Frequently Asked Q

How's the Amazon App Store Doing?

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

In November, Ziggy, an Android game developer, shared his Android game income stats. With the recent popularity of the Amazon Kindle Fire, Ziggy shares his experiences on the Amazon Android store … A blog post about how my Android games are doing on Amazon (surprisingly well). Based on Ziggy's numbers, we can see that the Kindle Fire has indeed had an impact on the Android ecosystem (even thought the Fire cannot be called an official Android devices). Also, we see that even though Amazon, Android users don't pay for apps.

I have to admit, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at watching Bus Jumper take off on the Amazon appstore. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the release of the Kindle Fire provided a big boost in my Amazon downloads over Christmas. I was half expecting things to die down to earlier levels after some time. Well, it’s been a month, and while the initial spike is gone, things seem to have settled down to a pretty decent state.
Free Version
I get about 100-200 Bus Jumper downloads per day from Amazon. My daily new user count (as reported by Flurry) varies between 500-800. So roughly 25% of my new users are coming from Amazon. That’s pretty significant. The total download count on Amazon just crossed 7000, which puts it in the top 3 behind Google. Note that I’ve been listed on some of the other non-Google stores for many months now. I suspect that in another month, Google and Amazon will be my top 2 stores.

...
Paid Version
The paid version is even more interesting. I’ve been selling about 1 copy a day, and have a total of 46 sales so far. Almost all of that is in the last month. Compare that to Google, where I’ve had 39 sales in all the time that the game has been listed there. The paid version is listed on a couple of other stores, and I’ve had 1-2 sales in total from those. From my small sample set, I would agree with some of the comments I’ve read about appstores and buyer psychology. Like Apple, Amazon has every Kindle user’s credit card on file, and I believe purchasing an app on the Apple and Amazon stores is a more streamlined process than on Google. That seems to make a difference. I used to believe that the stereotype of Android users being cheapskates had some truth to itAnd maybe it does, but maybe the buying experience also plays a role.

TWIG - Teaching with Immersive Gaming

2012-01-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of forward-thinking I love!!

D. D. Guttenplan reporting ... href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/europe/harnessing-gaming-for-the-classroom.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss">Harnessing
Gaming for the Classroom

Paul Howard-Jones thinks he knows the answer to a question that has long puzzled both parents and professors: Why is it that the same teenagers who turn sullen and despondent when faced with a half hour of learning French verbs or organic compounds are happy to spend hours mastering the computer game Minecraft’s physics engine or the counterfactual history in Call of Duty?

A neuroscientist at Bristol University, Mr. Howard-Jones says that
“computer games are very, very engaging. And just as nuclear fission can be used to make bombs or generate electricity, games also have a light side and a dark side.”

Speaking at the Learning Without Frontiers conference in London last week, he said that computer games stimulate the brain’s reward system to produce dopamine, a chemical “which helps orient our attention and enhances the making of connections between neurons, which is the physical basis for learning.”

Mr. Howard-Jones said that research has shown that the introduction of a chance or game element into any reward system increases dopamine production. “For generations, we educators have done everything we can to maintain a consistent relationship between reward and achievement, but the neuroscience is telling us something different,” he said in an interview.

According to Mr. Howard-Jones, students learn more, and are happier to continue learning, when they are offered the chance of a reward rather than a guaranteed reward. Instead of trying to ban portable phones or portable computers from the classroom, teachers should be trying to harness the power of games in their lessons. “We call it TWIG — teaching with immersive gaming,” he said, explaining that “I teach several of my postgraduate courses in educational neuroscience using this medium.”

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Clay Christensen on Higher Ed

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

This video is a bit long – just over an hour – but well worth it. Christensen's insight into how various industries have been disrupted and how educators and higher ed will be disrupted is invaluable.

Renowned Harvard business professor and acclaimed author Clayton Christensen addressed the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee this morning in the Senate building at the Utah Capitol. A Utah native, Christensen is a world-renowned expert on how disruptive technologies alter entire industries.

Drawing instructive comparisons with the steel and technology sectors, Christensen specifically addressed the disruptions taking place in higher education and how legislators can work with higher ed to help it adapt and better educate students. Christensen said online learning is an essential component in the disruption that is taking place in education, an industry that has been highly resistant to disruption previous to the fairly recent advances in online learning.

For example, Christensen explains how the current model of education is integrated from top to bottom, meaning if you want to change one part of the model, you have to change the other parts of the model to fit. Using technology, education can move to a modular model in which a student can take a particular course, taught by the best professor in the world, and get credit for that course. Instead of accrediting only institutions, accreditation organizations would accredit individual courses. The student thereby receives the best, most appropriate education without the limitations and burdensome requirements of a linear, integrated education.

Christensen encourages higher ed institutions to become hybrids, offering both on-campus and online courses, noting that this move would "extend their runway" and help them to enhance their effectiveness and maintain their competitiveness in an increasingly open and à la carte education environment. Increasingly, the focus will be, as it should, on helping students meet their individual needs instead of requiring students to follow a rigid factory model.

Apple and Secrecy

2012-01-29T19:58:00.001-05:00

From Matt Rosoff - Apple is so obsessed with secrecy, it sometimes puts new hires on fake products until they can be trusted.

Clear – New ToDo App for iOS

2012-01-29T13:26:00.001-05:00

Very cool looking new app. Very un-iPhone like – looks more like a Windows 7 Phone app.

Clear for iPhone (Coming Soon!) from Realmac Software on Vimeo.

Clear for iPhone: http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear

Clear is designed to help you manage your life without adding clutter. It's a beautifully-designed, gesturally-driven app that we've created to improve on a pencil and notepad for flexibly keeping quick, simple todo lists.

Clear was designed and built by Realmac Software, Milen.me and Impending, Inc.

http://www.realmacsoftware.com
http://www.impending.com
http://www.milen.me

Hollywood Versus Technology

2012-01-28T18:52:00.001-05:00

Cory Doctorow shares a great Infographic: Hollywood's long war on technology that illustrates that SOPA is just the latest effort by Hollywood and media-owners to lock down their content.

a handy guide to the pig-ignorant campaigns that Hollywood has waged against new technologies since the industry's founders ripped off Thomas Edison's patents and fled to California.
Infographic: Why the movie industry is so wrong about SOPA

How Powerful is an Air Bag?

2012-01-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

Very! Amazing video via Rhett Allain - What Happens When You Put a Book on an Air Bag?

How to Prevent Cheating?

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently, some think digital DNA is the answer … 'Digital DNA' May Soon Be Required To Take SAT And ACT Exams:

Inside the applied DNA sciences lab at Stony Brook University researchers are hard at work inventing and perfecting a system that can prevent cheating on SAT and ACT exams.
“A novel system that’s absolutely unbreakable for securing the identity of a student taking the SAT exam,” said Dr. James Hayward.
The foolproof ID plan and others will be presented to lawmakers, who have pledged to parents, teachers and students that they will work together to protect exam integrity, hold cheaters responsible and fix the fraud, following the shocking scandal that spread from Great Neck North High School to include some 30 test takers and test payers faking their own identities, hoping to buy their into top scores and top schools.

Can a Judge Compel One to Decrypt Their Laptop?

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

I guess the answer is yes.

David Kravets reporting … Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Laptop:

A judge on Monday ordered a Colorado woman to decrypt her laptop computer so prosecutors can use the files against her in a criminal case.
The defendant, accused of bank fraud, had unsuccessfully argued that being forced to do so violates the Fifth Amendment’s protection against compelled self-incrimination.
“I conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer,” Colorado U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburnruled Monday. (.pdf)
The authorities seized the laptop from defendant Ramona Fricosu in 2010 with a court warrant while investigating financial fraud.
The case is being closely watched (.pdf) by civil rights groups, as the issue has never been squarely weighed in on by the Supreme Court.

10 Dying or Dead Tech Skills

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

10 Tech Skills Heading the Way of the Dinosaur from Randy Muller:

The IT industry is one which evolves rapidly - some would say too rapidly. As a consequence of this rapid change, IT professionals must also update their skills more often than most other industries. Accountants must learn new tax laws; IT pros must learn new operating systems. Doctors learn new techniques or have new pharmaceuticals at their disposal; IT pros must learn new programming languages. Some IT skills have been around for decades - just ask your friendly COBOL programmer. New IT skills emerge faster than old ones retire. IT pros must continuously learn new and expand current skills or they will become extinct, just as the systems and applications they once supported. Let's take a quick look at some skills that are on the endangered species list for 2012.

1. Email
2. Computer Hardware Support
3. COBOL
4. Adobe Flash Mobile
5. Windows 2000 and before
6. Traditional Telephony
7. Networking
8. Silverlight
9. Software and Network support
10. ColdFusion

Developer Adds Animations to iBooks Author

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Sencha Animator in an Apple iBook from Sencha on Vimeo.

From Daniel Eran Dilger … Sencha embeds interactive CSS3 animations in iBook Author:

Web developer Sencha has now demonstrated how to use its graphical Sencha Animator tool (below) to build Flash-like animations with interactivity using the features of CSS3, which can then be incorporated into iBooks.

This lets non-programmers create interactive, animated content they can include in their own titles. Once created, users currently have to add an info.plist descriptor file and set the file type to .wdgt, identifying it as a Dashboard widget. The component can then simply be dragged into a iBooks Author page within an HTML widget.

