Drivers Know Cell Use Is Dangerous But Drive Anyways

A survey released today by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that while most drivers understood the dangers of using electronic devices while behind the wheel, a large percentage used them anyway.
According to the survey, released as part of the NHTSA’s recognition of April as National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, approximately 660,000 drivers used cellphones or manipulated electronic devices while driving during daylight hours, numbers that have held steady since 2010.
While fiddling with a stereo or iPod is dangerous and distracting while driving, according to the NHTSA, texting and hand-held cellphone use were considered more dangerous and have garnered more attention from recent surveys and studies.
The NHTSA survey also found that 74 percent of drivers support a ban on hand-held cellphone use, while 94 percent believe texting while driving should be outlawed. On average, these drivers believed the fines for these offenses should be at least $200, according to the report.
Texting while driving is currently outlawed in 39 states and the District of Columbia (see map below). Hand-held cellphone use is outlawed in 10 states, and the District of Columbia.
Wireless provider AT&T released a texting while driving survey of its own last month. Ninety-eight percent of the drivers it polled also said they understood the dangers of texting while driving.

Despite the fact that almost all drivers surveyed by AT&T said texting and driving was dangerous, 43 percent of teenage drivers said they still did it, while 49 percent of older commuters admitted the same.
“Many drivers see distracted driving as risky when other drivers do it, but do not recognize how their own driving deteriorates,” NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said in a statement. “I urge all motorists to use common sense and keep their attention focused solely on the task of safely driving.”
No doubt, some new gadgets and technologies have become distractions, making it more difficult for drivers to focus on the road. But innovation, rather than simply cutting back on device usage, can possibly be the fix to the problem.
States that have outlawed hand-held cellphone use do allow other hands-free methods of talking, whether it be a speakerphone, voice activated system or an in-ear Bluetooth or wired headset.
Samsung recently introduced S Voice Drive with its Galaxy S 4 phone. The software allows drivers to do such things as play music and get directions while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.
States That Have Outlawed Texting While Driving
(Image credit: Highway Loss Data Institute)
Admittedly, fears that some of the new gadgets will contribute to distracted driving may still be warranted. CNET reported that Google’s Glass, for instance, has already been discussed as possibly becoming banned for West Virginia drivers before it’s even gone on sale. The futuristic, eye-glass headset computer projects images in front of the eyes, showing directions and notifications. Google Glass also allows users to engage in hands-free video chatting and Internet searching. Talk about distracted driving …

Drivers Know Cell Use Is Dangerous But Drive Anyways
ABC News: Technology
Powered by WizardRSS: ABC News: Technology
http://a.abcnews.com/images/site/abcnews_google_rss_logo.png

Drivers Know Cell Use Is Dangerous But Drive Anyways

read more

With H-1B cap exceeded, visa lottery will be needed

Computerworld - WASHINGTON – The H-1B visa caps have already been reached and the government will hold a lottery to distribute visas, federal officials said late today.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) said it had received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to meet both the 65,000 general cap and the 20,000-visa cap set aside for advanced degree graduates of U.S. universities.
The government started receiving petitions on Monday, April 1, and treats the first five days as one day. If the caps are exceeded at the end of the five days, a lottery is held.
The USCIS, as it has in the past, will use a “computer-generated selection process” to determine who will get a visa for the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
The agency did not say how many visas it had received. In 2008, the last time the USCIS held a lottery, it had received 163,000 petitions within five days.
A lottery was expected. Immigration attorneys had been predicting it for weeks, and the government said in March that it expected the cap to met swiftly.
The USCIS processing facilities in Vermont and California received around 60,000 H-1B petitions on Monday.
Patrick Thibodeau covers cloud computing and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at  @DCgov or subscribe to Patrick’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.
See more by Patrick Thibodeau on Computerworld.com.
Read more about Gov’t Legislation/Regulation in Computerworld’s Gov’t Legislation/Regulation Topic Center.

With H-1B cap exceeded, visa lottery will be needed
Computerworld Articles
Powered by WizardRSS:

With H-1B cap exceeded, visa lottery will be needed

read more

Apple, Google won't face poaching class action suit, yet

By Jonathan Stempel

Fri Apr 5, 2013 2:47pm EDT

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge ruled that a lawsuit alleging a broad conspiracy among Silicon Valley companies not to poach each other’s employees cannot proceed as a class action for now, but left the door open for workers to eventually sue as a group.

