Techno-News Blog

by the BBC

Using Windows 8 devices could involve signing on by tapping, circling or touching images. Microsoft has revealed details of a login system for the next version of Windows based around pictures a user stores on a touchscreen device. Only when parts of an image are tapped or touched in the right order will a user be able to access a device. Experts said it might stop people using weak passwords but could lead to other loopholes that are harder to solve.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16247659

By Ian Hardy, BBC News

I was pleasantly surprised on a recent visit to the headquarters of speech technology company Nuance Communications near Boston when senior executive Daniel Faulkner was refreshingly honest about the accuracy of speech technology. “It will never get to 100%. Humans are not 100%,” he says. “I can call my relatives and we’ll have to repeat ourselves a number of times and that can just be a factor of what’s going on in the background, where we are, it can be a bad line, so all of those things apply to any automated system as well.” But the past couple of years have seen startling improvements. Accuracy in many applications is now in the mid to upper nineties percentage wise. There are two developments that may accelerate research in the near future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16250306

by the BBC

Keyboards and mice are not the most natural things to use and they are only necessary because computers cannot understand speech and images. But as machines get more powerful, that’s changing and we will be able to ask questions of the world wide web in new ways. Richard Taylor discovers how searching the internet could be as easy as simply showing it an image of what we want to know more about.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9663575.stm

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

Google’s Android operating system will rise to 40 percent market share for tablet computers through the fourth quarter, thanks largely to the low-cost Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet will power Google’s Android platform to 40.3 percent media tablet market share in the fourth quarter of 2011. That’s up from up from 32.4 percent in Q3, according to IDC, which estimated the media tablet market grew 24 percent on a sequential basis to 18.1 million units. For an idea of how the tablet market has ballooned, that unit shipment total is higher than the 18 million units sold in all of 2010, according to IDC’s count. Moreover, the market researcher is seeing such strong demand in this quarter that it has boosted its worldwide shipment forecast for 2011 to 63.3 million units, up from its previous tally of 62.5 million units.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Kindle-Fire-Nook-Tablet-Pushing-Android-Tablet-Share-to-40-520452/

by Clint Boulton, eWeek

As noted by SlashGear and several others, Schmidt told the the Italian publication: “In the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality.” Google declined to answer my request for comment, but the only way I can read that is that the company is building and will market a tablet boasting the “pure Google experience” of mobile applications. That is, as it has done with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Nexus One smartphones, Google will launch a tablet that has mostly just the software Google decides to put on it.

Good for Google, if it’s true.

http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/android_tablets/google_nexus_may_be_on_tap_for_mid-2012.html

By: Clint Boulton, eWeek

While Facebook’s Timeline is rolling out to users in time for the new year, Google is fitting a handful of features into its own social network in time for Christmas. Over the next few days, Google+ users will be able to access a noise filter, a redesigned photo application, administrative designations for Google+ Pages and improved notifications.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-Gets-Noise-Filter-Photo-Redesign-Pages-Management-559910/

by CHRISTOPHER MIMS, Technology Review

John Gruber points to Brent Simmons’ nuanced take on Dave Winer’s much-discussed assertion that native (mobile) apps are not the future and the web will take over. I’ve written often about the “war” between native apps and the web (or web apps, if you prefer) and the most interesting conclusion about what the future holds — whether it’s open, like the web, or closed, like Apple’s app store — has always been that the future holds both. Simmons goes further, however, and asserts that because the server-side architecture that all apps rely on, both native and web, is now so clean and discrete and independent of its presentation on a phone by a website or an app, the future is actually web apps and native apps that are basically indistinguishable.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27419/?p1=blogs

by CHRISTOPHER MIMS, Technology Review

The first thing you need to know about the Stop Online Piracy Act is that if a single commenter posted a single link to a piece of allegedly copyright-infringing material anywhere on TechnologyReview.com, the entire site could be shut down without notice and without the intervention of a court. Now imagine what that would do to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube. It is literally an Internet-ending piece of legislation. The second thing you need to know is that earlier today, according to Congressional Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), SOPA was as good as passed. So the Internet freaked out! Hackers figured out a technical workaround for the main provision of the bill, removal of websites from DNS servers, which are sort of like the postal code tables of the web, telling traffic where to go.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27421/?p1=blogs