Anatomy of Credit Card Numbers

2012-01-23T20:40:00.001-05:00

Michael Gilleland dissects the Anatomy of Credit Card Numbers

Very interesting – I learned something new!

Classical Music Visualized as a Roller Coaster Ride

2012-01-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

This is very cool! From Maggie Koerth-Baker

ZKO Rollercoaster // GREAT EMOTIONS from virtual republic on Vimeo.

Classical music visualized as a roller coaster ride:

This great short film by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra illustrates the intensity behind a lot of classical pieces by turning the first violin part on the fourth movement of Ferdinand Ries’ second symphony into a looping, whirling roller coaster ride.

Travel Charger Suitcase

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Self-generating Travel Charger Suitcase by Jung Inyoung

Shared by Radhika Seth

Why All the Anti-Apple Sentiment Over iBooks Author?

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Ed Borasky doesn't think much of Apple's new initiatives in education – This Is How You Disrupt Education, Not iBooks Author!:

My take is that it was 100% Apple marketing and zero “disrupting education.” It was all about selling overpriced tablets to schools that are struggling to keep teachers on the payroll. It was all about forcing authors to buy new Macintosh machines or upgrading existing ones to MacOS X “Lion”. And it was about a restrictive EULA for authors.

Of course Apple is in the business of selling their products, but if you've experimented with or even watched the videos demoing the new iBooks or iBooks Author, it's hard not to think that these will impact what we do as educators. To cynically dismiss iBooks2, and iBooks Author as "100% Apple marketing" is missing the mark and way too hyperbolic.
As for the restrictive EULA (End User License Agreement), it has gotten a lot of press, but much of it overhyped. If you create an ibooks e-book (that will only work on the iPad) and you want to sell it, you have to sell through Apple – just like you would an iOS app. If you want to give it away for free, there are no restrictions. As for fears that the the EULA gives Apple ownership of your content, that's just reading way too much into the terms and extrapolating them to the most draconian outcome. I've read the EULA and I don't see it. Your content is yours; you can do whatever you want with it. If you choose to produce a rich, interactive multimedia e-book using iBooks Author you can either give it away or sell it through Apple. Want to sell it for the Amazon Kindle, use another tool to format the book and publish to Amazon. How's that different from an app developer? Sure, I'd like to see Apple put this all to rest by revising the EULA, but even as is, people are reading way too much into it.
He points to a couple alternatives that he feels are truly disruptive – (1) free textbooks:

Textbooks should be free! That’s one way to disrupt education. And CK12.org provides Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) textbooks for free. These are textbooks developed by educators, not marketers. They work on iPads, Kindles, PDF readers, or you can read them on line in your browser. There are authoring tools on the web site as well. The current CK-12 FlexBooks Library lists 38 mathematics textbooks, 34 in science and 20 in other subjects. Some have both student and teacher editions.

and (2) free software:

And education software should be free! The most comprehensive collection of free educational software I’ve found is openSUSE Linux for Education – openSUSE:Education-Li-f-e. This is a LiveDVD that will boot on most PC-based hardware with at least 1 GB of RAM.. You don’t even need a hard drive – since it’s a Live DVD, Li-f-e doesn’t touch the hard drive unless you explictly direct it to do so. If you want, you can copy the DVD to a USB drive and boot from that.

and he concludes …

Given that these free tools exist, and have been around since well before the iPad, I don’t see how Apple marketing can claim to be disrupting education. There’s real disruption if you know where to look.

Where do I start? Free is great, free books, free software, but that doesn't necessarily mean free is best. If these tools (free books and open source software) are truly disrupting education, where the data. Where's the proof? Open source software has been around forever – I teach Linux, so I interact with open source every day, but my colleagues in education? No so much. Maybe MoodleRooms has made a tiny dent in the Blackboard empire, but teaching your classes using a Live Linux distribution – as Borasky suggests – it just not happening.
The books available through CK12.org look promising, but a few questions:

where's the multimedia, the interaction – since these are web-based, this would be a great opportunity to include content and resources to enrich the e-books, but instead these appear to be no different than print books except for the fact that they're free, online, and include few links to external resources,
the textbooks can be downloaded as PDFs, as ePub files for iPads and other readers, or purchased (for $0.00) from Amazon's Kindle store,
- Why not offer as a .mobi file to download directly to the Kindle?
- Why is it OK to distribute through Amazon, but not Apple? Is Amazon less evil?
- Do kids need Amazon accounts, and credit cards to access these materials?
The CK12 project seems to have been around since 2007. If as Borasky claims, "there's real disruption if you know where to look", how many school districts, teachers, students, etc are using CK12 textbooks?

So we've had free – books and software – but not disruption. That doesn't mean that iBooks, iPads, and iBooks Author are the answer, but let's at least give it a shot.

Profile of a Master Thief

2012-01-22T08:00:00.000-05:00

Really interesting story from Joshuah Bearman ... Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief I find it interesting because I see students all the time with similar inate mechanical, electrical and computer aptitudes and my challenge is to harness that aptitude in the classroom.

Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of surveillance and electronics, Blanchard became a criminal mastermind. The star was the heist that transformed him from a successful and experienced thief into a criminal virtuoso.

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Apple Eyeing 802.11ac Gigabit WiFi for Products

2012-01-21T17:01:00.001-05:00

Daniel Eran Dilger reporting … Apple working to adopt 802.11ac 5G Gigabit WiFi this year:

Apple is expected to rapidly deploy support for the new 802.11ac specification this year, adding so called "Gigibit WiFi" to new AirPort base stations, Time Capsule, Apple TV, notebooks and potentially its mobile devices.
The new 802.11ac standard achieves much faster wireless networking speeds than the existing 802.11n specification (in use on the latest Mac, AirPort and iOS devices) by using 2 to 4 times the frequency bandwidth (from 80 to 160MHz), more efficient data transfers through sophisticated modulation, and more antennas (up to 8; existing standards support up to 4, while Apple's Macs currently use up to 3).
While not yet finalized as an official standard by the 802.11 Working Group, progress on the new 802.11.ac standard is occurring faster than previous efforts in wireless networking have.
Multiple suppliers have already issued chipsets supporting 802.11ac for consumer grade applications. Key Apple component maker Broadcom announced chips supporting the standard earlier this month at CES.
In addition to reaching networking speeds above 1 Gigabit (about three times as fast as 802.11n networks can manage), 802.11ac promises better networking range, improved reliability, and more power efficient chips, thanks to parallel advances in reducing chip size and enhancing power management.

Geek or Nerd - Which Are You?

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

I was at a conference recently and a colleague from across the room sent me a quick text message "I seeing a new trend at these conferences - geek pride". Maybe it's the popularity of the Big Bang Theory or the old adage "the meek will inherit the earth", but it does seem to be a good time to be a geek.

From: MastersInIt.org

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iBooks Author First Impressions

2012-01-20T06:49:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, Apple announced and released iBooks Author – a free e-book authoring tool for Mac OS X Lion. I downloaded and experimented a bit with the application. It's very easy to use, and very powerful.
You can add content via the following tool bar or by just dragging-and-dropping into the project

The widgets are particularly powerful, allowing you to add a number of multimedia and interactive elements very quickly and effortlessly. In a matter of 5 minutes, I was able to create a simple e-book with a fully-functional Keynote presentation embedded in the book, along with a review quiz, and an interactive 3D model created in SketchUp.
This is a game changer for self-publishing!
See the official iBooks Author tour video below.

ICT Education in the UK a "Mess"

2012-01-19T14:52:00.001-05:00

ICT – Information and Communications Technology is a term used in the UK to describe what we typically call IT or Information Technology. In the US, we've been moving away from IT and towards ICT – a better fit for the work that we do in networking, security and communications. Unfortunately, it looks like ICT education in the UK is not working and there's an effort underway to move to a program more well-aligned with computing and computer science.

Judith Burns reporting … UK Schools ICT to be replaced by computer science programme:

The current information and communications technology (ICT) curriculum in England's schools is a "mess" and must be radically revamped, the education secretary has announced.
From September it will be replaced by a flexible curriculum in computer science and programming, designed with the help of universities and industry.
Michael Gove called the current ICT curriculum "demotivating and dull".
He will begin a consultation next week on the new computing curriculum.
He said this would create young people "able to work at the forefront of technological change".
Speaking at the BETT show for educational technology in London, Mr Gove announced plans to free up schools to use curricula and teaching resources that properly equip pupils for the 21st Century.
He said that resources, developed by experts, were already available online to help schools teach computer science and he wants universities and businesses to devise new courses and exams, particularly a new computing GCSE.
The education secretary said the inadequate grounding in computing offered by the current curriculum was in danger of damaging Britain's economic prospects.

Mobile Phone Market Evolution

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Another great video from Horace Dediu - best to watch full screen:

Mobile Phone Market Evolution:

The evolution of Shipments, Revenue, Profitability and Cost structure of eight vendors selling mobile phones between second quarter 2007 and second quarter 2011.

More on Apple's Education Event

2012-01-17T15:48:00.001-05:00

Accord to Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Apple's education event is getting seriously over-hyped. In particular he references the numerous headlines proclaiming that Apple is getting ready to "digitally destroy" textbook publishing. He tamps down the excitement very quickly - disappointing if this is the real story. Elmer-Dewitt is usually pretty spot on in his reporting, so get ready to be underwhelmed. While this might improve the e-books we get from publishers, what I was hoping for is a tectonic, structural disruption of the publishing industry and a giant leap forward for self-publishing.

