Techno-News Blog Ray Schroeder, editor, OTEL - University of Illinois at Springfield |
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Monday, April 26, 2010
Update of Techno-News Blog!
Hi! After a decade, it is time to update the "look" of the Techno-News blog. You will see a "new" blog later this week. The content and publication schedule will remain the same. The URL will remain the same. The RSS feed will continue at: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/Techno-newsBlog. Email delivery will continue as before. I hope that you find our new blog will continue to be a valuable resource to you in using online learning technologies to enhance teaching and learning. Best, Ray Schroeder, editor
Meet Marty Cooper - the inventor of the mobile phone - BBC
Martin Cooper may not be a household name, but his invention is familiar to more than half the planet's population who own a mobile phone. The concept of a handheld phone was his brainchild, and with the help of his Motorola team, the first handset was born in 1973 weighing in at two kilos. When he stood on a New York street and made the first phone call from a prototype cellular phone, he could not have conceived how successful it would become.
Tech helps people not to get lost in translation - BBC
Tourists who get tongue-tied abroad can get a helping hand from a portable translator and dictionary. David Reid finds out how net users can also overcome language barriers with instant and live translation tools online.
Security update hits Windows PCs - BBC
Thousands of PCs around the world have been paralysed by a security update that wrongly labelled part of Windows as a virus. The update was sent out by security firm McAfee and made affected PCs endlessly restart. Corporate customers of McAfee seemed to be hardest hit but some individuals reported problems too. McAfee apologised for the mistake and released a fix to ensure PCs started working again. Sunday, April 25, 2010
Cybercrime Needs to be Top Priority, Says Obama Aide - David Talbot, Technology Review
A top White House cybersecurity aide said yesterday that transnational cybercrime, such as thefts of credit-card numbers and corporate secrets, is a far more serious concern than "cyberwar" attacks against critical infrastructure such as the electricity grid. Christopher Painter, the White House's senior director for cybersecurity, made his comments at a conference arranged by top Russian cybersecurity officials in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Russia is a major source of cybercrime, but its government has declined to sign the European Convention on Cybercrime--the first international treaty on the subject. The treaty aims to harmonize national laws and allow for greater law-enforcement cooperation between nations.
A Flexible Color Display - Katherine Bourzac, Technology Review
Researchers at HP Labs are testing a flexible, full-color display that saves power by reflecting ambient light instead of using a backlight. The prototype display's pixels are controlled by fast-switching silicon transistors printed on top of plastic. If the technology can be commercialized, the display will compete with liquid crystal screens as well as other low-power color flexible displays in the works.
4G Wireless: It's Not Just for Phones Anymore - Erica Naone, Technology Review
Verizon is gearing up to launch its next wireless network technology, called Long Term Evolution (LTE), by the end of this year. While Verizon will, of course, still sell phones for this fourth generation (4G) network, it is also pushing to have it built into many other types of devices. LTE will run on the spectrum formerly used to send television signals, which Verizon licensed from the U.S. government in 2008. The company expects to be able to support about 100 million users by the end of the year. Saturday, April 24, 2010
iPad's international release delayed by Apple - BBC
Apple is to delay the international release of its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad, by one month. It will now launch the device around the world, including the UK, at the end of May, and will begin accepting pre-orders on 10 May. In a statement the company blamed demand for the device in the US, which it said had been "surprisingly strong". When the iPad launched in the US, 300,000 units were sold on its first day.
Congress to archive every tweet ever posted publicly - Maggie Shiels, BBC News
The Library of Congress is to archive every single public tweet ever made. Twitter says since they started in 2006, billions of tweets have been created and 55m are sent every day. The digital archive will include tweets from President Barack Obama on the day he was elected as well as the first tweet from co-founder Jack Dorsey. "I think it shows the tweets are an interesting part of the historical record," said Alex MacGillivray, Twitter's general counsel.
Twitter woos developers worried about being ditched - Maggie Shiels, BBC News
Twitter bosses pulled out all the stops to calm the nerves of jittery developers worried they will be be put out of business by the company's own apps. Twitter recently built an app for BlackBerry phones and bought the firm behind Tweetie for the iPhone. At its first developer conference called Chirp, Twitter announced plans for an app for Android phones. Friday, April 23, 2010
Infected XP owners left unpatched - BBC
Only those running Windows XP have been left without a patch. Some of the latest security updates for Windows XP will not be installed on machines infected with a rootkit virus. A rootkit is sneaky malware that buries itself deep inside the Windows operating system to avoid detection. Microsoft said it had taken the action because similar updates issued in February made machines infected with the Alureon rootkit crash endlessly.
