Tech News

By: Associated Press
Source Website: foxnews.com/scitech
Lot #: 4

Cash, coins and credit cards are so Twentieth Century.

At least, that’s the opinion of the electronics manufacturers, phone companies, banks and credit card issuers that expect cellphones to be the main way consumers pay for purchases in the not-so-distant future.

The trouble is, that vision-of-tomorrow is somewhat blurry, as evidenced at the U.S. cellphone industry trade show held this week in New Orleans. There are a lot of ideas, but little agreement.

The stakes, however, are high.

“Eighty-five percent of the world’s transactions are still made with cash and checks. We have a wonderful opportunity to convert those,” said Gary Flood, MasterCard’s president of global products and solutions, in a keynote speech at the show.

One concept that gets a lot of attention is the “digital wallet” — a virtual repository for our credit card numbers, receipts, coupons. It’s not much different from a PayPal account, which can be linked to different cards. A lot of companies see the wallet as the key to influence in the world of mobile payments, especially if it sits on a cellphone, not just on a PC. Google introduced its Wallet last year. It’s available on a few phones that can be tapped against certain payment terminals to complete a payment.

Andrew Lorentz, a lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP who works with the payments industry, said at the show that if he had a dime for every digital wallet that’s been announced, he’d be rich.

“I can have more wallets than cards,” he said.

At the show, MasterCard announced a service that could speed up wallet proliferation even more. The company’s idea is to let any company that wants to set up its own wallet.

“The idea behind this is: How do we get more wallets and more innovation?” said Ed Olebe, MasterCard’s senior vice president of e-commerce development.

Consumers trust their banks, he said, and might want to keep their cards in a bank-branded wallet. Banks, meanwhile, want to extend their relationships with customers, tying them closer. Stores may also want their own wallets, taking the step up from issuing loyalty and credit cards.

MasterCard’s wallet, revealed at the show, will be live this fall and ready for purchases on Barnes & Noble’s website and through the American Airlines phone app. Instead of entering credit card numbers, users on those sites will be able to tap a button, jump to their wallets, pick a card and check out.

A crucial question is what information the wallet issuer will be able to see about a consumer’s transactions. There’s valuable information there that could be used to target marketing offers or for loyalty programs. MasterCard is still working out those details, Olebe said.

“There’s a myriad of laws and rules we have to apply,” he said. “We don’t want to push the envelope on that.”

There’s no guarantee that MasterCard’s wallets will work on phones for tap-to-pay transactions at the register, either. MasterCard is taking a “wait and see” approach to that, Olebe said.

MasterCard competitor Visa is more bullish about tap-to-pay phones. It has an online wallet like MasterCard, but also a wallet application designed to work on smartphones with built-in Near-Field Communications, which enables tap-to-pay transactions. But so far, the few smartphones in U.S. stores that have NFC chips work only with Google’s Wallet. What’s holding Visa and others back, said John Partridge, the president of Visa, is that the U.S. phone companies have to allow the banks to load cards for use on phones.

Naturally, the phone companies have their own ideas about how digital payments will look in the future. Sprint Nextel Corp. is collaborating with Google and its Wallet, while the rest of the Big 4 national wireless carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA, have formed a consortium to create their own wallet.

The phone companies are “earnestly trying to adapt to the new ecosystem,” said Bill Greenwell, the CEO of BilltoMobile. “”But there’s certainly friction on the legal side and the business side.”

His company lets people pay for things through their phones and have the charges appear on their phone bills.

Visa is getting a break at the Summer Olympics in London, where athletes and VIPs will be using the NFC-equipped Samsung Galaxy S III phones with prepaid Visa cards already loaded to make payments.

While paying for things with phones is still in its infancy, accepting payments with phones is already easy. VeriFone Systems Inc., the largest maker of credit-card terminals in the U.S., announced “Sail” at the show. It’s a thumbs-sized card reader that plugs into a smartphone, letting anyone who sets up an account accept credit-card payments. It’s VeriFone’s answer to similar products from financial software-maker Intuit Inc. and startup Square, already in use in New Orleans taxi cabs.

Much like its competitors, VeriFone will send the card readers out for free by mail to anyone who signs up, and will charge 2.7 percent of the amount of any transaction, or less if the user pays monthly fees.

VeriFone’s unique advantage is that its phone-based card readers can be combined with more full-featured smartphone jackets that accept chip-based cards, or full-blown payment terminals, said Dave Talach, VeriFone’s vice president of strategic development.