MacInnis also mentioned GarageBand in our interview. But what he was describing was a sample iPad textbook, produced in-house and packed with pedagogical bells and whistles, that would serve as a reference design for textbook publishers, much in the way GarageBand for the iPad showed iOS developers what the new platform could do.
MacInnis does expect Apple to unveil new tools for creating iPad textbooks, along with a new content repository to make e-textbooks easily available to teachers. But the tools are not a "GarageBand for e-books." And according to MacInnis, they're designed to support the textbook industry, not to do an end-run around it.

A Brief History of Computing Platforms

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Horace Dediu shares A Brief History of Computing Platforms:

Apple Set to Launch 'GarageBand for ebooks'

2012-01-17T01:20:00.001-05:00

Exciting if true!

From Chris Rawson … What to expect from Apple's education event: Digital textbooks, 'GarageBand for ebooks':

Reportedly the event will focus on a new type of digital textbook providing a greater degree of interactivity than has been offered in the past. The iPad is of course the perfect medium for consumption of such content, and the iTunes Store is a ready-made outlet for delivering that content. Apple has already provided all the tools for digital textbooks to get into the hands of teachers and students, with one exception: an easy way to create that digital content in the first place.
Tools for creating ebooks from scratch or converting standard books into digital versions have traditionally been confusing to use, delivered inconsistent results, and haven't played well with anything more than basic multimedia integration. Speaking from my personal experience in trying to create a simple text-only ebook using iWork, I've longed for a simpler and more user-friendly tool; I can only imagine that textbook publishers have been clamoring for such a piece of software even more stridently.
According to Ars Technica, Apple is set to deliver that final piece of the puzzle in crafting digital textbooks, which the site characterizes as sort of a "GarageBand for ebooks." Apple is expected to announce support for the EPUB 3 standard -- it currently supports EPUB 2 with some HTML5-based extensions to allow grafting of basic multimedia content onto ebooks. While this may render such ebooks incompatible with other ebook platforms (Kindle, most notably) it should also make it much easier for textbook makers to deliver interactive content in their ebooks.
Both Ars's sources and people within the digital publishing industry agree that Apple is set to introduce a tool designed to make the process of creating digital content for ebooks as easy as GarageBand makes it to throw together a song on your Mac.

Twitter Growth

2012-01-16T17:50:00.001-05:00

Nancy Messieh reporting … Twitter Adding 11 New Accounts Per Second

For Some, iPad Replaces the Laptop

2012-01-16T12:20:00.001-05:00

I'm not there yet, but there are a number of tasks for which the iPad is the go-to device.

Neil Hughes reporting … 12% of iPad owners in the enterprise no longer use their laptop:

The role of the iPad in the enterprise was explored in a new study revealed this week by IDG Connect. The "iPad for Business Survey 2012" features interviews with IT and business professionals from around the world.

The survey found that 12 percent of workers indicated that the iPad has "completely replaced" their traditional laptop. Another 54 percent said the iPad has "partly" replaced their laptop, and instead complements it on the go.

Windows 8 on ARM - Don't Hold Your Breath

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

From James Niccolai Windows 8 on ARM: You can look but you can't touch

For a touch-based interface it was awfully hard to get hold of. Microsoft's Windows 8 OS was shown on a handful of prototype ARM-based tablets at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, but almost no one was allowed to try it out.

Nvidia had three Windows 8 tablets in its booth but they were all behind glass. Texas Instruments showed a Windows 8 tablet in a meeting room off the show floor, but a reporter who asked to try it was told that wasn't permitted. Qualcomm, the third vendor of ARM-based chips working with Windows 8, wasn't showing it at all.

Representatives from all three companies said Microsoft has placed tight limits on how they can show Windows on ARM. It's apparently taking no chances that people might have a bad experience with the software before it's ready for release, which could harm its reputation.

...

Chris Flores, Microsoft director of communications for Windows, said development of the ARM version is on track and that Microsoft expects it to be released commercially at the same time as the x86 version But Microsoft wouldn't say if the Windows 8 beta due in late February will come out for both platforms.

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How Secure is Your Campus Network?

2012-01-14T21:36:00.001-05:00

Computer viruses undetected for over ten years - wow, scary stuff from Nanette Asimov - Viruses stole City College of S.F. data for years

Personal banking information and other data from perhaps tens of thousands of students, faculty and administrators at City College of San Francisco have been stolen in what is being called "an infestation" of computer viruses with origins in criminal networks in Russia, China and other countries, The Chronicle has learned.

At work for more than a decade, the viruses were detected a few days after Thanksgiving, when the college's data security monitoring service detected an unusual pattern of computer traffic, flagging trouble.

It appeared at first that the problem was contained in a single computer lab at Cloud Hall on the Phelan Avenue campus, one of a dozen City College sites around the city. David Hotchkiss, the chief technology officer, immediately shut the lab down and reported the problem to Chancellor Don Griffin, General Counsel Scott Dickey and Board of Trustees President John Rizzo.

But a closer look revealed a far more nefarious situation, which had been lurking within the college's electronic systems since 1999.

...

Each night at about 10 p.m., at least seven viruses begin trolling the college networks and transmitting data to sites in Russia, China and at least eight other countries, including Iran and the United States, Hotchkiss and his team discovered. Servers and desktops have been infected across the college district's administrative, instructional and wireless networks. It's likely that personal computers belonging to anyone who used a flash drive during the past decade to carry information home were also affected.

Some of the stolen data is probably innocuous, such as lesson plans. But an analysis shows that students and faculty have used college computers to do their banking, and the viruses have grabbed the information, Hotchkiss said.

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1915

2012-01-13T14:22:00.001-05:00

Coney Island in 1915 from the Library of Congress Flickr pool.

Amazing!

... And The Knack

2012-01-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

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The Knack

2012-01-13T06:58:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Ann Blackman for sharing this on Facebook!

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What's Behind the Recent Surge in iPhone Sales?

2012-01-12T19:01:00.001-05:00

Perennial Apple-hater Joe Wilcox points to the success of the iPhones – $0 3GS, $99 4, and $199 4S (all with two-year contract).

Tim Cook takes iPhone where Steve Jobs couldn't:

NPD's US retail sales data shows just how successful is the strategy. The top-three selling smartphones during October and November: iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS. Samsung Galaxy S 4G and S2 rank fourth and fifth.

Say that again slowly – the top three selling phones are iPhones.

Weirdly, he points to the strategy of making the iPhone 4 and 4S indistinguishable from one another as key to this surge in sales. I'm not sure I get the logic. So iPhone 4 buyers think they're buying a 4S with Siri, but for only $99? I think the iPhone 4 is selling really well, because buyers see a bargain – a really great phone for only $99.

I see now that iPhone 5 would have distracted buyers rather than open up the big sales spigot. Cook has made a big play to gain platform market share fast.

Facebook To Hit 1 Billion User Mark in August

2012-01-12T12:52:00.001-05:00

Wow!

From Todd Wasserman – Facebook To Hit 1 Billion User Mark in August [STUDY]:

one-seventh of humanity is now within the social network’s grasp

Amazon Kindle Lending Library a Hit

2012-01-12T12:29:00.001-05:00

This is a great benefit for Amazon Prime members, unfortunately the Lending Library is limited to Kindle devices – not Kindle apps on other devices (iPad, iPhone, laptop, etc).

Leena Rao reporting … Amazon Kindle Owners Are “Borrowing” Nearly 300,000 Electronic Books A Month:

Amazon is releasing new data on its Kindle Lending Library, which the e-commerce site says now has over 75,000 books. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is a collection of books that Amazon Prime members who own a kindle can borrow once a month, with no due dates.
Amazon recently launched KDP Select, a fund that lets indie authors and publishers make money off of lending. Basically, if a KDP author or publisher chooses to make any of their books exclusive to the Kindle Store for at least 90 days, those books are eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and can earn a share of the KDP Select fund.
According to the company, customers borrowed nearly 300,000 (295,000 to be exact) KDP Select titles in December alone, and KDP Select has helped grow the total library selection. With the $500,000 December fund, KDP authors have earned $1.70 per borrow. In response to strong customer adoption of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, Amazon says it has added a $200,000 bonus to the January KDP Select fund, raising the total pool from $500,000 to $700,000 for authors.
The top ten KDP Select authors earned over $70,000 in the month of December from their participation in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which is a 30% increase on top of the royalties they earned from their paid sales on the same titles in the same period. In total (paid sales plus their share of the loan fund), these authors saw their royalties grow an astonishing 449% month-over-month from November to December. The list of top 10 KDP Select authors includes Carolyn McCray, Rachel Yu, the Grabarchuk family and Amber Scott.

How Intuitive is the iPad?

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

So intuitive, even a cat can use it!

AppMag (Cat Plays Fruit Ninja on iPad An iPad turns into...):

An iPad turns into an expensive cat toy as this feline starts slicing fruits like mad manages to get a Fruit Ninja score of 128.

Free Online Cryptography Book

2012-01-11T20:05:00.001-05:00

John J. G. Savard's Cryptographic Compendium. A free book on mathematics and crypto.

The Prohibition of Pinball

2012-01-10T17:10:00.001-05:00

Strange but true story from Ben Yakas … Did You Know Pinball Was Illegal In NYC For Over 30 Years?: Gothamist:

It's kind of unbelievable to think about it now, but it's true: America went through a period between 1940s and the 1970s when pinball was banned in many of the biggest cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. A fantastic piece in Popular Mechanics documents pinball prohibition—and it took a true pinball wizard (and a lot of luck) to get it legalized in NYC.