In a decision released on Friday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California said the five software engineers suing Apple Inc, Google Inc and five other companies have yet to show enough in common among the proposed class members to allow them to sue together.
But in deciding to give the plaintiffs another chance, the federal judge said she was “keenly aware” new evidence had recently become available that could support class certification.
She also said the nature of the “alleged overarching conspiracy” and desire to litigate it all at once weighed “heavily” in favor of certifying a class, which the plaintiffs’ lawyers have said could include tens of thousands of people.
The case has been closely watched in Silicon Valley, and much of it has been built on emails among top executives, including the late Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.
If the plaintiffs win class certification, then they would have more leverage to extract large financial settlements than if they were to sue individually.
Other defendants in the case include Adobe Systems Inc, Intel Corp, Intuit Inc, and Walt Disney Co’s Lucasfilm Ltd and Pixar units.
PLAINTIFFS TO PRESS ON
The defendants were accused of violating the Sherman Act and Clayton Act antitrust laws by conspiring to eliminate competition for labor, depriving workers of job mobility and hundreds of millions of dollars of compensation.
These allegations are similar to those raised in a U.S. Department of Justice probe that ended in a 2010 settlement, which forbade several of the defendants from entering an anti-poaching conspiracy, such as through the use of “Do Not Cold Call” lists.
Koh said she wants more evidence that a proposed class does not include large numbers of people who suffered no harm.
She also expressed concern over whether evidence would show that the defendants had “such rigid compensation structures” that would have affected nearly everyone in a class.
But in a signal that certification could be forthcoming, Koh appointed Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and the Joseph Saveri Law Firm as co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
“The court has invited us to provide further answers to certain specific questions, which we are prepared to do,” Saveri said in an email. “We are in the process of determining a schedule for doing that as quickly as possible.”
Apple spokeswoman Amy Bessette declined to comment. Google spokesman Matt Kallman would not discuss the decision, but said “we have always actively and aggressively recruited top talent.”
Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said the chipmaker opposes certification, and believes the evidence will show its employees “were fairly compensated in a highly competitive market.”
Adobe spokeswoman Christie Hui declined to comment. The other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
EMAIL TRAILS
Among the revelations in the litigation was a 2007 email trail involving Jobs and Schmidt, then an Apple director, over Google’s apparent effort to recruit an Apple engineer.
After Jobs emailed Schmidt that he “would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this,” Schmidt forwarded the email to others he urged to “get this stopped.”
Koh also cited a January 2007 email from Ed Catmull, then Pixar’s president and now president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, to the head of Disney Studios that suggested a desire to avoid bidding up the price of talent.
“We have avoided wars up in Norther[n] California because all of the companies up here – Pixar,, Dreamworks, and couple of smaller places – have conscientiously avoided raiding each other,” he wrote.
All of the defendants are based in California: Adobe in San Jose; Apple in Cupertino; Google and Intuit in Mountain View; Intel in Santa Clara; Lucasfilm in San Francisco; and Pixar in Emeryville. Walt Disney is based in Burbank.
The case is In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 11-02509.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Leslie Gevirtz)

Apple, Google won’t face poaching class action suit, yet
Reuters: Technology News
Powered by WizardRSS: Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world’s media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals.
http://www.reuters.com/resources_v2/images/reuters125.png

Apple, Google won't face poaching class action suit, yet

read more

Facebook Home Will Find Home on Tablets

Mark Zuckerberg is right: I check my phone’s homescreen about 100 times a day. But I don’t check Facebook 100 times a day. I check my email, my text messages and this website and others. I check Facebook periodically on my phone, but it tends to be only when I have a notification or to see how many likes I got on my last post.
I check my tablet though about two times a day, depending on the day. Usually it’s at night. And you know what my first or second stop is on my iPad? Facebook. And it’s a long stop. I spend time going through my feed, clicking on links I see and hitting “Like” more than I should.
According to a number of data sources, tablet usage is heaviest from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and that’s because people are leaning back during those times, rather than leaning into a computer or phone trying to work or get something done. During those evening hours, they are checking in on their friends, watching TV or reading or playing games.
PHOTOS: Facebook Home and HTC First in Photos
The focus of Facebook’s event Thursday was the mobile phone, although it did mention at the end that its new Home Android software would come to tablets. Home, for those who might have missed the news, transforms an Android phone into a Facebook phone. Instead of a lock screen or homescreen, you get Facebook’s Cover Feed, which cycles through images and posts from your Newsfeed.