Boost tech literacy? Try Texas history - Emily Peters, Abilene Reporter News
The sign on David Perry’s classroom door at Madison Middle School may perplex some. “Digital Texas History,” it reads, presenting a curious mélange of the modern and the past. But Perry, a former corporate computer trainer who was born on the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo, says teaching the mix of history and technology works just fine.
Braille group gets in touch with new technology - TMC Net
A $25,000 grant from the Norma B. Pfriem Foundation recently awarded to the CBA will help the organization's volunteers keep up with changing technology, as well as pay for the latest in software and hardware systems.These days, the books are translated using a computer -- a volunteer transcribes the book using the Word program, then either copy it to a disk or e-mail it to the CBA. There, a computer program translates the words into Braille and the pages of raised dots are printed and then bound by hand. Thursday, April 22, 2010
New Apple MacBook Pro Notebooks Rumored for Arrival ASAP - Michelle Maisto, eWeek
Are new Apple MacBook Pros coming? A Reddit user at Microcenter pointed out four new Apple SKUs in the store’s processing system, with price points that suggest MacBook Pro laptops. New Apple iPhones are widely expected to arrive in June, and it’s no secret that an iPhone OS 4 with multitasking is in the works. Word of new Apple MacBooks, however, is something few people likely saw coming.
Windows: Microsoft`s Kin One, Kin Two Smartphones Coming to Verizon - Nicholas Kolakowski, eWeek
Microsoft unveiled its Kin One and Kin Two smartphones during high-profile presentations in San Francisco and New York on April 12, showing off the devices targeted at a younger, social-networking-happy demographic. The Kin One is a compact device with a sliding form-factor, reminiscent in many ways of the Palm Pre, while the Kin Two is more akin in its length and heft to the Sidekick, another smartphone that was aimed at a social-centric audience. In addition to presenting an aggregation of social-networking feeds on its home screen, both the Kin One and Kin Two emphasize connectivity through embedded cameras capable of shooting video, and an online Kin Studio that uploads data from the phone to the cloud for later retrieval.
Data Storage: Toshiba, Seagate, Iomega Offer 1TB, 500GB Compact Storage Devices - Nathan Eddy, eWeek
Toshiba, Seagate, Iomega and other storage companies know that everyone needs a great deal of storage, whether it's for your epic Grateful Dead live concerts collection, photos from trips around the world or an album or two of your family, or the mountains of business files, documents and e-mails that never seem to cease flowing into your hard drive. With that in mind, here's a selection of high-capacity USB storage devices and external hard disk drives that pack an enormous amount of storage into a compact design. Because no matter how much data you may have, often the most important point is that you can carry it around with you when you want. Wednesday, April 21, 2010
HTC Droid Incredible Solidifies Elite Standing - Michelle Maisto, eWeek
HTC is now on the cutting edge, according to one analyst. Case in point is its newly introduced Droid Incredible and expectations of a record-breaking second quarter. Thanks largely to Google's Android OS, the handset maker has made itself a U.S. staple.
New Cloud Companies Bring Fresh Ideas to Under the Radar - Chris Preimesberger, eWeek
Cloud adoption, migration and various associated services are the overriding themes of the day at the Under the Radar conference, a chance for CEOs to impress a group of potential investors and reassure their original financial backers that they, indeed, have the right stuff to succeed in the current IT market.
Google Nexus One Smartphone is a Profitable Business, CFO Says - Clint Boulton, eWeek
Google CFO Patrick Pichette said Google's Nexus One is profitable, answering one of the pressing questions financial analysts posed soon after the device launched Jan. 5. However, he wouldn't disclose how many of the devices have been sold or other core economics. Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter said he estimated Nexus One unit sales at 200,000 units, contributing $106 million or 2 percent of Google's net revenue. That figure stands to increase when Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and Sprint begin offering wireless plans for the device this year. Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Do online friends influence drinking habits? - Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNet news.com
Think you're not molded by family and friends? Think again. A Harvard University researcher who analyzed data from the Framingham Heart Study--tracking various habits of 12,067 people for 32 years--concludes that a person's social network plays a major role in determining one's level of alcohol consumption. (The study appears this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.)
Gmail's 'peek' mode is good for Netbook screens - Josh Lowensohn, CNet news.com
Early adopters of Netbooks have a nice new option in Gmail, courtesy of a labs update that went out Thursday. The feature, called "message sneak peek" is a simple pop-up preview of the message. It's not a full version of the message, but in most cases it's enough to read the entire thing without having to leave your in-box. The peek feature must first be turned on in labs. It can then can be summoned by hitting the "H" key on your keyboard (if you have a message selected), or by right-clicking on a message.
Video: 3D TV: Hot or hype? - CNet news.com
Video: 3D TV: Hot or hype? - Video summary by CNet examines 3D - current and future. |