M. Night Shyamalan

2012-01-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

From Joel Bernstein tweet of the day:

Fun fact: Bullies in high school called me Shamalamadingdong.
— M. Night Shyamalan (@MNightShyamalan)January 5, 2012

The iPhone is Five Years Old Today

2012-01-09T00:08:00.001-05:00

Daniel Eran Dilger Five years of iPhone:

Five years ago today, Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone at Macworld Expo.

Mathematicians Clock

2012-01-08T15:13:00.001-05:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Is the Kindle Fire Disruptive to the iPad?

2012-01-08T11:49:00.001-05:00

Jack Chou What happens when the Kindle Fire costs $0?. While it's true that the Kindle Fire has sold well, I don't think it has yet disrupted the iPad market. In Christensen's theory of innovation and disruption, the incumbent product - in this case the iPad - has become a mature product with little room for meaningful updates, other than the sustaining incremental updates that Chou references. The iPad and the tablet market are just in their infancy – it's way too early to consider the Fire as a market disruption.

Jeff Bezos and company have no interest in charging a premium price for a product that they essentially expect to be a virtual USPS mailbox for their growing inventory of digital goods. Amazon worries about the long-term only and, as the NY Times noted, they actually mean it.
So while the question, “What happens when the Kindle Fire costs $0?” may include a bit of hyperbole, it’s not hard to imagine a day when the Kindle Fire: (1) has progressed to being a truly capable tablet that covers 90% of the iPad’s functions capably, and (2) costs a trivial sum, maybe $49 or $79. What happens then?
If we’re to believe Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma and expect this market to follow other technology markets in history, Apple and the iPad will not be able to simply innovate with ‘sustaining’ features that incrementally drive the state of the art forward. Apple will need to continue to introduce disruptive innovation into the tablet market just to compete with their lower-price, down-market competitors.
In other words, a slightly better browser, camera, or email application won’t be enough to fend off the Kindle tidal wave.

Free Programming eBooks

2012-01-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Nice list of 30 50 free programming eBooks from Michael Kohl:

Since this post got quite popular I decided to incorporate some of the excellent suggestions posted in the comments, so this list now has more than 50 books in it. BTW: I’m not very strict on the definition of “ebook”, some of them are really just HTML versions of books. [UPDATED: 2012-01-07]
Learning a new programming language always is fun and there are many great books legally available for free online. Here’s a selection of 30 of them

Steve Jobs on Higher Education

2012-01-07T23:51:00.001-05:00

It's a little long and clearly dated, but very interesting to here Setve Jobs thoughts on higher ed.

elearningpost » Steve Jobs on Higher Education:

Interesting to see what Steve had in mind for higher education when making plans for NeXT Computer. Simulations and the learning experience were high on his agenda.

Making the Case for a Flipped Classroom

2012-01-06T20:22:00.001-05:00

Katie Gimbar makes a good case ... time to re-think your classes!- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Turn Any Surface into a Touch Screen

2012-01-05T18:57:00.001-05:00

Jason Kottke shares ...

Touch interfaces everywhere:

This is kind of amazing: if you put a contact microphone on a hard surface and then process the sound in realtime, you can turn that surface into a touch screen...or a programmable musical instrument.

An Art Deco Computer

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

This hand-made computer is beautiful!

From Rob Beschizza … Aerodyne, a compact hand-made Art Deco computer:

Aerodyne is Jeffrey Stephenson's latest hand-made Art Deco PC. In keeping with the (modern) times, it's a compact Mini-ITX affair in mahogany and aluminum, with an Intel i3 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB solid state drive. Stephenson plans to make no more than a handful of them, to order.

No IPv6 Doomsday this Year, But Still Unprepared

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

According to Stephen Lawson, IPv6 Doomsday Won't Hit in 2012, Experts Say

Next year will see one more regional Internet registry run out of IPv4 addresses, but 2012 will be more of a year to prepare for the inevitable shift to IPv6 than an Internet doomsday, according to networking experts.

…

despite the impending depletion of addresses, most enterprises didn't begin upgrading to IPv6 last year. As of October, fewer than 1 percent of all subdomains under the .com, .net and .org top-level domains had IPv6-enabled Web servers on them

Windows Security Advice

2012-01-02T22:48:00.001-05:00

Andrei Lisnic provides some simple Windows security 101:

to keep your Windows machine secure:
Use your PC with a restricted user account. In Windows XP, create a simple user account in parallel to admin one (with a password of course), and when you need to run a program with admin rights just do a right click and select “run this program as…” and select admin. In Windows Vista/7 turn UAC on to maximum. It might be annoying, but you don’t install programs so often, do you?
Disable autorun (which is one of the most used sources of spreading viruses)
Use only trusted sources

Samuel Palmisano and the Re-Birth of IBM

2012-01-01T21:03:00.001-05:00

Great profile of Palmisano from Steve Lohr – How Samuel Palmisano of I.B.M. Stayed a Step Ahead:

behind I.B.M.’s relentless progress over the last decade is a game plan that has been anything but conservative. The company shed multibillion-dollar businesses. It chose higher profit margins over corporate size, and expanded aggressively overseas, seeking sales, low-cost engineering talent and quicker organizational reflexes.
Investors, however, haven’t been bored. The company’s stock price has surged. In November, Warren E. Buffett, who typically shuns technology stocks, announced he had accumulated $10 billion of I.B.M. shares, a stake of more than 5 percent.
All of that didn’t just happen. A large portion of the credit goes to Samuel J. Palmisano, who steps down on Sunday after nearly a decade as chief executive. During his tenure, I.B.M. has been a textbook case of how to drive change in a big company — when so much of the study of business innovation focuses on start-ups and entrepreneurs.
This column is a glimpse of the thinking behind some of the major steps I.B.M. has taken under Mr. Palmisano’s leadership, based on two recent interviews with him.
He says his guiding framework boils down to four questions:
• “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”
• “Why would somebody work for you?”
• “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”
• “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”

Android Updates Taking Forever

2011-12-31T14:24:00.001-05:00

Fuad Abazovic is a little less diplomatic … Android 4.0 update is a joke:

Google announced ICS Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich a couple of months back, and so far it has managed to ship a single device with this new OS, the Galaxy Nexus. The second device to get an ICS 4.0 update was the old Google Nexus S, but OTA updates for the Nexus have been suspended due to technical issues. There is still no third device with ICS on board and we won’t see any for at least a few weeks.
Companies are now announcing their own ICS upgrade schedules. LG says that their top devices get ICS in Q2 2012 (April 1 to June 30), while others will have to wait a few more months. Sony Ericsson should have ICS around Q2, if not earlier. Motorola and Samsung are reportedly scheduled to start updating their devices in Q1, but the process will inevitably drag on well into Q2. Worse, Samsung won’t roll out an ICS update for the Galaxy S, which sold in record numbers last year and it’s still a pretty nice phone with an affordable price tag.
In best case scenario, we might see some Android 2.3 to 4.0 update in Q1 but the best chance is to see some new phones launching with Ice Cream Sandwich at the Mobile World Conference, in Barcelona in last days of February.
Apple has IOS 5 in all of its phones capable of supporting the new OS for months now and at least the top two iPhones today, if not the top three, will get an update to the next version, guaranteed. Microsoft is also doing a pretty good job in the update department with Mango.

Sir Jonathan Ive

2011-12-30T20:38:00.001-05:00

Well deserved!

Josh Ong reporting ... Apple design chief Jonathan Ive awarded knighthood

Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, has been named a Knight Commander of the British Empire in the U.K.'s 2012 New Year Honours list, an honor he has described as "absolutely thrilling."

The BBC reported on Friday that Ive can now go by "Sir Jonathan." The knighthood, which is for "services to design and enterprise," is a step up from his previous title of Commander of the British Empire, which was awarded in 2005.

Ive responded that he was "both humbled and sincerely grateful" by the commendation.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Inventor of the Digital Camera

2011-12-30T18:27:00.001-05:00

David Friedman interviews Steven Sasson, Inventor of the Digital Camera

Not exactly portable, but amazing for 1975!

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted one of these. This is my portrait of Steven Sasson, inventor of the digital camera. He was the 32nd inventor in my project. I shot him in October at Kodak’s headquarters in Rochester, just a couple weeks before President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology.

Inventor Portrait: Steven Sasson from David Friedman on Vimeo.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Something to Truly Disrupt Higher Education

2011-12-29T16:36:00.001-05:00

It's as if MIT is using Clayton Christensen's Disrupting Class as a blueprint.

James Marshall Crotty reporting … M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All

For Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the “social injustice” of college tuition, here’s a curveball bound to scramble your worldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) will announce on Monday that they intend to launch an online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.

The program will not allow students to earn an M.I.T. degree. Instead, those who are able to exhibit a mastery of the subjects taught on the platform will receive an official certificate of completion. The certificate will obviously not carry the weight of a traditional M.I.T. diploma, but it will provide an incentive to finish the online material. According to the New York Times, in order to prevent confusion, the certificate will be a credential bearing the distinct name of a new not-for-profit body that will be created within M.I.T.

…

Students using the program will be able to communicate with their peers through student-to-student discussions, allowing them an opportunity to ask questions or simply brainstorm with others, while also being able to access online laboratories and self-assessments. In the future, students and faculty will be able to control which classes will be available on the system based on their interests, creating a personalized education setting.