There’s also a new messaging feature called “Chat Heads.” When you get a message from a Facebook friend, a small little circular icon pops up with your friend’s profile photo in whatever app you are in. You can still use other apps in Home, including the main Facebook app, email and a web browser, but the focus is on Facebook.
“Tablets are going to be awesome,” Facebook’s Adam Mosseri, the lead product designer on Home, told me in an interview after the event Thursday. “Cover Feeds looks really good. It’s a big beautiful social magazine. There are a lot of things we have to do to make it work, but just by testing it, it will feel really good. It is immersive content, the bigger it is the better it feels.”
It sounds a lot like Flipboard, an app for the iPad and Android that allows you to view news and social media feeds in a attractive digital magazine format. It also lines up with what Mark Zuckerberg said at Facebook’s News Feed announcement a few weeks ago: “What we want to do is give everyone in the world the most personalized newspaper.”
RELATED: Facebook Home and HTC First: Impressions, Video and Photos
But Mosseri also revealed that the idea to put it on a tablet was actually just an afterthought. “One of the guys was just wondering what this looks like. He just dropped it on a tablet,” he explained. Home won’t be coming to Android until later this year.
Android tablet marketshare is nowhere near the levels of Android smartphone or iPad marketshare, but part of that has to do with the lack of strong Android tablet apps. And that’s likely why Facebook didn’t focus on putting Home on tablets. But it should.
Putting Home on Android tablets like the Nexus 7 or Samsung Galaxy Tabs might not only improve the experience of using Facebook on Android tablets but improve the experience of using Android on a tablet in general for many people. (The current Facebook app for Android tablets, by the way, isn’t much more than an enlarged version of the phone app.)
The Home interface is extremely well designed, playful and the content lends itself to what people are already looking at on their tablets. So no, I don’t check my tablet 100 times a day, but Facebook Home would have a much more useful home on my tablet than on my phone.

Facebook Home Will Find Home on Tablets
ABC News: Technology
Powered by WizardRSS: ABC News: Technology
http://a.abcnews.com/images/site/abcnews_google_rss_logo.png

Facebook Home Will Find Home on Tablets

read more

Do We Need Specialized Hardware for the Deaf?

A company called Purple Communications this week unveiled a product called SmartVP. It’s a videophone with applications and features to help deaf people communicate. Purple says it’s the first videophone to feature “true HD quality.”
How do deaf people use the telephone? In the past, most used a typing system called TTY. Paging devices soon followed; the term became so fixed that the deaf community is said to still call all wireless devices, including iPhones, “pagers.”
But the age of the video call has changed all that. Now, the deaf and hard of hearing routinely communicate by simply using sign language over a video call. When a deaf person wants to communicate with a hearing person, there are “relay services,” involving live translators proficient in sign language.
One smart thing Purple’s doing is pursuing what they call a “five-screen strategy.” What this means is that their customers can use Purple’s relay service on PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, or TV. Here’s a YouTube video pitching SmartVP. Refreshingly, it’s not full of over-the-top music, like the majority of tech promotional fare out there.
The question that interests me most is how long companies like Purple Communications will offer premium services that the deaf community will find worth shelling out extra money for. One of the surprises of the iPad, as I’ve written about elsewhere, is that though it was designed for a broad consumer market, those with disabilities have found it more useful (and certainly much cheaper) than more specialized equipment.
At the end of the day, SmartVP is a videophone with apps. Isn’t that what just about everything is these days?
SmartVP touts its hardware with its new release. But I can’t help but suspect that the era of manufacturing specific hardware for the disabled is slowly drawing to an end; or at least, that the market will be contracting. Tech companies that may have once provided both specialized hardware and software may increasingly be dealing only in the latter.
Increasingly, the core affordances that technology offers the deaf and hard of hearing may be built into hardware as it ships. As one deaf person has written: “I strongly believe that this technology would be the best possible choice for us deaf consumers as it provides everything we need while being compatible with ‘everyone else.’”
Bobby Cox, the author of that post several years ago, wasn’t writing about SmartVP. He was writing about iOS’s FaceTime.

