Geek With Laptop

Every American to have super fast broadband by 2020

Jac — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:10:39 +0000

It’s still a decade away but that’s the plan anyway, that every citizen in the US will have broadband of 100 megabits per second within the next ten years.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have recently presented their case to Congress and in a statement released before the presentation they stated:

“Broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life.

“It is changing how we educate children, deliver health care, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organise, and disseminate knowledge”

Around 7 million households in the US currently don’t have internet access according FCC member Robert McDowell. That is a tragedy by anyone’s standards.

We need internet access these days, it is no longer a luxury but a necessity, and if we don’t have it we cannot participate fully in society, to the detriment of society.

“Every American should have a meaningful opportunity to benefit from the broadband communications era” said the FCC.

“Ubiquitous and affordable broadband can unlock vast new opportunities for Americans, in communities large and small, with respect to consumer welfare, civic participation, public safety and homeland security, community development, health care delivery, energy independence and efficiency, education, worker training, private sector investment, entrepreneurial activity, job creation and economic growth, and other national purposes.”

Phew that’s quite a mouthful but it kind of sums it up.

There are two questions that many people will ask though, the first one is whether or not providing broadband to every single citizen is achievable, and secondly, who is going to pay for it?

“Broadband for every American is not too ambitious a plan and it is absolutely necessary” the former chairman of the FCC, Reed Hundt, told BBC News.

“The consequences of not succeeding are heartbreaking. Every nation needs a common medium to gather around and to have the internet as a common medium where a third are left out is unacceptable” said the FCC.

At the moment the cost of implementing the broadband plans are estimated at $350 billion. Some of the cash is supposedly going to come from selling off 500 megahertz of wireless spectrum and some from President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, part of which is to be put towards broadband initiatives.

It all sounds good but I can’t help but wonder if they will actually be able to do it.

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Blind soldier can “see” with his tongue

Jac — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:07:25 +0000

A young British soldier who was blinded by a grenade whilst serving in Iraq has had his life transformed by a new technology that allows him to “see” with his tongue.

24 year old Lance Corporal Lundberg was with the 2nd Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment in Basra back in 2007, when a rocket-propelled grenade struck.

Lundberg subsequently had to have one eye removed and the other was so severely damaged he is classed as profoundly blind.

Now, thanks to a gadget called “BrainPort”, he can do things he has not been able to do for the past three years by using sensors on his tongue to create mental images which help him cope with his lack of vision.

BrainPort works via a tiny video camera attached to a pair of sunglasses which convert images into electrical impulses.

These pulses are then transmitted to the tongue via a plastic “lollipop” held in the mouth. The impulses are felt on the tongue as a kind of tingling sensation but by learning to interpret the different signals, the user is able to visualise images and move around objects, even pick them up.

Basically light pixels are transmitted as strong signals and dark pixels as weak signals with varying amounts of contrast in between.

“BrainPort” was actually developed in the United States and Lundberg will be the first person in Britain to try it out after he was chosen to do so by the Ministry of Defence.

The user obviously needs quite a bit of training to be able to discern the signals and Lundberg travelled to the US along with his military eye doctor Wing Commander Rob Scott to get it.

The device which was developed by the Centre for Vision Restoration for the US Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), is still at the prototype stage and at the moment sends electrical pulses to only a few hundred sensors on the tongue but in future this figure will be upped to a few thousand sensor points allowing for clearer “images”.

On describing what it feels like to use BrainPort, Lundberg said “it feels like licking a nine volt battery or like popping candy”.

The new technology has given Lundberg greater freedom than he had before and although he says the equipment still needs some work he also says it has “huge potential”.

Amazing!

The mad rush to DVD, and the slow crawl to home 3-D

Jayson — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:09:50 +0000

Avatar is coming to DVD soon — April 22, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day — but it won’t be in the eye-popping 3-D that captivated audiences in many theaters worldwide.

Alice in Wonderland, too, is coming to living rooms by summertime, barely three months after its initial theatrical debut.

This is a worrisome trend for movie theater owners, who are afraid that the rush to DVD will undercut the exclusivity they have to offer audiences.

And with 3-D televisions finally rolling out onto the market, the gimmicks they have started to rely on to ensure steady streams of customers may not count for much for much longer.

In the case of Avatar, James Cameron’s 3-D sci-fi environmental epic, this first April 22 home release will be a very stripped-down experience. There’s no 3-D, for one thing — the technology just hasn’t caught up — and there are no special features at all, a compromise to ensure the picture and sound quality of the special effects-heavy film is the absolute best it can be without its natural 3-D habitat.