ICT Fact and Figures

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

Great data from the ITU

ICT facts figures 2011

View more documents from Brian Crotty

Apple Granted a Critical Multitouch Patent

2011-12-27T19:39:00.001-05:00

Mikey Campbell reporting - Apple granted another key multitouch patent

Apple won a core multitouch patent regarding oscillating signals that was alluded to when Steve Jobs first announced the original iPhone in 2007, and adds to the company's already formidable legal arsenal.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office published on Tuesday that the Cupertino, Calif. company now owns a crucial patent that describes how touch events are recognized by a touchscreen device, and was one of the "200+ Patents for new inventions" Jobs lauded when the iPhone first debuted, reports Apple patent blog Patently Apple.

The newly granted patent focuses on the oscillator signal and circuit of a touchscreen-equipped device, an integral invention directly related to how users interact with their multitouch products.

...

The patent wording states that the invention could apply to computing devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets or handhelds, including digital music and video players and mobile telephones. Also mentioned are public computing systems like kiosks and ATMs.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New Years' Resoultion - Stronger Passwords

2011-12-26T12:26:00.001-05:00

Since 2012 is the year of malware and cyber-espionage, here's a post from Dennis O'Reilly on How To Master The Art Of Passwords:

Considering the number of times PC users sign into a service or network each day, we may need to remember a half-dozen hard-to-guess passwords, not to mention the various sign-in IDs we use along with the passwords (full name or first initial-last name? Case sensitive? An e-mail address?). Many computer professionals need access to dozens of secure systems, which stretches the limits of anyone's memory.
Your three options are to use a password-management program, to write your passwords down on paper (or record them in an encrypted text file), or to devise a method for memorizing hard-to-guess passphrases. While no single technique is right for everyone, here's why I suggest the memorization approach.

If you've still got some gifts to give, here's a way to give the gift of security – SplashID Key Safe – a flash drive with SplashID software built-in for Macs and PCs.Other alternatives are 1Password and LastPass.

2012 - a Big Year for Malware and Cyber-Espionage

2011-12-26T12:02:00.001-05:00

Lucian Constantin reporting … 2012 Will See Rise in Cyber-Espionage and Malware, Experts Say:

The security industry expects the number of cyber-espionage attacks to increase in 2012 and the malware used for this purpose to become increasingly sophisticated.
...
"I absolutely expect this trend to continue through 2012 and beyond," said Rik Ferguson, director of security research and communication at security firm Trend Micro. "Espionage activities have, for hundreds of years, taken advantage of cutting-edge technologies to carry out covert operations; 2011 was not the beginning of Internet-facilitated espionage, nor will it be the end," he added.
Threats like Stuxnet, which is credited with setting back Iran's nuclear program by several years, or its successor, Duqu, have shocked the security industry with their level of sophistication. Experts believe that they are only the beginning and that more highly advanced malware will be launched in 2012.

Last Minute Gifts

2011-12-25T13:08:00.001-05:00

Happy holidays everyone. If you've still got some shopping to do or overlooked someone, there's still an opportunity to get them something today – as long as it's digital!

From Dave LeClair … Amazon Adds ‘Best Of’ Store To Recommend The Best Digital Items [News]:

If you are a last-minute Christmas shopper then this is the story for you. It’s now obviously too late to get anything shipped which is why Amazon has created their best of store, specifically to recommend the best items that can be purchased digitally. With a digital purchase there is no shipping, so you can still buy something on Christmas Day.

802.11 Packets in Packets

2011-12-24T21:27:00.001-05:00

A new wireless exploit from Travis Goodspeed - 802.11 Packets in Packets

New to 2011, Packet-in-Packet exploits allow for injection of raw radio frames into remote wireless networks. In these exploits, an attacker crafts a string that when transmitted over the air creates the symbols of a complete and valid radio packet. When radio interference damages the beginning of the outer packet, the receiver is tricked into seeing only the inner packet, allowing a frame to be remotely injected. The attacker requires no radio, and injection occurs without a software or hardware bug.

This lecture presents the first implementation of Packet-in-Packet injection for 802.11B, allowing malicious PHY-Layer frames to be remotely injected. The attack is standards-compliant and compatible with all vendors and drivers.

Unlike the simpler implementations for 802.15.4 and 2FSK, 802.11B presents a number of unique challenges to the PIP implementer. A single packet can use up to three symbol sets and three data-rates, switching rates once within the header and a second time for the beginning of the body. Additionally, a 7-bit scrambler randomizes the encoding of each packet, so the same string of text can be represented 128 different ways at the exact same rate and encoding.

This lecture presents the first implementation of Packet-in-Packet injection for 802.11B, allowing malicious PHY-Layer frames to be remotely injected. The attack is standards-compliant and compatible with all vendors and drivers.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

More on Self-Healing Electronics

2011-12-23T12:30:00.000-05:00

Self-healing electronics restores broken connection in microseconds | KurzweilAI:

University of Illinois engineers have developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in microseconds.
“It simplifies the system,” said chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore, a co-author of the paper. “Rather than having to build in redundancies or to build in a sensory diagnostics system, this material is designed to take care of the problem itself.”

Self-Healing Circuits

2011-12-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

Jamie Condliffe reporting – Self-Healing Circuits Use Liquid Metal To Turn Electronics Into Superheroes:

[Researchers have] developed a way to create printed circuits that can heal themselves using liquid metal. The best bit is that, unlike X-Men, this is real.
So how the hell does it work? Essentially, the scientists have created tiny micro-capsules that contain liquid metal. When a printed circuit is made, a thin layer of these capsules can also be printed on top of the conventional strip of metal.
If a small crack forms in the printed circuit, usually that crack breaks the circuit. But with the micro-capsules in place, as the crack propagates some of the capsules are wrenched open, in turn releasing a small amount of liquid metal. That metal is enough to bridge the gap and keep the circuit working.

The End of the Digital Divide?

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

IBM thinks it's five years away.

Michael Cooney reporting … IBM Predicts Five Big Technologies of the Future:

Digital divide? In five years, the gap between information haves and have-nots will narrow considerably due to advances in mobile technology. There are 7 billion people inhabiting the world today. In five years there will be 5.6 billion mobile devices sold -- which means 80% of the current global population would each have a mobile device.

Boy Genius Report's on RIM's Woes

2011-12-22T20:44:00.001-05:00

According in Jonathan S. Geller things are even worse than they appear – BlackBerry 10 is a failure that won't be able to compete, company source says:

Our source has communicated to us in no uncertain terms that the PlayBook 2.0 OS developers have been testing is a crystal clear window into the current state of BlackBerry 10 on smartphones. No email, no BlackBerry Messenger — it’s almost identical. “Email and PIM [is better] on an 8700 than it is on BlackBerry 10,” our contact said while talking to us about RIM’s failure to make the company’s new OS work with the network infrastructure RIM is known for.
We also have some more background on why RIM’s BlackBerry 10 smartphones are delayed, and it has nothing to do with a new LTE chipset that RIM is waiting on. In what is something of a serious allegation, our source told us that Mike Lazaridis was lying when he said the company’s new lineup was delayed for that reason. ”RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don’t have a working product yet,” we were told.
At the end of our conversation, our source communicated something shocking for a high-level RIM employee to say. He told us that RIM is betting its business on a platform and ecosystem that isn’t even as good as iPhone OS 1.0 or Android 2.0. “There’s no room for a fourth ecosystem,” he stated, “and DingleBerry also works on BlackBerry 10.”

The Future of Microsoft

2011-12-21T15:46:00.001-05:00

Ben Brooks in Microsoft’s iOS Apps has an interesting thought about Microsoft's future. He's right that this won't happen with Ballmer as CEO. But there are even bigger issues.

Any revenue from iOS apps is just a rounding error on their (Microsoft's) balance sheets, so this is not disruptive to their core business (Windows and Office) in any way. What MS needs is a new revenue stream that has the potential to rival what they make from Office and Windows. I agree that – long-term – the Windows and Office businesses will continue to stagnate, but even stagnant Windows and Office will remain cash cows for a long time. How long? No one really knows, but apps are not the solution.

Like Apple's AppleTV, you can think of MS apps as a hobby.

If we go by a favorite saying of the tech web, that Office is far more important to Microsoft than Windows, would it not make sense then that 10 years from now Microsoft is just a really good “app” company?
That is, instead of making platforms (like Windows) they are just producing applications that run on the best platforms out there — regardless of who controls these platforms?
With Ballmer this won’t happen, but with fresh eyes this seems to be a pretty interesting strategy for a company that is struggling to get a foothold in the ever important mobile industry.
Of course this minimizes the sheer size of Windows itself, but then again I have to wonder just how important the traditional PC will be to the average consumer in a decade’s time.

Another Patent Threat to Google

2011-12-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

A big one!

From Mark Brown – BT Sues Google for Patent Infringements in Android, Maps, Google+ and More

The British phone company says, in its US-filed lawsuit, that Google has infringed on these patents in the Android operating system, apps on the Android Market, Google Maps, Docs, Music and Offers, various location-based services and most of its advertising empire.
An example patent is “Service provision system for communications networks,” which BT was awarded in the 1990s. It essentially boils down to an app figuring out whether a phone is connected to the web via Wi-Fi or 3G, and choosing to stream at a different bandwidth. Google infringes this in Google Music and the Android Market, BT alleges.
The other patents cover navigation systems (Google Maps is the culprit here), location-based information (infringed just about everywhere) and digital rights management (Android Market is fingered).
If BT is successful in court it could force Google and Android handset makers to pay royalties on each Android handset that’s in use. That’s a lot of devices — this summer, Google Mobile president Andy Rubin took to Twitter to announce that “there are now over 500,000 Android devices activated every day.”