Do We Need Specialized Hardware for the Deaf?
Computing – MIT Technology Review
Powered by WizardRSS:

Do We Need Specialized Hardware for the Deaf?

read more

Disney zaps in-house game development at LucasArts

IDG News Service - Walt Disney has shut down in-house development at LucasArts, the gaming arm of Lucasfilm, less than a year after buying its parent company.

The move shifts game development at the company, which included titles for both PCs and consoles, from an internal model to an outside licensing business. The company plans to pay third-party developers to make future games that would then be licensed by Lucasfilm.
Video games will still be part of Lucasfilm’s business but will be developed by outside companies, Lucasfilm spokeswoman Barbara Gamlen said. As to whether LucasArts will continue to exist as a licensing company or be shut down, “no decisions have been made yet,” she said.
“We’ve moved to a different structure and are considering whether we market under the LucasArts brand name,” Gamlen added.
The business model is aimed at “minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality ‘Star Wars’ games,” LucasArts said in a statement.
Star Wars titles were a staple at LucasArts, which was founded in 1982 by filmmaker George Lucas. Recent titles included “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Star Wars: The Old Republic” and “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.”
Other popular LucasArts titles included “Maniac Mansion,” “The Secret of Monkey Island” and “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.”
The change will bring layoffs across the organization, though the specific number of employees losing their jobs was not immediately clear, Lucasfilm’s Gamlen said.
The decision to move LucasArts to an outside licensing model was made following George Lucas’ retirement from Lucasfilm and the appointment of film producer Kathleen Kennedy as president. The next trilogy of Star Wars films will also be a major focus of the company going forward, Gamlen said.
“Star Wars: 1313″ and “Star Wars: First Assault” have been hotly anticipated new game titles. Gamlen did not know whether those titles would be licensed out or if they would die.
Disney acquired Lucasfilm last October in a stock and cash transaction valued at US$4.05 billion.
Development facilities at LucasArts were located in San Francisco and Singapore.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach’s e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com

Disney zaps in-house game development at LucasArts
Computerworld Articles
Powered by WizardRSS:

Disney zaps in-house game development at LucasArts

read more

Startup making cheap 3-D printers

(CNN) — There is no shortage of amazing industrial commercial applications for 3-D printing — internal organs, stem cells, artificial limbs, art, cars, customizable furniture.

But if you had a 3-D printer sitting on your desk at home, what would you make?

Some people know immediately: They’d create physical Minecraft models, make manga figurines, pop out replacement parts for a motorcycle. But most people will likely see a 3-D printer, think it’s cool, then have no idea what to do next and move on.

That could change, though, as dirt-cheap 3-D printers like the Printrbot or new MakiBox simplify the technology and put it in more people’s hands and home offices.

“The market for desktop 3-D printers right now is really makers, professional users and people who have a lot of patience and time,” said Jonathan Buford, the entrepreneur behind the $200 MakiBox 3-D printer.

The MakiBox attempts to simplify 3-D printing for a more consumer-friendly experience, by lowering the price and reducing the complexity of assembling the devices and minting objects. Amateurs, basement inventors and hobbyists with no experience printing in three dimensions can jump right in and start experimenting with minimal investment.

There are trade-offs, of course. The $200 version uses only the less expensive PLA plastic, which can melt at a lower temperature than other materials. A $300 version of the printer is available that can work with more substances. The final products will be a step down from what you could make with more professional machines.

“We’re not optimizing on quality because we think there’s actually room for ‘good enough,’” said Buford.

The idea for MakiBox grew out of the Makible crowdfunding site. The project’s goal was to connect the dots between product prototypes, crowdfunding, and the eventual manufacturing process. Say a product designer comes up with an idea for a pedometer armband. He could raise money from interested mall-walkers, then be guided through the product manufacturing process.

Buford has unique experience in all three areas. Based in Hong Kong, he studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and has worked as a toy designer.

In 2005, he struck out on his own, crowdfunding a product before starting a co-working space in Hong Hong called Boot.hk. He launched Makible in 2011.

To get the ball rolling and generate interest in the site, Makible posted a seed project the team had been working on internally: a cheap and fast 3-D printer. Posted in January 2012, the MakiBox kit was priced at $350 and aimed at entry-level consumers who didn’t want to drop thousands of dollars on a higher-end desktop 3-D printer like the MakerBot Replicator ($2,000).