VeriFone’s latest terminals are by default capable of accept tap-to-pay transactions, unlike the previous generation. But it will take time for these terminals to replace the old ones. Stores switch them out after three to five years, Talach estimates. That’s down from a five-to-seven year cycle earlier, but ponderous compared to the pace of the cellphone world, where a phone is outdated after a year.

“The industry doesn’t move as fast as I’d like it to,” Talach said.

[Original Article]

By: Associated Press
Source Website: foxnews.com/SciTech
Lot #: 4

Nevada has granted Google what is believed to be the first U.S. license to test driverless cars, Fox 5 reports.

The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles announced Monday it has approved Google’s application to test the autonomous vehicles on public streets. However, the DMV will require at least two people in the vehicles during testing, including one in the driver’s seat.

Before it was approved, the car was tested on freeways and in neighborhoods around Carson City and Las Vegas, Fox 5 reports. The tests showed the car was just as safe, if not safer, than a human driver.

“It gets honked at more often because it’s being safe,” said Nevada DMV Director Bruce Breslow.

Self-driving vehicle technology works like auto-pilot to guide a car with little or no intervention from a human operator. Laser radar mounted on the roof and in the grill detects pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles, creating a virtual buffer zone around the obstacles that the car then avoids.

If there is a glitch, the human driver can take over simply by tapping the brake or turning the steering wheel.

The driverless vehicles being tested will be denoted by red license plates, Fox 5 reports. The license plates also have an infinity symbol on them, which the DMV says represents their status as “the car of the future.”

The DMV says if and when the cars begin to be used by the general public, the license plates will be green.

In February, state lawmakers passed regulations making Nevada the first state to set rules for autonomous vehicle testing.

“These regulations establish requirements companies must meet to test their vehicles on Nevada’s public roadways as well as requirements for residents to legally operate them in the future,” DMV Director Bruce Breslow told Fox 5.

Last summer, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval took the car for a spin in and around the state’s quiet capital city. But Las Vegas Boulevard, where costumed superheroes routinely take the crosswalks and massive billboards angle for the attention of starry-eyed tourists, was perhaps best suited to test the car’s main purpose.

“They’re designed to avoid distracted driving,” Breslow said. “When you’re on the Strip and there’s a huge truck with a three scantily clad women on the side, the car only sees a box.”

[Original Article]

By: Associated Press
Source Website: foxnews.com
Lot #: 3

The House, despite White House objections, has passed a cybersecurity bill aimed at helping stop electronic attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure and companies.

The vote was 248-168 on Thursday. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA, intends to defend U.S. industries and corporate networks against the threat of cyberattacks.

Under CISPA, private companies could voluntarily share information with other companies and the federal government regarding cyber threats.

But critics, including the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), say it encroaches on civil liberties by allowing internet companies to share information about what their customers do online with the IRS, Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency.

“Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive,” the OMB said in an argument against the bill. “Moreover, information sharing, while an essential component of comprehensive legislation, is not alone enough to protect the Nation’s core critical infrastructure from cyber threats.”

The White House has threatened a veto, saying the bill fails to protect Americans’ privacy.

The administration instead supports a bill in the Senate written by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), which would give the Department of Homeland Security authority to set new cybersecurity standards.

The Senate bill remains stalled, facing opposition from some senior Republicans.

[Original Article]

By: Doug Gross
Source Website: cnn.com/TECH
Lot #: 3

Google expanded the digital world of cloud computing on Tuesday, announcing the rollout of ”Google Drive.”

The service, which will give users 5GB of free remote storage and additional space for a monthly fee, puts the Web giant in competition with Apple and Microsoft, as well as specialized services like Box and Dropbox, in a space that increasingly looks like the future of computing.

“This is really just the next step in the evolution of Google Cloud,” Scott Johnston, group product manager for Google Drive, told CNN. “It’s really letting people live more in the cloud by connecting them more easily with all the devices they have.”

Google Cloud already lets users store e-mail and other documents.

Cloud computing allows users to store documents and files, even large ones, on remote servers. Its promise is to make storage space on physical hard drives less important, as well as making it easier to seamlessly share, either with others or between multiple devices like laptops, phones and tablets.

“Google Drive is everywhere you are — on the web, in your home, at the office and on the go,” reads Google’s promotional page for the service. “So wherever you are, your stuff is just … there. Ready to go, ready to share.”