Life Without Sudo

2011-12-20T13:46:00.001-05:00

Interesting thoughts from Jon Stokes – In the Cloud, There is No Sudo:

I’m an admin now for three Google Apps for Business accounts, and I’ve had some headaches recently with all three of them. So far, all of my problems seem to have arisen from errors on Google’s end, and as I went ’round and ’round with support for Google, Postini, and Spanning Backup, I got a first-hand reminder of one of the major reasons why so many IT pros are reluctant to jump on the cloud: as the title of this post says, in the cloud there is no sudo. Or if there is a sudo, then you don’t know the password. This is one very good reason why people who are accustomed to being super-users can sometimes panic when faced with the prospect of a public cloud migration.

Going All-In on E-Books

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

Anne Eisenberg on textbooks Making Science Leap From the Page

Sounds promising, but textbooks publishers have done little to create innovative e-books. I think the digital-only approach is the right one – you can't be a print publisher and dabble in e-books. You're disrupting your core business - print books - and all of the infrastructure and human resources that have been accumulated for a century. True innovation and meaningful disruption will come not from an incumbent, but from a new entrant into e-book publishing.

WHEN a college textbook, “Principles of Biology,” comes out from the Nature Publishing Group in January, one place it won’t be is on the shelves of school bookstores.
That’s because the book was designed to be digital-only. Students will pay not for a printed edition at a bookstore, but for permanent access on the Internet ($49).
And when they open the book on their laptops, tablets and smartphones, they will find other differences, too. True, the text is packed densely with definitions and diagrams — it is meant to teach college-level science, after all, and is from the publishers of the august journal Nature.

Still, this isn’t your usual technical tome. The pages have some pizazz: they are replete with punchy, interactive electronic features — from dynamic illustrations to short quizzes meant to involve students rather than letting them plod, glassy-eyed, from one section to the next. Audio and video clips are woven into the text.

Photo by www.edufiend.com - http://flic.kr/p/Q1Hui

Siri Plays the Piano!

2011-12-19T14:25:00.001-05:00

Really! Wow - this is cool.

Shared by Jim Dalrymple Siri plays the Yamaha Disklavier piano using AirPlay:

We’ve all seen some cool things that Siri can do, but this has to be the best so far. The guys at Yamaha got Siri to play piano.

Microsoft and RIM

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Some more good stuff from Jean-Louis Gassée 2011: Shift Happens:

First on Microsoft –

The company also reorged its mobile business: Andy Lees, formerly President of its Windows Phone division just got benched. The sugar-coating is Andy keeps his President title, in “a new role working for me [Ballmer] on a time-critical opportunity focused on driving maximum impact in 2012 with Windows Phone and Windows 8”. Right.
Ballmer once predicted Windows Mobile would achieve 40% market share by 2012, Andy Lee pays the price for failing to achieve traction with Windows Phone: according to Gartner, Microsoft’s new mobile OS got 1.6% market share in Q2 2011.

… and then RIM

‘Amateur hour is over.’ This is what the company imprudently claimed when introducing its PlayBook tablet. It is an expensive failure ($485M written off last quarter) but RIM co-CEOs remain eerily bullish: ‘Just you wait…’ For next quarter’s new phones, for the new BlackBerry 10 OS (based on QNX), for a software update for the PlayBook…

Intel Versus ARM

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

Some very insightful analysis from Jean-Louis Gassée 2011: Shift Happens:

Intel. The company just re-organized its mobile activities, merging four pre-existing groups into a single business unit. In a world where mobile devices are taking off while PC sales flag, Intel has effectively lost the new market to ARM. Even if, after years of broken promises, Intel finally produces a low-power x86 chip that meets the requirements of smartphones and tablets, it won’t be enough to take the market back from ARM.
Here’s why: The Cambridge company made two smart decisions. First, it didn’t fight Intel on its sacred PC ground; and, second, it licensed its designs rather than manufacture microprocessors. Now, ARM licensees are in the hundreds and a rich ecosystem of customizing extensions, design houses and silicon foundries has given the architecture a dominant and probably unassailable position in the Post-PC world.

$0.99 WiFi Scanner for Mac OS on Mac App Store

2011-12-18T19:50:00.001-05:00

Zaib Kaleem shares WiFi Scanner for Mac OS $0.99 on Mac App Store at WLAN Book.com:

WiFi Scanner for Mac OS is $0.99 on Mac App Store. No promo codes, links or coupons needed.

WiFi Scanner is an easy-to-use tool for designing, verifying, and troubleshooting WiFi coverage. The tool provides information such signal strength, noise, manufacturer name based on MAC address prefix of device (OUI), and AP channel assignments for WiFi access points.

WiFi Scanner can also be used a security tool for detecting unauthorized and rogue access points. The app includes an audio alert (beep) feature that is directly related to RSSI / access point signal strength. This feature can be used to track down devices by listening for beep frequency instead of watching app screen.

WiFi Scanner is a great tool for personal use and for IT professionals.
WiFi Scanner is an 802.11 wireless scanner and connection manager for Snow Leopard and Lion.
It can be used for wireless site surveys, wireless discovery, and to connect to wifi networks.
Scans 802.11 a/b/g/n Scans both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. See first screen shot below, Channel 11 is in 2.4 GHz band and Channel 161 is in 5 GHz band.
Has WiFi analyzer feature for tracking signal of WiFi connection and graph over time for troubleshooting or optimizing placement of access points.
The tool reports signal strength in dBm and shows access point BSSID/MAC addresses.
Sort any column
Command click one or more rows of results to Copy/Paste rows of results into own documents
Double click results row to view window with RSSI and graph.
Audio beep in monitor window increases as RSSI increases for access point being tracked. This is very handy for rogue access point tracking.
UDP listener for use with Sensor Pro remote GPS iPhone app.

Smartphones and the Mobile Web

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

From Erdem Ozkan - The Rise of Smartphones and Mobile Web

Nielsen’s “State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report” provides a snapshot of the current mobile media landscape and audiences in the U.S. and highlights the potential power of mobile commerce in the near future.

...

Key findings From The Report:

The majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year olds now own smartphones (64% and 53% respectively);
The majority of smartphone owners (62%) have downloaded apps on their devices and games are the top application category used in the past 30 days;
The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45 percent since 2010;
87 percent of app downloaders (those who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days) have used deal-of-the-day websites like Groupon or Living Social;
Younger groups text the most. In Q3, teens 13-17 sent and received the most text messages (an average of 3,417 each month).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Feedback on Stanford Online Classes

2011-12-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Hernan Amiune is not so happy with Stanford's online classes - at least the end result.

Stanford Online Classes. Like A Great Movie With A Bad Ending:

Professors are AWESOME!
The exercises are AWESOME!
The classes are AWESOME!

But then they send you the Statement of Accomplishment. This was obviously done by engineers with no knowledge of public relations or marketing. And maybe under the pressure of Stanford (lawyers?) to clarify that this wasn't a Stanford class.

Before the course started they promised the Statement of Accomplishment as an incentive to get you in the course.
When they got a lot of users they said “You will receive a statement of accomplishment from the instructor, which will include information on how well you did and how your performance compared to other online students. Only students admitted to Stanford and enrolled in the regular course can receive credit or a grade, so this is not a Stanford certificate.”
At the end they send you a pdf file that says something like this:hey you didn’t complete any Stanford course, you were just part of an experiment and this is an automated message.

It’s a pity because the courses were so great, so tasty, but this leaves you with some bad taste in your mouth. And I think that not sending any Statement of Accomplishment would have been much better.

Password Security Is Broken

2011-12-16T20:33:00.001-05:00

Password Security Is Broken, Say Experts:

Identity fraud is one of the biggest threats to unwary web users today. It can come in a variety of forms but is often the result of an online account being hacked or details phished via social engineering.
I recently met Jason Hart, former ethical hacker and now managing director of secure authentication firm Cryptocard, who has been banging on for years about how password-based approaches to account authentication are no longer sufficient.
Now, of course, he would say that, given that Cryptocard's job is to sell alternative two-factor-based authentication technology, whether it's via key fob token generators, or passcode-generating software which can be installed on a smartphone.
However, the sheer number of security breaches which have occurred because password security systems have been cracked in the most basic and simple way backs up the two-factor message.
"Why should a [hacker] go to the effort of finding a vulnerability when he could target the password?" Hart toldV3.
"The problem has always been there but the reliance of social networks and cloud computing [sites] on passwords has been explosive. Password security is the only thing that impacts confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability and auditability."

A Power Shift at Google?

2011-12-16T20:02:00.001-05:00

Brad McCarty reporting … Gundotra in, Mayer out. In Google's inner circle that is

TED Video: Sal Khan

2011-12-16T19:22:00.001-05:00

Karl Kapp shares … Great TED Video by Salman Khan:

The man who created Khan Academy talks about education in this thought provoking video.

Siri Coming to non-iPhone4S?

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

Not just yet.

From Alex Heath – Apple Makes Siri iPhone 4 Port Legally Possible With Today’s iOS 5.0.1 Update:

Siri is by far the iPhone 4S’s most-desired feature, and many non-4S users have been clamoring for hackers to make the voice assistant available on older iOS devices. While Siri ports have been demoed to the public before, it’s been made clear that public distribution is not possible at this time due to legal issues.
Apple has made a Siri port legally possible with today’s iOS 5.0.1 revision by offering wide-open access to system files that were previously encrypted.