It quickly raised $100,000, and the team pushed aside the crowdsourcing idea to work full time on the 3-D printer.

Now a staff of six full-time employees is perfecting and shipping beta versions of the MakiBox A6 for $200, feeling out the nascent market for cheap 3-D printers.

Buford thinks that if the technology becomes more accessible, creative people will come up with broader applications we haven’t thought of yet, and desktop 3-D printer sales could take off.

Or the 3-D printer could go the way of the home photo printer. When personal photo printers first debuted, there was a spike in sales, but slowly the demand dropped. People weren’t printing out as many photos, and if they did it was generally cheaper and easier to have them done by one of the photo services with higher-end printers, such as Wal-Mart or Shutterfly.

Staples has already announced plans to offer 3-D printing services in some stores.

“I’m not really sure there is an established market for this or that people do know what they’re going to use it for,” said Buford. “It’s a Wild West market right now; we don’t really know where it’s going to end up.”

Over the next six months, Buford plans to contine rolling out the MaxiBox while also returning to the idea of connecting engineers, inventors and product developers to the sometimes confusing world of manufacturing. He’s already seeing a surge in everyday devices that connect to the Internet and is working with local entrepreneurs in Hong Kong.

“What we’re looking at doing is developing tech that bridges that gap between traditional manufacturing and 3-D printing,” Buford said.

Part-time inventors experimenting on cheap 3-D printers might be the next wave of people seeking out his help.

Startup making cheap 3-D printers
CNN.com – Technology
Powered by WizardRSS: CNN.com delivers up-to-the-minute news and information on the latest top stories, weather, entertainment, politics and more.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.e/img/1.0/logo/cnn.logo.rss.gif

Startup making cheap 3-D printers

read more

What to Expect at Facebook's Event

Today the cellphone celebrates its 40th anniversary and tomorrow Facebook makes its foray into the cellphone market.
Or at least that’s what the rumors and reports point to. Tomorrow, April 4, Facebook has invited press to its Menlo Park, Calif., campus to show off its “new home on Android.” However, even before the announcement of the event last week, rumors had been swirling that social network was working on its own phone.
Here’s a guide to the latest speculation about Facebook’s plans. Will any of them hold true? We’ll know all for sure tomorrow when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage to tell us what Facebook really has in store.
Facebook Home: Facebook’s New Android Software
Sources have reported that Facebook is going to unveil its own software that runs on top of Android. Similar to how HTC and Samsung reskin Google’s Android operating system on their phones, Facebook has been hard at work on a set of widgets and homescreens that put Facebook front and center on the phone.

According to 9to5Google, the software is actually called Facebook Home. Yes, Facebook’s clever “Come See Your Home on Android” invite was more cryptic than we thought. 9to5Google and Twitter user @evleaks have also posted some photos of the software. From the images it looks like Facebook has reworked the homescreen to focus on, well, Facebook. It appears that you can update your Facebook profile from any of the screens and see your newest messages or updates right on the main or lock screen.
HTC First: First Phone Made by HTC
But that software needs a home and it is reported by a number of outlets, including TechCrunch, The New York Times and 9to5Google that Facebook will announce that its new Facebook Home software will be available first on an HTC phone. It is said to be called the “HTC First” phone. HTC, a Taiwanese phone maker, made a phone in 2011 that focused on Facebook; it was called the HTC Status.
According to Android Police, the phone, which has been codenamed the HTC Myst, will have a dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera and a 4.3-inch 720p display. According to more photos that have been leaked by @evleaks, the phone will come in an assortment of colors.
Other Facebook Phones to Come
But the First will just be the first. According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been aiming to work with other phone makers. “The company now offers an app for Android devices, but through agreements with smartphone makers would make news feeds and other information immediately viewable,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Tomorrow we’ll separate rumor from fact, when Facebook’s event kicks off at 10 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET.

What to Expect at Facebook’s Event
ABC News: Technology
Powered by WizardRSS: ABC News: Technology
http://a.abcnews.com/images/site/abcnews_google_rss_logo.png

What to Expect at Facebook's Event

read more

Saudi orders telcos to ensure Skype, Whatsapp meet local laws

RIYADH |
Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:31am EDT

RIYADH (Reuters) – Some Internet-based communication tools such as Skype and Whatsapp flout Saudi Arabia’s telecom laws, the regulator said on Sunday, instructing telecom operators to quickly ensure these services comply.