Google Drive will launch with an Android app for smartphones and tablets running Google’s mobile operating system and in conjunction with 20 third-party apps.

As one might expect with a Google product, a big feature of Google Drive is a search feature that will allow users to comb through more than 30 types of files, such as Google docs or PDFs. There’s also a limited image-search feature, driven by Google Goggles technology, that can recognize famous faces and landmarks, such as Mount Everest.

The service will immediately be available for PCs and Macs, as well as Android. iPhone and iPad availability is promised soon.

Users may upgrade to 25GB of storage for as little as $2.50 a month, Google says.

As more computer users are accessing the Web or doing work on multiple devices, cloud storage has rapidly evolved as a popular alternative to hard drives.

Just this week, Microsoft expanded its SkyDrive product, offering up to 100GB of storage and adding access for the iPhone, iPad and Windows phones.

Apple’s iCloud service has been available since last June and,according to Apple, has more than 100 million users. And Dropbox, the leading independent cloud-storage service, reportedly has racked up another 50 million.

Some observers are dinging Google for being late to expand its cloud offerings.

“Google Drive is a late entrant to the file sharing space and is no doubt a direct response to the success and popularity that consumer file sync services are experiencing,” said Jesse Lipson, vice-president of data-sharing at Citrix.

“The addition of Google Drive to the cloud storage landscape will make it even more competitive but with Apple, Amazon and Microsoft having offered services for some time, most providers have already got used to swimming with sharks and not getting eaten.”

But others say that with a player as major as Google, even a late entrance in the market will have an impact.

“Google Drive is significant because now all Google account holders have one click signup to free file storage, sync and sharing, which has the potential to quickly build a large volume of users,” said Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett.

“Integration with Google Docs/Apps and eventually with Gmail will make it more natural and seamless than managing from a separate account … so, Google Drive will cause more individuals to begin using personal cloud services and more companies, those that use Google Apps, to use cloud-based file sync and sharing.”

[Original Article]

By: Staff Writer
Source Website: cnn.com
Lot #: 3

Every morning, Dirk Dallas takes a trip around the world. With his own eyes, he studies artful, real-time images of life in New York, Paris and Hong Kong.

But Dallas, a graphic designer, doesn’t actually leave his Riverside, California, neighborhood, or even his front door. He just needs his phone and a digital portal called Instagram.

“It’s like taking a vacation every day,” said Dallas. “Instagram is different than any other social network I’ve been on.”

The freedom to share and connect with users across the globe is big part of what keeps Dallas coming back to Instagram, the wildly popular mobile photo sharing app, again and again. It’s that same appeal, Dallas figures, which led to Facebook’s stunning purchase of Instagram this week — the single largest acquisition in that social network’s 8-year history.

“Facebook isn’t buying an app; they are buying us,” said Dallas. “They are buying a community.”

Facebook turned the tech world on its head Monday when the social media giant laid down a whopping $1 billion in cash and stock options to gobble up Instagram, a scrappy, San Francisco-based startup with just 13 suddenly very rich employees.

Instagram has seen explosive growth, racking up more than 35 million registered downloads in just 18 months. Its community doubled in size the last five months alone — turbocharged in part by the release of its long-awaited Android version last week — which propelled a million new users to sign up in the first 24 hours.

On Tuesday, propelled by a wave of publicity, the free app hit the #1 spot on Apple’s App Store for the first time ever.

The billion-dollar question still looms, of course: Why would the world’s largest photo-sharing platform fork over so much money for a tiny company that was evaluated at half that price? Business analysts and tech geeks have speculated on the motives, but the heart of answer just might lie in the passion of Instagram’s most invested users.

At its core, Instagram is a remarkably simple way to share mobile photos. Users snap pictures, enhance them with filters that add an arty or vintage look, and share them with their followers. As on Twitter, users can follow other Instagrammers, whose photos then show up in their streams. Users can “like” or comment on photos, as they can on Facebook.

But to many of its most loyal users, Instagram is much more — a creative outlet, a place to be inspired every day and a platform to make new friends.

“Instagram has changed my life,” said Bex Finch, who has more than 100,000 followers on the network. “I love being able to share my world with people I don’t know but [who] inspire me.”

But Finch, a San Francisco-based photographer who says she has landed gigs by connecting with clients via the app, is worried a massive influx of new Facebook users could spell the end of Instagam’s charm.