Theater owners were already miffed when they had to obey long-standing contractual obligations and replace the sensational Avatar on many 3-D screens with Disney’s Alice. It hasn’t hurt them, probably, but it sure seemed to rankle at the time.

But as the 3-D experience begins penetrating more and more homes, movie house impresarios are going to be faced with the fact that their thunder’s been stolen, and they’ll be forced to come up with new reasons for people to spend their scarce disposable income on the entertainment they offer. (Smell-O-Vision, anyone?)

There is an upside for the movie industry as a whole, at least a temporary one: As 3-D TVs proliferate and 3-D movies come home, it will take a while for practitioners of movie piracy to catch up with the latest technology. They’ll inevitably get there, but there will be a learning curve.

Why not use Facebook to quit the nicotine

Jac — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:05:23 +0000

We use Facebook for many things, for contacting our friends, for keeping up with the local gossip, for playing games, even for touting for work, and recently they have added the ability to share cash, so why not stop smoking on Facebook too?

The charity WeQuit has launched a stop smoking programme in partnership with the increasingly popular social networking site to help people give up tobacco in a way that is a bit more interesting than enduring the inevitable withdrawal symptoms in solitary misery.

“WeQuit is the app that motivates you and your friends to give up smoking and stay smoke free. It tracks your progress, challenges you and your mates, provides useful tips to quit and gives you a friendly nudge in the right direction” says the app blurb.

So for all the smokers that failed to quit on 10th March, which happened to be national no smoking day, there’s still time to get in on the action and improve not only your own health but possibly the life of your laptop too.

It’s a fact. Some computer warranties are invalidated if the user is a smoker or if the computer is used in a room where there are smokers. Apple doesn’t like smokers for a start.

Apparently computer repair guys can tell if a computer has been exposed to cigarette smoke so there must be some evidence left behind in the dark recesses under the hood.

They say that smoke clogs up ventilation holes and fans and can cause a computer or laptop to overheat.

They also reckon that cigarette smoke causes a build up of sticky tar on electrical components which then attracts mountains of dust, which will eventually cause these components to fail.

It causes discoloration of your computer and keyboard, messes up the motherboard and causes hassles for your hard drive.

Now what isn’t clear is whether or not it is just the smoking that causes some of the computer problems or if they would have happened anyway.

Regardless, smoking is becoming increasingly socially unacceptable so if you are feeling under pressure to quit then using a social networking site to help you might prove a bit more effective than a nicotine patch or a fake fag. At least you won’t feel alone.

Failing that you can always join a smoker’s united group, on Facebook of course, and campaign for the right to puff away in freedom.

Nokia file patent for self charging battery

Jac — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:08 +0000

Finish mobile phone company Nokia have filed a patents application with the US authorities that could eventually give us mobile phones that self charge whilst we’re on the go.

Just think, no more will we be unceremoniously cut off whilst in the middle of an important conversation, no more being stuck somewhere with no means to call home, and no more having to plug our phones into the wall for a few hours in preparation for leaving the house.

It isn’t just phones that could use the new technology either, we could see the same type of self charge battery used for mp3 players, games consoles, hand held devices, or basically any electrical gadget that needs a battery to operate.

The “Piezoelectric Kinetic Energy Harvester” is “actually a cell phone battery contained with a first frame that is coupled to a second frame by one or more piezoelectric elements” reports the Finnish Times.

We’ve no idea how long it will take for the patent to become a reality but if and when that day comes, our phones will use natural kinetic energy that is created as we move about so if we carry our phones on our person, as we usually do, our phones will be constantly recharging.

The UK Times claim to have seen Nokia’s patent application and report that in the proposed design “the heavier components of a phone, such as the radio aerial and battery, are supported on a strong frame. This frame can move alongside two sets of rails. One rail allows the frame to move up and down, the other from side to side”.

At the end of each rail piezoelectric crystals generate a current each time they are hit by the frame so basically all our movements and gestures, even the simple act of walking, would create electricity that can then be used to charge up the device.

According to the Times, a spokesman for the Finnish firm said: “Power management has been an important topic since the early days of mobile communications and so continues to be one of the areas for research, but we cannot comment on whether or when inventions described in patent applications may eventually appear in products.”

Hope it does though, and sooner rather than later, who wouldn’t welcome new technology that would bring an end of those bulky mobile phone chargers that are always getting lost or broken and which pollute the planet when they’re finally disposed of.