The announcement from the kingdom’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) follows local newspaper reports last week that claimed the government had asked telecom companies to look at ways to monitor or block these services.
“It has become evident that some communication applications through (the) Internet don’t meet regulatory requirements,” CITC said in a statement on its website.
“The authority has informed licensed (telecom) providers of the need to work with the developers of these applications to quickly meet these requirements.”
The statement listed Voice over IP (VoIP) providers Skype and Viber as well as Internet-based instant messaging service Whatsapp.
But it did not state what laws these applications had flouted, how long they would be given to comply with the regulations or what action would be taken if they failed to heed the instruction.
The CITC said it was acting to “protect society from any negative aspects that could harm the public interest”.
Saudi’s three mobile operators – Saudi Telecom Co, Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Zain Saudi – were not immediately available for comment.
The kingdom appears to making a greater push for greater control over cyberspace as Internet and smart phone usage soars, in part due to strict laws that limit opportunities for people to mix.
Mobile penetration was 188 percent by the end of 2012, CITC data shows. Saudi now has 15.8 million Internet subscribers and the average user watches three times as many online videos per day as counterparts in the United States, according to YouTube.
On Saturday, the English-language Arab News daily said Saudi Arabia may try to end anonymity for Twitter users in the country by limiting access to the site to people who register their identification documents, although it was unclear how such restrictions could be enforced.
Telecom operators can block content and access to particular sites, but this becomes more difficult if a user already has the application installed on a device.
For example, Skype and other foreign-based VoIP providers are widely used in the neighboring United Arab Emirates, despite an official ban, with residents downloading the software via virtual private networks or while abroad. Once installed, these can be used inside the UAE.
(Reporting by Marwa Rashad and Reem Shamseddine; Writing by Matt Smith; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Saudi orders telcos to ensure Skype, Whatsapp meet local laws
Reuters: Technology News
Powered by WizardRSS: Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world’s media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals.
http://www.reuters.com/resources_v2/images/reuters125.png

Saudi orders telcos to ensure Skype, Whatsapp meet local laws

read more

Facebook Photo Uploads Double for HRC's Equal Sign

By Joanna Stern
@joannastern
Follow on Twitter

Credit: Facebook

We knew that the Human Right Campaign’s (HRC) red and pink logo in support of gay marriage had spread across the web at a record pace, but Facebook is now confirming that with some numbers.
Facebook says that millions of people change their profile photos every day, but on Tuesday, March 26, the day the HRC asked gay marriage supporters to “paint the town red” with a new logo, 2.7 million  more users changed their photo compared with the previous Tuesday. Profile photo uploads were up by 120 percent, it says. Facebook has more than a billion users.
Facebook doesn’t have exact numbers on whether all those users changed it to the pink and red logo or some variation of it. Facebook did confirm that the rise in uploads occurred after the HRC released its status message encouraging people to change their pictures in support of gay marriage.
“We find that the increase in uploads does indeed start around the time when HRC began urging their Facebook followers to change their profile photos at 1 p.m. EST,” Facebook’s Data Science Team said in a blog post today.
RELATED SLIDESHOW: Pizza and Bacon: The Red Equality Symbols of Social Media
Wondering how old many of the profile photo-switchers were? Facebook also says that more people around age 30 changed their profile photo, in comparison to the previous Tuesday. According to the data, “roughly 3.5 percent of 30-year-old Facebook users updated their profiles in response to the events surrounding the HRC campaign.”
Counties with bolder colors had more photo-switchers. (Credit: Facebook)
According to the released data, support shown via the photo change was spread across the country, but a county in Michigan — Wahtenaw County — topped the list, with approximately 6.2 percent of people who logged in from that county changing their profile photo in response to the campaign. It also appears that people in college towns were more apt to change their photos; among the highest towns were Orange (University of North Carolina), Durham (Duke University) and Monroe (Indiana University). San Francisco County and Washington, D.C., also ranked highly.
Since being released on Tuesday, the logo has made its way around the web in many different incarnations.

