browser seem stale in comparison to Chrome. Apple's Safari browser slowly gained market share over the last year to the tune of one percent and the Opera browser seems to be slowly fading away. Opera's share dropped from 2.42 percent in September 2010 to 1.68 percent in August 2011. |
| Suzanne Somers takes a step that is new on the iPhone (Appolicious) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 02:00 PM PDT |
| Google+ launches suggested users list similar to Twitter (Digital Trends) Posted: 03 Sep 2011 10:43 AM PDT
Yesterday, Google's Bradley Horowitz used Twitter to tweet out a call for Twitter users with more than 100,000 followers who also had a Google+ account. Horowitz was searching for a batch of users for a pilot program of a suggested users list, very similar to Twitter recommending specific people or brands to follow. Late Friday, Google launched its first attempt at a suggested users list on an official Get Started page. These picks are split into multiple categories such as entertainment, news, music, photography, politics, sports and technology. Google also listed a curated selection of top picks from all the categories. While it appears that Google is currently valuing celebrity status over quality, they are rumored to be working on a way to promote the value of a user that posts quality content. Google also recently added the ability to watch YouTube videos with friends on Google+ through the Hangouts feature. When logged into a Google user account, a link for Google+ Hangouts appears beneath the video on the YouTube page. The concept is similar to Microsoft's feature on Xbox Live that allows friends to jointly watch a film and chat with each other during the viewing. |
| Posted: 03 Sep 2011 05:45 AM PDT
Apple casts a bigger footprint in PCs than its approximate 5-percent market share suggests. This is because it is the most profitable of the computer companies, and the most highly valued. Even without market share, those positions are highly envied by Apple's competitors. Steve Jobs idealistically modeled Apple after Sony, and while most copies are inferior to the original, Apple is clearly more successful than Sony. The fastest growing PC company, however, isn't Sony or Apple (at least not in PCs). It is Lenovo, and the ThinkPad builder is getting on Intel's Ultrabook wagon early to better challenge post-Jobs Apple. Let's talk about the coming wave of laptops from these three companies. Be aware I'm just looking at the hardware; I have no real desire to get into the no-win religious argument of Windows vs. MacOS this week.
Apple's MacBook sets the barApple is unique in the market in that the company builds few products, and uses marketing to drive customers to them. Steve Jobs was Apple's focus group in that products were designed to meet his personal tastes, and this gave them a personal touch and connection to status that few other products outside of cosmetics (which use celebrities in marketing heavily) enjoy. But, even stronger than good celebrity endorsements, the Mac is (or was) truly built by and for Jobs. He isn't, as most celebrities are, just a paid shill. That gives the line unusual power. If you look at the design, thin is in. Apple also takes sharp control over costs, but when dollars and cents conflict with features and design, design generally wins. This allows Apple to hold onto decent volume while pretty much owning the premium position in the PC market. However, the MacBook Air product line does make tradeoffs; it is limited in both breadth and depth, like the one-size-fits-all approach most prominent in Apple's iPad and iPhone lines. Choices are limited by design to both maintain margins (reduce inventory levels), and to avoid confusing customers. You don't buy a Mac for its performance (which is adequate), its durability or its security. You buy it because it is simple and it imparts status better than any other product. This is the bar that the Sony Z and the coming Intel Ultrabooks are attempting to meet. You'll note I focused on the intangible benefits, because this is often what folks forget when they run against Apple.
The Sony ZThe Sony Z Series laptop is a typical halo product from Sony. Halo products aren't expected to sell well; they are like show cars is to an automotive vendor : A showcase of that vendor's capabilities. The problem with them tends to be price, as they drift to very expensive. Fully configured, the Sony Z Series comes in at around $2,000 while the comparable high-end MacBook Pro at 13 inches is $1,499. Typically Apple sets the high bar for laptop price at volume, and this is one of the reasons a halo product like the Sony Z will not sell in high volume. But the Sony is a better notebook (at that price it had better be, right?) Where the Mac uses aluminum the Z uses carbon fiber; where the Mac has good sound, the Sony has active noise cancellation; where the Mac has a good built-in camera, the Sony has a high-end face-tracking capability. Where the Mac has good resolution (1280 x 800) the Sony has great resolution (1600 x 900), where the Mac weighs 4.5 pounds, the Sony weighs 2.5 pounds, (even with the 16-hour extended battery it is only 3.5 pounds). The Mac does have a Thunderbolt port and an optical drive built in that the Sony lacks, and has a Mini-DisplayPort jack rather than the less-flexible but more common HDMI port the Sony sports. In drives to hit price, the Mac has a magnetic 500GB drive, while the Sony has a vastly faster but smaller capacity 128GB Flash drive. The Sony has an optical drive dock and — this is unique to Sony, — the optional battery slice can be charged by itself, providing nearly unlimited off-plug power with multiple batteries. Finally the Sony has biometric security, which is generally preferred over the more common password-only protection. In short the Sony is what you would get if you literally wanted the best of the best, and price were almost no object. But it is also,the precursor to the Ultrabooks, which are coming at more aggressive prices.
The Lenovo UltrabooksThis week, Lenovo announced its high-end Ultrabook designs. The Ultrabook is a MacBook-targeted design class put forward by Intel earlier this year with targeted prices starting round $1,000, and having some of the same features showcased by both the Mac and the Sony Z series. The high-end product starts at $1,199 and comes with an SSD drive, while the low end starts at a more affordable $849 and doesn't.These products introduce Intel's WiDi, technology which allows you to wirelessly broadcast a signal to a WiDi-equipped TV. Battery life is expected to be in line with the Macs at 6 or 7 hours. While the U300, like the Sony, leaves the drive off to get to a lighter weight, the U400 has built-in DVD-RW drive. The U400 has a dedicated (Radeon) graphics part, while the U300 uses Intel's graphic solution. Weight is under 3 pounds, or between the Sony and Apple products. In short, the Ultabooks will have some of the Mac advantages and some of the Sony advantages at a vastly lower price point, and they show up in November.
What's comingUltrabooks are likely the next big wave in notebook computers as vendors move to create ever thinner and lighter laptops. However, once Windows 8 launches, the designs are expected to get touch screens, and this means that future tablets (which start getting enough power next year to become more than just consumption devices), run into them like a freight train, and the children of this collision will start showing up this year.In the end, Apple's offerings, the Sony Z Series, and these coming Lenovo Ultrabooks showcase the direction the market is going in, and what we'll all mostly be using in the next 3 to 5 years. Thin is clearly in, and the coming Windows 8 launch will be surrounded by these ultrathin products. Guest contributor Rob Enderle is the founder and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, and one of the most frequently quoted tech pundits in the world. Opinion pieces denote the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Digital Trends. |
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