Apple launches Battery Replacement Service for iPad

Jac — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:08:50 +0000

There are still a few weeks to go before the official launch of the new Apple iPad but Apple has already posted information on a battery replacement programme should anyone find that the battery on their new iPad, which they haven’t even got yet, doesn’t work properly.

I can completely understand why Apple are doing that, you know, making the info clear now, Apple products have had battery problems before so the decision to launch the battery replacement programme well in advance of the iPad launch is Apple’s way of staying one step ahead of their customers and of course the watch dogs. Nice one!

So what does this battery replacement service involve? First of all, it isn’t really a battery replacement service it’s actually an iPad replacement service as Apple don’t just change the battery, they replace the whole thing.

Apple says that “if your iPad requires service due to the battery’s diminished ability to hold an electrical charge, Apple will replace your iPad for a service fee”.

The service will cost you $99 plus $6.95 shipping which seems a pretty good deal for what amounts to a new iPad but conditions are attached so don’t think you can wangle yourself a new tablet for anything other than a faulty battery.

“Your iPad is not eligible for Battery Replacement Service if the product has been damaged, for example, as a result of an accident, liquid contact, disassembly, unauthorized service or unauthorized modifications, or if the product is not operating correctly as a result of a component failure” Apple adds.

If you do find you have to use the service, don’t expect your replacement iPad to come back with any of your personal information and settings intact, Apple has said the replacement one won’t contain any of your personal data and are warning people to back up what they don’t want to lose.

“Before you submit your iPad for service, it is important to sync your iPad with iTunes to back up your contacts, calendars, email account settings, bookmarks, apps, etc. Apple is not responsible for the loss of information when servicing your iPad” say Apple.

You can arrange the Battery Replacement Service by calling Apple Technical Support, by taking the iPad to your local Apple Retail Store, or to an authorised Apple Service provider. You should get your replacement iPad back within about a week.

iPad will be a blind-friendly e-book reader

Jayson — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:55:19 +0000

As an e-book reader, the iPad won’t have to deal with one of the headaches that has haunted Amazon’s Kindle.

As reported by Wired, when Apple began taking pre-orders for the much-anticipated device on Friday the company offered some details on how its e-books will work. Not only will the iPad be able to dictate books aloud to readers, but it will also use the VoiceOver functionality currently found on iPhones to help blind users navigate through the menus to get to the books stored on the device.

Late last year, several American universities settled lawsuits brought by advocates for the blind, who complained that pilot programs using the Kindle as a textbook platform discriminated against the vision-impaired. The Kindle 2, while featuring a read-aloud function, had no audio navigation to help blind users find and play e-books. Amazon has plans to release a more accessible version this summer — around the same time the pilot programs were set to expire anyway.

Last summer, as reported in The Wall Street Journal, Apple sensed an opportunity to exploit Amazon’s weakness and joined with the e-book subscription service CourseSmart to offer more than 7,000 books available to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

While the iPad may be more accessible to blind users out of the box, this doesn’t mean there won’t be other problems for Apple as the company enters the e-book market in earnest. The Wired article points out that when Amazon’s Kindle 2 shipped with its meager read-aloud function, the Authors Guild objected on the grounds that it violated copyright regulations intended to protect the sales of audiobooks, and demanded licensing fees. Amazon objected to the objection, but relented and gave copyright owners the option to enable or disable the read-aloud feature on specific titles.

Wired also reported on some other interesting iPad details that emerged last week: The device will let customers import books not purchased through Apple’s iBooks store, as long as they’re in the EPUB format — “the most popular open book format in the world,” Apple’s website says, and the one that the iBooks app will use.

Sony unveils PlayStation Move but can they beat Nintendo?

Jac — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:09:10 +0000

Sony have unveiled their “PlayStation Move”, a motion controlling system for the PlayStation 3 and according to Sony, it is the next generation of motion gaming. So is it all it has been cracked up to be?

The first to offer gamers motion control was Nintendo when they launched the Wii in 2006 and it took the world by storm, now Sony think it’s time for users to move on, to the PlayStation of course.

“The migration path from the Wii household to the PlayStation 3 household is a pretty natural path, partly because of the experience that you can get on the PlayStation Move but also because of the content that we find on PlayStation 3” said Peter Dille, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment.

“We are confident that when we look back in five years time, this will be seen as a seminal moment for PlayStation” said Dille.

The PlayStation Move is a wireless motion controller that along with the PlayStation eye camera can track a player’s body movements and then copy those movements on the screen but is it accurate?

“Nothing has ever been this precise” said Shuhei Yoshida who is the president of Sony Computer Electronics.