U.S. Teens Triple Data Usage, But Texting Still Tops

2011-12-15T16:38:00.001-05:00

Jay Donovan reporting … U.S. Teens Triple Data Usage:

Nielsen is reporting today that teens have more than tripled mobile data consumption and also continue to hold top spot as the most engaged mobile messaging segment.
The report states that “In the third quarter of 2011, teens age 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, increasing 256 percent over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group”.
While this deluge of data consumption seems immense, messaging still remains the largest teen behavior in the mobile space, with the number of SMS/MMS messages reaching 3,417 per teen. Let me just say that again…3,417 texts per teen—seven messages per waking hour, according to the study. Um, WOW!

Congress Mulling Restrictions on Additional Unlicensed Spectrum

2011-12-15T16:13:00.001-05:00

Stacey Higginbotham reporting … Congress Wants to Kill Super Wi-Fi and White Spaces, Too:

The spectrum bill that passed the House last night will make any technologist weep. I know the tech community is upset over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but this bill represents a somewhat geekier threat–killing more unlicensed spectrum. So Silicon Valley may want to get active over this one too. The House version of the bill will ensure that none of the airwaves auctioned off from the digital TV band will be used for unlicensed wireless, where services such as Wi-Fi or white spaces broadband exist.
Free airwaves are good for innovation.
Unlicensed spectrum are the free airwaves that any company can use as long as the it meets certain FCC guidelines. The 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz bands that Wi-Fi currently works in are unlicensed, as are the 900 Mhz bands used by baby monitors and cordless phones. But under the bill passed last night, none of the megahertz the government gets back from TV broadcasters will be set aside for such use, and instead would end up getting auctioned off to licensed users, such as a network operator.
That’s bad for a variety of reasons, specifically because some of those bands are supposed to be used for delivering Super Wi-Fi or white spaces broadband.

Cannonball Versus a Tub Full of Mercury

2011-12-15T10:07:00.001-05:00

Very cool video shared by Sean Michael Ragan

Dropping a Cannonball into a Tub Full of Mercury:

Continuing our “what happens when you drop stuff into stuff?” series is this short video segment from the BBC. As with dropping a magnet through a copper pipe, many of you probably know what to expect, here. But it’s nonetheless cool to see. Mercury is so beautiful; such a shame it’s also so toxic.

I Love Technology

2011-12-14T15:11:00.001-05:00

Great use of GPS;)

annoyed says FML:

Today, my husband changed the voice on my car's GPS to Mr T's. I don't know how to change it back. I've been saying, "I pity the fool" over and over again ever since.

Clay Johnson's The Information Diet

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

Clay Johnson's new book and an innovative way of engaging an audience – giving away the first chapter online. The Information Diet - first chapter released:

I've just put the first chapter of the Information Diet up on Scribd. Give it a look-see and tell me what you think. It's a great guide for what to expect from the book as a whole. And don't forget to pre-order yourhardcover so you can have the awesome, conversation-starting cover, or the kindle version today.

The Information Diet Chapter 1 by Clay Johnson

What Does it Take to be a Top 10 iOS App?

2011-12-13T18:15:00.001-05:00

30,000 downloads a day! Wow

From Adrian Covert – It Takes 30,000 Downloads a DAY just to Crack the iOS App Store's Top 10:

If you think the whole mobile apps craze is just a fad, consider this statistic: any free app in the iOS App Store's top 10 list is receiving at least 30,000 downloads a day. A DAY! For the US alone!

Melted Fiber-Optics and a Large NYC Outage

2011-12-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

Some more great stuff from Jeff Simmermon – Subterranean Fires and Melted Fiber-Optics: What A Large Outage Looks Like:

If you follow our business really closely, you probably know that we had a pretty big outage in the East Village on October 6th. You sure know about it if you happen to live in New York City and have a Twitter account – it was understandably all over the place.
The New York Times’ East Village blog mentioned this, naturally. Essentially, a number of nodes connected to this portion of fiber lost network connectivity, interrupting service to approximately 24,000 customers in the area.
Our VP of Engineering in New York City shared some photos of the mess with me, and I thought our customers would like to see what a large, lengthy, and unusual outage looks like.

...

Here, you can see a cross-section of what the cable looked like before the fire:

I took a closeup with the macro lens on my iPhone:

Those multicolored things are a protective sheath around a single fiber-otic strand roughly the width of a human hair. Each strand carries video, broadband, and phone services to a node, which, again, can serve 300-600 homes. The colored sheaths are slathered with a sort of insulating goo inside the cable shell to help protect the fiber from moisture. The whole enterprise looks a little like an alien cyborg’s reproductive organ, doesn’t it?
Here’s what the cable looked like after being subjected to an electrical fire:

And again, with an iPhone macro closeup:

The Cable Company Head End Explained

2011-12-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

From Time Warner Cable's Jeff Simmermon – Head End: How Cable Gets to Your House From Space:

I discovered what an incredible feat of round-the-clock engineering it takes just to get cable, phone and broadband services to the house 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with minimal interruption. The sheer cost and infrastructure it takes to make it so people all over America can sit at home with their pants off and tweet about popular television programs is mind-boggling.

…

In this video Larry Pestana, our VP of Engineering for New York City, shows us what it takes to actually get television signals to your house from space through our “head end.”
A “head end” is a plant that takes TV signals from satellites, processes them into cable quality and distributes them throughout a network and into homes.

Here’s a look at our head end at the 23rd Street facility in New York City – hope you enjoy it:

Head End: How Cable Gets to Your House from Space from Time Warner Cable on Vimeo.

Gifts for Makers

2011-12-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

Sylvia's Super-Awesome Make Holiday Gift Guide 2011 - YouTube:

Read the full guide: http://wp.me/p1CIX9-vEc

Welcome to Sylvia's Super-Awesome Make Holiday Gift guide 2011! Your source for what to get your favorite maker this holiday season.

Is Google Wallet Secure?

2011-12-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

Very detailed, thorough analysis of Google Wallet's security – Forensic security analysis of Google Wallet:

As the first real payment system leveraging NFC on Android, Google Wallet is a very intriguing new consumer app for smartphones. But as we always ask: is Google Wallet secure?
This analysis provides a high-level review of the data transmitted and stored by Google Wallet, with the goal of determining if any sensitive data is at risk. Security vulnerabilities in Google Wallet, if they exist, could place the consumer at risk for financial or identity theft. The testing performed here is the basis for our appWatchdog review of Google Wallet.
I started the analysis on the initial release, however several updates were pushed out – and one security issue I had uncovered was addressed by an update. Ultimately I froze my analysis to Version: 1.0-R33v6 of Google Wallet.
Before I dive into the details, if you find our high level security analysis of Google Wallet interesting, you might find these related services and studies equally interesting:
appSecure, viaForensics’ mobile app security service
appWatchdog, our free mobile security and privacy service
Mobile App Security Study, a free report on 100 popular mobile apps
Mobile Security Risk Study, an 85 page report focusing on iPhone and Android in the Enterprise

…
Summary of Google Wallet security findings
So, in summary, here are the items of note from my high level analysis. Bear in mind this is nowhere near the level of testing an app like this deserves but since this is done on our own time, it’s all I could manage thus far. Anyway, here goes:
A fair amount of data is stored in various SQLite databases including credit card balance, limits, expiration date, name on card, transaction dates and locations and more.
The name on the card, the expiration date, last 4 card digits and email account are all recoverable
[Fixed in Version 1.1-R41v8] When transactions are deleted or Google Wallet is reset, the data is still recoverable.
The Google Analytic tracking provides insights into the Google Wallet activity. While I know Google tracks what I do, it’s a little frustrating to find it scattered everywhere and perhaps in a way that can be intercepted on the wire (non-SSL GET request) or on the phone (logs, databases, etc.)
[Fixed in Version 1.0-R33v6] The application created a recoverable image of my credit card which gave away a little more info than needed (name, expiration date and last 4 digits). While this is not enough to use a card, it’s likely enough to launch a social engineering attack.
While Google Wallet does a decent job securing your full credit cards numbers (it is not insecurely stored and a PIN is needed to access the cards to authorize payments), the amount of data that Google Wallet stores unencrypted on the device is significant (pretty much everything except the first 12 digits of your credit card). Many consumers would not find it acceptable if people knew their credit card balance or limits. Further, the ability to use this data in a social engineering attack against the consumer directly or a provider is pretty high. For example, if I know your name, when you’ve used your card recently, last 4 digits and expiration date, I’m pretty confident I could use the information to my advantage. When you add data that is generally available online (such as someone’s address), an attacker is well armed for a successful social engineer attack.

Three-Week Online Courses

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

Anthony Stoeckert reporting … Alvin Community College to offer three-week online courses:

Alvin Community College is offering students a chance to get a headstart on the spring semester with online courses beginning Dec. 19.

Courses being offered include Composition I and II, American National and State Government I and II, U.S. History to 1877, U.S. History since 1877, Texas History, Developmental Math - Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra, Fitness and Wellness, Introduction to Philosophy, General Psychology, Introductory Sociology and Interpersonal Communication, according to a press release.

How Easy is it to Copy a Captured Drone?