Facebook Photo Uploads Double for HRC’s Equal Sign
ABC News: Technology
Powered by WizardRSS: ABC News: Technology
http://a.abcnews.com/images/site/abcnews_google_rss_logo.png

Facebook Photo Uploads Double for HRC's Equal Sign

read more

Google Keep vs. Evernote: No Clear Winner

Note to self: Google’s recently released Keep app apes Evernote’s note-taking skills, but with a simpler look and fewer features.

We’ve all heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But when a tech heavyweight like Google imitates a popular tool like the note-taking app Evernote, it can feel more like a land grab.
At least, that’s what I figured last week when Google announced Keep, a free smartphone app that, like the free version of Evernote, lets you quickly make and organize notes that are automatically stored online and can be accessed on multiple devices. Though Keep may eventually work its way over to the iPhone and other mobile and desktop platforms, as Evernote has already done, it’s currently just available for Android users.
Keep is well-designed, and it’s already snagging fans of its own (in the Google Play store it has nearly 11,000 reviews, averaging four-and-a-half stars). Yet after comparing Keep to Evernote, I doubt that Google’s new arrival is actually a bad thing for the incumbent—it’s not nearly as advanced, and it actually looks to be boosting its predecessor’s popularity.
Keep’s main features closely mirror those of Evernote: you can take notes that include text, audio, and photos, and make checklists. Your notes are synced with an online server—in the case of Keep, they’re stored in your free Google Drive online storage account—and you can edit notes on the Web, too.
On the surface, Keep’s main difference is its “Googley” design, which contrasts with Evernote’s busy, green-accented, multi-screen design for Android (on iPhone, Evernote goes for a more skeumorphic look, complete with little file folders). Keep features a barely gray background punctuated by a narrow bar near the top of the screen that lets you make quick notes or tap one of several gray icons to pull up a blank page where you may create a text note, a list, a note with a photo in it, or an audio note (which Google transcribes, sometimes erroneously).
A simple but smart touch is the ability to give notes different background colors. Marking important ones with bright hues and arranging notes as small squares on Keep’s home screen really does make it easier to keep things organized. Another smart design decision: when checking off an item on a list, Keep strikes through the text and lightens it from black to gray to emphasize its status as “done.”
Other notable features include the ability to unclutter an overflowing notes page by swiping old or unimportant notes left or right to archive them, as well as live search—I only had to type “mon” for Keep to know I wanted a list including such fictional tasks as “Get monkey chow.”
One concern with Google Keep is whether the app, which encourages diverse and consistent usage, will be available for long. Google doesn’t have the best reputation for supporting side projects over the long haul—just ask fans of Google Reader, which the search company is shutting down in July, or visit this helpful Google Graveyard that Slate recently compiled and lay digital flowers on the graves of various departed services. I’m optimistic that my notes’ home in Google Drive, at least, will be around for some time—that service has lasted for years thus far.
You can only do a fraction of the things with Keep that you can with Evernote. You can’t, for instance, sort notes into different “notebooks,” add attachments to notes, or combine checklists with regular text notes or audio notes. Of course, Evernote also has a huge head start. It has been publicly available since 2008.
The free version of the Evernote app, whose Android and Windows Phone versions received light facelifts several days after the arrival of Keep, presents a slew of editing and formatting options. Want a bullet-pointed list? A numbered list? A checklist? No problem. It also offers more flexibility with combining different types of media in a single note, meaning you can do things like take multiple photos at one time and append a few of them to a note, or create a note with voice, text, and photo elements. You can even see where you took each note in Evernote’s map view—a depressing sight for those of us who apparently don’t get out enough.
One of Evernote’s standout features, which is lacking in Keep, is its use of optical character recognition technology, which enables searches of the words in documents you’ve snapped pictures of. It takes a few minutes for Evernote to process the documents, but once it’s done, it works well.