“Maybe Instagram has played its role,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to move on.”

The blogosphere in recent days has been full of similar complaints from Instagram users worried that Facebook will sell their personal data or pollute their photo streams with ads. Photographer Benjamin Heath is more cautiously optimistic.

“Let’s wait and see what happens before we pass judgment,” said Heath, who also lives in San Francisco.

“Of course I would be very angry if Instagram became something I no longer want to use,” he said. “But there’s no reason to suspect that yet.”

Heath believes there could be a silver lining as the service skyrockets in popularity: improved features such as adjustable filters, perhaps, or an easier way to keep track of talented users.

With more than 800 million users, Facebook knows a little something about scale. And Instagram’s rapid growth has created its own bumps along the way.

Early adopters have complained that Instagram’s “popular page” has become nearly impossible to reach and is often filled with photos that people did not take themselves — too many semi-clothed teens, for example, or Justin Bieber tributes. Longtime Instagrammers gripe that some users are there merely to gain followers, not necessarily to join what Shah Kashani describes as a “thriving community of like-minded people thirsty for photography.”

“I’m just as much a viewer as I am a photographer,” said Kashani, a web developer from Brooklyn, New York. “And that’s the same with everyone, so there’s this constant feedback loop. It almost feels like this collaboration in becoming better photographers.”

Kashani wants to keep his Facebook and Instagram accounts, and communities, separate.

“The problem with my Facebook is it’s all over the place,” Kashani said. “I’m connected to colleagues, family, and friends, but I feel like I’m forcing my photography on Facebook.”

Serge Najjar, a lawyer in Beirut, doesn’t have a Facebook account. Nor does he want anything to do with it.

“It’s always a new challenge to put up with change,” Najjar said. “What I fear is Instagram losing its simple approach. It’s a very pure, social, exchange between people who share the same passion.”

Dallas, the Riverside Instagrammer, also is concerned about Facebook’s vast reach.

“Instagram is a very small team. They are nimble and fast and can make decisions,” he said. “My fear is that now there will be more layers to this creative process.”

Ike Edeani, a graphic designer in San Francisco, bought his first iPhone partly so he could download Instagram. He admits he can easily spend four hours a day interacting with the app’s visual community.

“I don’t really get excited about posting photos to Facebook,” Edeani said. “But that’s exactly how I feel when posting to Instagram.”

Edeani says that by treating his phone like a camera, he is more open to exploration.

“Instagram reawakened my creativity in a lot of ways,” he said. “I’ve learned to react to that spark — when I see something just walking around — and not just dismiss it. Here is this little app that’s connecting us all [in San Francisco] and inspiring us to go out and explore this city we live in, to wake up at six in the morning to go capture a sunrise.”

Edeani said he’s not considering quitting Instagram at this point, in part, because “there’s noting else out there compares.”

Not everyone agrees. Some Instagram users have already made the jump to other platforms. Robert-Paul Jansen, a web developer living in The Netherlands, said the Facebook deal was the “final push.” He closed his account Monday, leaving behind more than 2,000 followers, and now shares his mobile landscape photography on EyeEm, a Berlin-based competitor to Instagram.

Jansen is not the only respected Instagrammer to flee the app this week. But fears of an exodus, for now, appear greatly exaggerated.

Still, even the most optimistic Instagram users are left with wounds.

“What happens the next time a tool is created that taps in to my interests?” wondered Heath. “Am I going to feel the same way? Or can we assume that all great things will eventually be owned by Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, or Microsoft?”

Whatever the motives for the deal, few users seem to be holding CEO Kevin Systrom and the rest of the Instagram team in contempt for selling out.

In the end it’s a billion dollars,” said Heath. “I don’t blame [Instagram]. There’s no black and white. It’s just a lot of bread.”

[Original Article]

By: Amy Gahran
Source Website: cnn.com/TECH
Lot #: 3

Mobile devices often get accused of alienating people from the world around them. But for U.S. teens, cell phones (especially text messaging) are a key way to stay connected with friends and other people in their lives, according to new research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew found that 63% of all teens say they exchange text messages every day with people in their lives, including their parents. Also, nearly half of all teens send and receive text messages with friends daily.

In contrast, 28% teens say they never text their friends — but then, 23% of teens don’t have a cell phone at all.