Of course we also need games that will be compatible with the PlayStation Move and Sony currently have 20 games under development from the likes of Activision Blizzard, Square Enix, and Electronic Arts amongst others.

Sony will have some competition though and not just from Wii either, Microsoft’s much anticipated Project Natal is also due to be released later in the year.

Project Natal will allow users of the Xbox to use body movements to play games without the need for buttons.

Microsoft and Sony are keen to knock the Nintendo Wii off its superior perch as Nintendo, despite sales falling recently, has consistently sold more game consoles than both of them.

This isn’t because the Wii is necessarily a better console, it’s simply because it has attracted users of all ages.

I don’t know if motion control will be enough to put either Microsoft or Sony in the top slot for game consoles, but if they can’t beat Nintendo both of them will want to be in second place.

The Sony PlayStation Move controller will be available in the autumn and is expected to go on sale for less than $100.

SmartPhone OS: Android up, Apple and Rim steady, Microsoft down

Jac — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:03:08 +0000

Comscore have just released their latest report for SmartPhone usage and revealed that around 42.7 million people now own a SmartPhone in the US which is an increase of 18 percent since last year.

The report ranked the SmartPhone operating systems by the number of subscribers owning a SmartPhone who were 13 years of age and older.

The figures showed that RIM is still leading the way with 43 percent of the total SmartPhone market share which represents a rise of 1.7 on the previous quarter.

Following in second place is the Apple iPhone with just over a quarter of the share at 25.1 percent so sales of iPhones have practically stood still unless you call an increase of 0.3 percent anything special.

Microsoft is managing to hold on to third place with 15.7 percent but saw quite a steep drop of 4 percent in the previous three months.

Now here’s one to watch. Android is marching forward and has surpassed Palm to take up 4th place.

Android phones now account for 7 percent of the market share for SmartPhones in the US but this is a massive leap forwards of 4.3 percent up from the previous quarter.

Palm now occupy fifth place in the rankings with 5.7 percent, after dropping 2.1 percent since the last results.

So if Google is gaining with Android, and RIM and Apple aren’t losing out, who is? It would seem that Android is stealing the market share from Microsoft and Palm.

Of course we’re all waiting for the new Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft to see what happens then and it should be interesting as the new platform is getting fairly positive reviews at the moment.

With the development of the Windows 7 platform, Microsoft took a total clean sheet approach, which means it will be a brand spanking new operating system built from scratch and that’s pretty exciting.

However, on the other hand it also means there will be no backwards compatibility for current apps which may put some folk off.

Basically we don’t know yet if Microsoft’s new operating system will shake up the market share or not and as it won’t be available till later in the year we’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime if Microsoft continues to lose out to Google, we could be seeing Google in third place by the next quarter.

Mobile Phone that spies on employees

Jac — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:00:18 +0000

Check this out. The Japanese have developed a mobile phone that can be used as a sort of tracking device for employees.

The BBC reports that the technology comes from the phone company KDDI Corp, who have developed a way to track employee movements using accelerometers and analysis software, and then send the info directly back to the boss.

Employers using the phones to spy on their employees would be able to tell if any of them were slacking or doing anything else for that matter although that’s not quite the way the phone is being marketed.

“Technically, I think this is an incredibly important innovation” says Philip Sugai, director of the mobile consumer lab at the International University of Japan.

“For example, when applied to the issue of telemedicine, or other situations in which remotely monitoring or accessing an individual’s personal movements is vital to that service.

“But there will surely be negative consequences when applied to employee tracking or sales force optimisation.”

KDDI are already in discussions with a Japanese company that wants to make use of the technology and according to KDDI, the purpose of the phone is to allow managers to monitor employees’ performance whilst out on the job.

“It’s part of our research into a total ubiquitous technology society, and activity recognition is an important part of that” said Hiroyuki Yokoyama from KKDI.

“Because this technology will make central monitoring possible with workers at several different locations, businesses especially are very interested in using such technology to improve the efficiency of their workers.

“We are now at a stage where we can offer managers a chance to analyse more closely the behaviour of staff.”

Is it ethical or is it just another invasion of privacy?

“Of course there are privacy issues and any employers should really enter into an agreement with employees before using such a system” Mr Yokoyama told BBC News.

“But this is not about curtailing employees’ rights to privacy. We’d rather like to think our creation more of a caring, mothering system rather than a Big Brother approach to watching over citizens.”

Not everyone sees it that way though, Kazuo Hizumi, a leading human rights lawyer told BBC News “It beggars believe that a prominent company such as KDDI could come up with such a surveillance system. It’s totally irresponsible”.

Is this what we call progress?