It’s also easy to use Evernote on many different devices. While Keep is only available as an Android app and on the Web, there are Evernote apps for all the major mobile and desktop operating systems, along with Web browser extensions that make it easier to clip and save URLs, articles, and Web pages to your Evernote account. I took a shine to the Evernote Web Clipper for Firefox.
The biggest shortcomings with Evernote are its organization, which can feel cluttered as you start filling up notebooks with numerous notes, and the small monthly upload allowance that freeloaders get (60 megabytes, though Evernote helpfully points out how much you’ve used and about how many notes you can still make until your balance refills). Keep, meanwhile, feels cleaner—even with plenty of notes—and you get five gigabytes of free storage in Google Drive.
So who wins? It pains me to be so diplomatic, but it really depends.
If you need a robust note-taking app for everything from saving recipes to jotting down song lyrics, Evernote is the one. Beyond all the free features within Evernote itself, the company also offers a number of free complementary apps, like Skitch, which lets you draw on top of photos and maps. It’s so good you may even want to join the minority of users who pay a monthly fee to get additional features like increased note-storage space and the ability to view old versions of notes.
If, however, you’re a fan of Google’s apps and just want a clean-looking, low-frills notes app with plenty of free storage, Google Keep will win your heart. It’s likely to get more functions over time, a la Google Now (see “Google Now Gets More Travel-Friendly for the Holidays”).
And if, like me, you see the merits of both, that works, too: thankfully you can share Keep notes with Evernote, and vice versa.

Google Keep vs. Evernote: No Clear Winner
Computing – MIT Technology Review
Powered by WizardRSS:

Google Keep vs. Evernote: No Clear Winner

read more

Understand How GPS Works

Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigational aid originally developed for the military. The system simply receives signals. It is the applied technology that gives the GPS its versatility.
If you have ever used map and compass, you will understand a little about how the GPS
works. In order to find your position on a map, you need to have three points of
reference. The intersecting line from the reference points is where you are. Map and
compass work uses triangulation (bearings), GPS uses trilateration (distances) to calculate location. Satellites orbiting the earth emit unique signals that can be received by a GPS. The GPS software interprets the signal, identifying the satellite that it came from, where it was located, and the time that it took for the signal to reach the system. Once the receiver has both time and distance it begins to determine position.
Three satellites provide the intersection point and the fourth is used to check that the positioning is accurate. Accuracy depends upon the synchronization of atomic clocks in the satellites with the clock in the GPS system. Although the clock in the GPS is not atomic, utilizing the fourth satellite gives it that functionality as the internal clock adjusts itself to correct any discrepancy discovered.
GPS has gone far beyond its initial military application. Drivers can find their way
through city streets, long distance trekkers use the technology to cross unfamiliar terrain, mariners and pilots use GPS enhanced data to cross the seas and skies.
In–vehicle GPS can be integrated into the car entertainment system or can be installed as a removable device. These systems need to tell the driver where he/she is and how to
reach their destination. The information includes road directions plus relevant features along the way such as rest stops, gas stations, points of interest, etc. Auto GPS uses voice commands so that the driver can concentrate on the road.
Hikers and trekkers use similar technology, but normally without the inclusion of road
systems on their devices. Mapping software defines the territory that the hiker will
encounter. The user can enter waypoints (points of reference) so they can return using the same route. They can add points of interest such as water sources, possible campsites, and other items of interest on their trail. However, the portability demanded by hikers will also limit the functionality of the system as small screens mean that some detail will be lost.
It is GPS technology that is used to track individuals on home arrest, to trace missing
pets, stolen vehicles, and missing people. Small systems can be incorporated into pet
collars and wristwatches. As long as the receiver is active, it can be found.
Marine and aviation GPS units are sophisticated and specialized. The principles involved are the same as any standard system; the software is much more highly developed.
Any fisherman, who is using a fish finder on his boat, is using a GPS that is enhanced by
sonar and tracking devices. Units have been developed for use on float tubes also -– as
GPS technology advances, the systems become more and more compact and their uses
more and more extensive.
If you are considering purchasing a GPS, make sure that it can be updated easily. This is especially true if you buy a multi–function GPS or one that is used where conditions change regularly. An in–vehicle GPS soon loses its usefulness if it is not updated as road systems change.
Updates vary according to the device being used. They can come in CD/DVD packages
or as computer downloads. The user can purchase maps specific to the area in which the GPS will be used or a range of maps and routes. These are available from GPS software companies who will charge proportionally to the sophistication of the software.

GPS units vary in price according to their usefulness. It is possible to buy units for less than one hundred dollars to units costing more than one thousand dollars. What your needs are will be a factor in the cost of your unit. If you are a backpacker then portability is a major consideration. If you are a trucker, you need to be able to find a delivery point as quickly and conveniently as possible. Whatever device you go for, cost is generally related to quality. Buy the best you can afford.



Understand How GPS Works

read more