For teens, cell phones appear to correlate with social privilege. Nearly 90% of older teens (aged 14-17) have a cell phone, while just under 60% of 12- to 13-year-olds have a cell phone. White teens are most likely to have a cell phone (81%), vs. 72% of black teens and 63% of Hispanic teens.

More than 90% of teens from households earning $75,000 or more annually have a cell phone, compared with 62% of teens from households earning less than $30,000 per year. Also, teens who live in the suburbs or whose parents graduated from college are most likely to have a cell phone.

Only about one in four U.S. teens currently uses a smartphone, says Pew, in contrast to about 46% of U.S. adults. Interestingly, Pew found that smartphone-using teens are slightly less likely than teens with simpler feature phones to have recently used a computer to access the Internet. However, teens with smartphones also are “substantially more likely than other teens to have used a tablet computer to go online in the last 30 days.”

Teen girls (78%) slightly outnumber teen boys (78%) for cell phone ownership. And older teen girls tend to send and receive the most texts: a median of 100 per day. That said, teen boys now send 60% more texts daily than they did in 2009.

Just over one-third of all parents of cell phone-using teens report using parental controls to help them manage their kids’ cell phone use. These controls can include limits on which websites they can access, which apps they can download and limits on the amount or hours of texting. If their teens have simpler feature phones (rather than smartphones), parents are more likely to enable these controls.

What aren’t teens doing with their cell phones? E-mail and instant messaging, which lag in popularity behind texting.

“Increasingly, teens do not have the capability or the interest in exchanging instant messages or exchanging e-mail,” Pew notes. “Nearly two in five teens say they never or cannot exchange instant messaging, and another 39% of teens say they never exchange e-mail.”

[Original Article]

By: Allison Barrie
Source Website: foxnews.com/scitech
Lot #: 4

Big brother may not be watching you in the future. He may just be reading your thoughts.

A team at the University of California’s San Diego campus has been working on a project to miniaturize EEG brain scanners, allowing them to monitor a pilot’s mental state and confirm he’s concentrating on flying, rather than daydreaming.

They’re starting by fitting those scanners into a fighter pilot’s helmet, thanks a miniaturization breakthrough form Taiwanese chipmakers.

The helmet based monitoring system would also signal if a pilot is reaching processing overload; pilots today must contend with increasingly complex weapons systems while processing huge volumes of information.

EEG, or electroencephalographic technology, monitors electrical activity in the brain. First introduced in the 1920s, doctors use EEG for a range of things, from studying epilepsy to sleep patterns. Technically it’s just technology — scans of the electrical fields used by nerves in the brain for communication.

By monitoring those electrical signals, the base can join a pilot in the cockpit (virtually speaking). If the pilot misses a warning light, falls asleep, becomes unconscious or panics, the sensors will pick up on this and relay it to the base.

Theoretically, someone on the ground could then step in and put the plane on autopilot.

Historically, such an application of EEG scanners was impractical, as they required cumbersome wires and a heavy cap, and the user needed to stay perfectly still to prevent facial movements that could interfere with signals.

But a team of scientists led by Scott Makeig, director of UCSD’s Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, and professor Tzyy-Ping Jung, working Taiwan’s National Chiao-Tung University have cracked the size problem. Chipmakers in Taiwan miniaturized those EEG scanners and fit them into a pilot’s helmet — and achieve a brain-computer interface.

The four-channel headband connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to a cellphone or tablet where the data is disentangled and processed for meaningful information. And 64-channel systems will be available in a few months, they say.

Better precision has been achieved through improved algorithms developed by Malveig. Known as independent component analysis, it takes signals from several electrodes and uses them to infer the origin of a particular impulse within the brain.

“The brain evolved to organize behavior, to optimize results of behavior and to detect results of behavior,” Malveig said.

His algorithms can even filter out brain signals from non-brain signals such as movement — the muscle work required to fly a plane, talk, walk or run — a key advance. Even an eyebrow twitch could mess up readings in the past, they say.

Researchers refer to this advance as being able to now hear a single voice in a crowded room — and it’s all thanks to a new chip smaller than your fingernail, meaning the system can weigh less than a few ounces.

Gamers may find themselves already familiar with similar technology. Wireless EEG technology hit the market in 2009 with Mattel’s Mindflex, in which users duel with balls they control with their mind. Then came NeuroSky’s Uncle Milton’s Force Trainer, a Star Wars-themed game that teaches how to “use the Force” to move an object.