2011-12-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

David Axe reports that It Won't Be Easy For Iran To Dissect, Copy U.S. Drone:

Prepare the dissection table. Iran says it’s planning to disassemble its prized acquisition: a CIA-operated drone that apparently crashed on its territory. Its goal: to learn how the drone, apparently a stealth RQ-170 Sentinel, evades radar and how its top-secret sensors work. Which has the U.S. worried about Iran copying its advanced flying robot. ”There is the potential for reverse engineering, clearly,” U.S. Air Force Chief Gen. Norton Schwartz conceded.
But Iran will probably need help from arms exporters Russia and China in breaking down the flying-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — meaning the RQ-170′s secrets could ultimately fall into the hands of, well, pretty much every country with an interest in sticking it to Uncle Sam. Luckily for Washington, however, reverse-engineering a high-tech drone is easier said than done, according to two UAV designers who spoke to Danger Room on the condition we not print their names.

Isaac Newton’s Personal Notebooks Go Digital

2011-12-12T14:37:00.001-05:00

Cambridge's site is a little uncooperative, but this is a very cool project.

Shared by Brandon Keim – Isaac Newton’s Personal Notebooks Go Digital:

The largest collection of Isaac Newton's papers has gone digital, committing to open-access posterity the works of one of history's greatest scientist.
Among the works shared online by the Cambridge Digital Library are Newton's own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica and the 'Waste Book,' the notebook in which a young Newton worked out the principles of calculus.
Other of his myriad accomplishments include the laws of gravity and motion, a theory of light -- pictured above are notes on optics -- and his construction of the first reflecting telescope.

What's Going on With HP and WebOS?

2011-12-11T21:17:00.001-05:00

Jean-Louis Gassée on HP's decision to open source WebOS … HP Kicks webOS To The Kerb | Monday Note:

Either she thinks we’re dimwits, or she’s being cleverly cheeky. Does she think we’ll fall for the tired corpospeak? “Victory! WhatWereWeThinking v3.0 has been released to the Open Source community”. Or is she slyly fessing up? “After much abuse inside the HP cage, it’s clear that webOS can only be restored to health if released into the wild.”

And regarding new CEO Meg Whitman ...

When I hear Whitman make such statements, I’m reminded of the old joke about the difference between a computer salesperson and a used-car salesman: The used-car gent knows he’s lying. For my alma mater’s sake, for HP’s good, let’s hope Meg Whitman knows she’s putting us on.

A Numeric Keypad for IPv6

2011-12-11T11:28:00.001-05:00

This is a joke - right?

IPv6 Buddy

Is LTE Standardization a Problem?

2011-12-11T11:07:00.001-05:00

Sharif Sakr indicates that it is and that roaming will be difficult – Wherever I wander, wherever I roam, LTE probably won't work:

Hopes of a cross-network LTE standard were dashed months ago, when Verizon confirmed its 4G band won't overlap with AT&T's. What we didn't realize, though, was just how globally fragmented this technology is likely to become. A report by Wireless Intelligence predicts there'll be 200 LTE networks around the world by 2015, running on as many as 38 different frequency combinations. Moreover, the most common 700-900MHz spectrum range could account for just 16 percent of these networks. This stands to make carrier locking and band incompatibility on handsets even bigger hassles than they are today.

Verizon Lands High-Level Federal Security Certification

2011-12-10T17:42:00.001-05:00

Robert Mullins reporting – Verizon Lands High-Level Federal Security Certification:

Verizon has earned "Level 3" certification by the U.S. government for its Universal Identity Services (UIS) identity and access management technology to protect computer networks. Verizon says it is the first identity access provider to reach Level 3 certification.
There are four levels of certification under the federal Identity Credential and Access Management (ICAM) program, Tracy Hulver, chief security strategist for Verizon, explained. The lowest level is Level 1, in which a user identifies him-or-herself as who they say they are and no further identification is needed. Level 2 certification matches the person’s name with some identifying information such as their address or the last four digits of their Social Security Number. Level 3 adds an additional layer of vetting called second-factor authentication.
With Verizon’s UIS product, a user enters their name and perhaps an ID number but then also is given an “online antecedent,” Hulver said, which could be a list of questions the person has to answer in a given amount of time. For example, the person could be shown a list of addresses and be asked which of them is not an address at which they have ever lived. The vetting could include a number of such questions.
“The more questions you answer within the time frame, the higher the level of probability that you are who you say you are,” Hulver said. Level 4 is the highest level of authentication and also requires a third factor such as a smart card with a biometric identifier attached to it; Hulver called Level 4 “the equivalent of a notary certification.”

The Oscilliscope

2011-12-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

Collin Cunningham explains ...

via Wired

Turn an iPad Into an Oscilloscope

2011-12-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Imagine replacing these …

with these …

From Brian McLaughlin – Oscilloscope Turns iPad Into a Serious Science Tool:

[The] iMSO-104 oscilloscope. What makes this scope so different? It is a very small module, smaller than the Arduino Uno sitting next to it on my desk, that plugs into your iOS device and your iOS device handles all of the display and heavy duty work for the oscilloscope! I usually have my iPad or iPhone with me when I am working so this seemed like an ideal solution. I was rather reserved about my expectations. I had used some awesome high-end scopes at work and I wasn’t sure how this would stand up to my expectations. I have to say, I am impressed.
...
I really didn’t mean to write such a glowing review but I have to say that I am very impressed with this scope. There are only a couple of things I would say could use improvement. The zoom function, as I mentioned above, works with the normal iOS finger swipes but sometimes you may inadvertently change a scale you didn’t mean to change if you aren’t pinching close enough to horizontal or vertical on the display. This got me a couple of times. There is also the location of the trigger point. A quick button on the scope to recenter this marker when you zoom would be a useful feature. Those are the only two real issues I found in my operations and I did a great deal of exploring. The amazing thing is that those and many other enhancements are fixed with software updates to the iOS app. You can check out the app itself for free and take the interface for a spin. It has a demo mode that lets you see what the scope can do.
The Oscium iMSO-104 is available directly from the Oscium website as well as a few other retailers such as ThinkGeek for $299.99. Oscium also makes an iOS-enabled RF Power Meter, Spectrum Analyzer, and combined Power Meter/Spectrum analyzer. I love this idea of using iOS devices to drive instrumentation!

Oscilloscope photo via realblades

802.11ac - 1.3 Gbps Throughput!

2011-12-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Stephen Lawson - Broadcom Pushes 802.11ac for Faster Wi-Fi:

Gigabit-speed wireless LAN products based on the emerging IEEE 802.11ac standard will start shipping next year and usher Wi-Fi into its next era of high speed and long range, communications chip maker Broadcom said Thursday.
The new technology will use beam-forming, wide bands and multiple antennas to deliver as much as 1.3G bps (bits per second) of real-world throughput, with a longer range and better wall-penetration capability that will help it serve entire homes, said Rahul Patel, vice president of Broadcom's mobile and wireless group. It represents a big step up from 802.11n, the current standard that typically tops out at about 300M bps, he said.
Consumers will need faster Wi-Fi soon to enjoy activities such as sending multiple streams of video to a TV, Patel said.

Happy Birthday Coax!

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

Brian Chen reporting - Dec. 8, 1931: Coaxial Cable Patented

1931: The new invention of the coaxial cable is issued a U.S. patent, which will eventually deliver the gift of ubiquitous telephony and cable television.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

An iMac with HDTV?

2011-12-07T23:59:00.001-05:00

From John Paczkowski – Apple May Use iMac Refresh as Step Toward Apple Television:

Here’s a novel theory: The Internet-connected HDTV that Apple is rumored to have in the pipeline will be preceded by another device, which will pave the way for it:
A new iMac with integrated TV functionality.
That’s the latest speculation from Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair, who believes there will be a step between the Apple TV and the Apple Television.
“We believe Apple’s redesign of the iMac in the first half of 2012 will likely usher in some … TV capability into the iMac offering first, effectively taking the high end and larger screens of the iMac line and pushing it toward the TV market by integrating Apple TV and iCloud features into a slimmer all-in-one PC,” Blair writes. “Apple could effectively start with what they already have on the manufacturing line and slowly push their offering from 27 inches and scale up from there to 32 inches and then move on to the 42, 50 and 55 inch market.”

Autodesk and iOS

2011-12-07T17:52:00.001-05:00

I teach AutoCAD and other Autodesk products. While this isn't a significant fraction of their core business, it's impressive that an old-school software vendors has had so much success on the iPad and iPhone.

From Daniel Eran Dilger Autodesk discovers new consumer market via iOS apps:

Thanks to Apple's iOS App Store, Autodesk has attracted more new customers than it has ever had across its previous 29 years in business, transforming the company and causing it to launch a new consumers products division.

A profile of Autodesk's shift toward consumers, published by MIT's Technology Review, highlights how the company's experimental SketchBook for iPhone and iPad has given the company, best known for its professional, high end AutoCAD software, an entirely new market.

In 2008, Autodesk was developing SketchBook as a consumer product for PCs, but the product didn't attract much attention. Chris Cheung and Thomas Heermann, two middle managers, began exploring the idea of porting the paint and sketch app to the new iPhone App Store.

After launching the $2 iPhone app in September of 2008, the pair hoped for 100,000 downloads over the next year. Instead, they hit a million downloads in 50 days. The company released a $5 iPad version that launched alongside the tablet in April 2010.

After roughly 7 million app downloads, Autodesk's SketchBook and the estimated $15 million in revenue the app has generated isn't rivaling the company's high end software revenues that total $2 billion.