Makeig has also been using the miniaturized EEG tech to study movement. Using mobile brain/body imaging (MoBI), the team has been able to study how thoughts lead or motivate movement.

Using motion-capture technology and high-density EEG caps, he has been examining how thought relates to movement in people with autism.  And the potential is even more impressive: These advances in miniaturizing may lead to a single chip that could be implanted in the brain to prepare someone suffering from epilepsy for surgery, he speculates — replacing months of study and countless hours strapped to electrodes.

The researchers say that in the long term, the technology could lead to advances in numerous fields, including studies of autism, epilepsy, paralysis and fatigue.

The immediate potential is in military and civilian applications, however. Fatigue can erode performance, after all: Pilots are often required to fly grueling and unforgiving schedules. And warfighters endure equally punishing hours.

We live in a “contra-circadian society,” Makeig says, one that flies in the face of a biological need for sleep. Monitoring fatigue and concentration could be helpful, but come with a trade-off — having a commander literally in your helmet.

[Original Article]

By: Julianne Pepitone
Source Website: money.cnn.com
Lot: #4

Kodak is exiting the digital camera business and it will instead license its brand name to other camera manufacturers, the company announced Thursday.

Kodak will “phase out its dedicated capture devices business” — which includes digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames — in the first half of 2012. The company’s consumer business will instead focus exclusively on photo printing, through retail and online services as well as desktop inkjet devices.

The iconic photography company, based in Rochester, N.Y, is looking for ways to monetize after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 19.

Once the digital camera phase-out is complete, Kodak expects an annual operating savings of more than $100 million. But it will also take a charge of $30 million to cover the layoffs related to its exit from the business.

The announcement comes just weeks after Kodak showed off six new cameras (pictured above) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Kodak stopped selling traditional film cameras in 2004. It still sells disposable cameras.

Eastman Kodak stock (EKDKQ), which trades on the pink sheets following its Chapter 11 filing, rose 3.3% to about 44 cents in morning trading.

A film icon’s decline: Kodak has struggled to keep up with digital technology, and the company’s sales and stock price have reflected those problems.

Sales shrunk almost in half from 2005 to 2010, and profits dried up. Kodak was delisted from the S&P 500 in December 2010.

In July 2011, Kodak said it was exploring the sale of more than 1,100 patents, or 10% of the company’s patent portfolio. In September of that year, Kodak tapped $160 million from a pre-existing $400 million credit line — a move that prompted Moody’s to downgrade the company’s debt securities, pushing them further into junk territory. Bankruptcy rumors began swirling two days later.

Kodak is now banking on its “strong position in the personal imaging market,” as Thursday’s press release put it. Meanwhile, Kodak will continue to honor all digital camera product warranties and provide technical support and service.

[Original Article]

By: Christina Bonnington
Source Website: cnn.com/tech
Lot #: 3

More and more schools are jumping on the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the classroom. Apple’s education-related announcements last week will no doubt bolster the trend, making faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible.

But today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. In a partnership with Apple, textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt performed a pilot study using an iPad text for Algebra 1 courses, and found that 20% more students (78% compared to 59%) scored ‘Proficient’ or ‘Advanced’ in subject comprehension when using tablets rather than paper textbook counterparts.

The study was conducted at a Riverside, California, middle school from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011 using HMH’s Fuse: Algebra I app. Similar pilot courses and iPad programs have cropped up all over the country, primarily in private and boarding schools, and select universities. In the public school sector, more than 600 school districts have adopted a 1:1 iPad program.

The iPad seems to help students better connect with the content at hand.

“Students’ interaction with the device was more personal. You could tell students were more engaged,” said Coleman Kells, principal of Amelia Earhart Middle School. “Using the iPad was more normal, more understandable for them.”

Tablets could be less daunting to students, too. Marita Scarfi, CEO of digital-focused marketing agency Organic, says that moving textbooks to mobile devices will reinvent learning.

“Now you don’t know if a book is super huge and formidable,” Scarfi says. “Learning can be done in snackable chunks. It could be reoriented.”

Another study centered on an iPad game, Motion Math, has shown that the iPad can help with fundamental math skills. Fifth graders who regularly played the game for 20 minutes per day over a five-day period increased their test scores by 15% on average (you can check out more about this study on Wired’s GeekDad).

Digital textbooks haven’t enjoyed the same success as app-based learning tools thus far, however. E-textbooks have been atransitional product, Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote in a November 2011 report. They make up less than 3 percent of textbook sales, and don’t offer much over their paperbound counterparts.

Apple’s new and updated products — iTunes U (an app-based hub for virtual classrooma), as well as iBooks 2, the iBookstore and iBooks Author — should help provide solutions for educators looking to provide more engaging experiences than plain, old PDFs, all without the heavy investments required of building apps from scratch.

“With iBooks, learning will be a lot more experiential,” Scarfi told Wired in an e-mail. iBooks also have the potential to ease some of the financial burden of schools, as ebooks could save on textbook costs. “Other benefits include more timely and relevant content, and the ability for students to interact and share this content with ease. Textbooks will now become social in a variety of ways.”

However, even if e-book prices themselves won’t break the bank, iPads are still a $500-plus investment per tablet. Funding is still a problem, particularly for public schools. Luckily, there are sites like DonorsChoose.org that can help offload the costs from teachers and school districts.

And a program called SA500 Kids is helping to accelerate funding for technology resource requests on the site. Thus far, iPad requests have been fairly low: SA500 Kids has funded 24 iPad-based project requests since Nov. 25. Currently there are 418 iPad-related requests on DonorsChoose, out of the 20,000 projects listed on the site.

When the next iPad debuts, if Apple goes with a similar pricing scheme as it has with the iPhone — as rumored — then schools will be able to pick up iPads on the cheap and really be able to utilize the company’s new education related products.

But regardless, it looks like the iPad is starting to do an impressive job of improving the education space. And now that publishers and instructors have these iBooks tools at their disposal, students can continue to reap the benefits of increased understanding and greater participation.

[Original Article]

By: Sarah Skidmore
Source Website: abcnews.go.com
Lot #: 3

Wikipedia will black out the English language version of its website Wednesday to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress, the foundation behind the popular community-based online encyclopedia said in a statement Monday night.

The website will go dark for 24 hours in an unprecedented move that brings added muscle to a growing base of critics of the legislation. Wikipedia is considered one of the Internet’s most popular websites, with millions of visitors daily.

“If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States,” the Wikimedia foundation said.

The Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate are designed to crack down on sales of pirated U.S. products overseas.

Supporters include the film and music industry, which often sees its products sold illegally. They say the legislation is needed to protect intellectual property and jobs.

Critics say the legislation could hurt the technology industry and infringe on free-speech rights. Among their concerns are provisions that would weaken cyber-security for companies and hinder domain access rights.

The most controversial provision is in the House bill, which would have enabled federal authorities to “blacklist” sites that are alleged to distribute pirated content. That would essentially cut off portions of the Internet to all U.S. users. But congressional leaders appear to be backing off this provision.

Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay, AOL and others have spoken out against the legislation and said it threatens the industry’s livelihood. Several online communities such as Reddit, Boing Boing and others have announced plans to go dark in protest as well.

The Obama administration also raised concerns about the legislation over the weekend and said it will work with Congress on legislation to help battle piracy and counterfeiting while defending free expression, privacy, security and innovation in the Internet.

Wikipedia’s decision to go dark brings the issue into a much brighter spotlight. A group of Wikipedia users have discussed for more than a month whether it should react to the legislation.

Over the past few days, a group of more than 1,800 volunteers who work on the site and other users considered several forms of online protest, including banner ads and a global blackout of the site, the foundation said. Ultimately, the group supported the decision to black out the English version of the site.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia who first announced the move on his Twitter account Monday, said the bills are a threat to the free, open, and secure web.

“The whole thing is just a poorly designed mess,” Wales said in an email to The Associated Press.

Wikipedia is also requesting that readers contact members of Congress about the bill during the blackout.

“I am personally asking everyone who cares about freedom and openness on the Internet to contact their Senators and Representative,” Wales said. “One of the things we have learned recently during the Arab spring events is that the Internet is a powerfully effective tool for the public to organize and have their voices heard.”

Wikipedia will shut down access from midnight Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday night until midnight Wednesday.

This is the first time Wikipedia’s English version has gone dark. Its Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government; the bill did not advance.

“Wikipedia is about being open,” said Jay Walsh, spokesman for the Wikimedia foundation. “We are not about shutting down and protesting. It’s not a muscle that is normally flexed.”

[Original Article]