by KFC, Technology Review

The US Air Force is developing simple but reliable quantum computers that can be built with off-the-shelf components. Light is one of the most promising carriers of quantum information. It is robust against decoherence because it does not interact with stray electric and magnetic fields and passes unscathed through transparent matter.But this prized robustness is also a serious limitation. Photons do not easily interact with each other so processing the information they carry is tricky.In recent years, however, physicists have worked out how to make photons interact using interferometers and to carry out quantum computations using the output of one interferometer as the input for another.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27424/?p1=blogs

by KFC, Technology Review

The Sun sends some 87 Petawatts of power our way and converting some small fraction of this into usable power is one of the key battlefronts in the fight to free the world from its addiction to oil. One way to capture that power is to turn light into electricity using flat photovoltaic panels. This form of power generation is rapidly expanding all over the world. Marco Bernardi and pals at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge say there is a simple fix that could dramatically increase the performance of photovoltaics. Instead of two dimensional flat panels, Bernadi and co suggest using three dimensional structures. They’ve simulated the performance of various shapes and tested several of these on the roof of a building at MIT. Their results indicate that 3D structures can increase the amount of energy that can be generated by a given footprint by as much as 20 times.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27420/?p1=blogs

by Tom Simonite, Technology Review

Hollywood has to resort to trickery to show moviegoers laser beams traveling through the air. That’s because the beams move too fast to be captured on film. Now a camera that records frames at a rate of 0.6 trillion every second can truly capture the bouncing path of a laser pulse. The system was developed by researchers led by Ramesh Raskar at MIT’s Media Lab. Currently limited to a tabletop inside the group’s lab, the camera can record what happens when very short pulses of laser light—lasting just 50 femtoseconds (50,000 trillionths of a second) long—hit objects in front of them. The camera captures the pulses bouncing between and reflecting off objects. Raskar says the new camera could be used for novel kinds of medical imaging, tracking light inside body tissue. It could also enable novel kinds of photographic manipulation. In experiments, the camera has captured frames roughly 500 by 600 pixels in size.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/39329/?p1=A2

by David Talbot, Technology Review

Mobile health platforms are fast emerging in Kenya, where one startup’s newly launched mobile health platform is attracting nearly 1,000 downloads daily, and the dominant telecom, Safaricom, has forged a partnership that will give its 18 million subscribers access to doctors. A World Bank official sees significant promise from such efforts, pointing to the fact that 50 percent of all Kenyan banking is already done on mobile phones—suggesting that the population is ready to go mobile with health care, too.

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39364/?p1=A1

By D.A. Barber, THE Journal

Educators are facing mounting pressure to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) instruction across the country. While numerous studies suggest that students need to learn science through hands-on inquiry, classroom teachers are often unable to generate effective lessons because of their own lack of background in science. Worse, teachers are increasingly lacking the time or tools to do the job as school districts face greater financing challenges and mandated initiatives. Recent developments, such as President Obama’s push to prepare 100,000 new STEM educators over the next 10 years, the effort by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) to have science standards included in the Common Core State Standards, and the adoption of STEM initiatives in nearly a dozen states, have added to the pressure. But with a little digging, educators can find resources to engage their students in STEM topics without breaking the budget.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/12/13/educators-look-for-resources-new-programs-amid-stem-push.aspx

by Dave Thier, Best of New Orleans

4.0 Schools has made a point not to look like it’s in the traditional education field. Located on the second floor of the IP building in the Warehouse District, the company shares its space with tech startups, design firms, freelance videographers and a conveniently located bar. The offices themselves are aiming for a look like a Silicon Valley startup from the height of the tech boom.   One room has two drafting stools and a tall table in the center — that one is for working. There’s another one with beanbag chairs — that one is for thinking. In the back, there’s a windowless room they call the “wind tunnel” (narrowly beat out “the grinder”) — that one is for presentation. They’ve ordered a big propeller off eBay to put on the wall.

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/school-of-thought/Content?oid=1923258

by Chris MacNamara, Chicago Tribune

To the hundreds of kids who sent digital wish lists to Santa from Western Springs last week, the fact that St. Nick is adept at instant messaging didn’t faze them. These tykes who huddled around computers in the Lyons Township High School South Campus computer lab were no older than 9. They have grown up as adept with keyboards as pens. So they typed or they dictated, and the Big Guy responded to each request moments later. No need to wait for snail mail to get your Transformers order to the North Pole.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-x-santa-letter-class-1214-20111214,0,3865352.story

by Alex Wilhelm, the Next Web

Microsoft released OneNote for the iPad, and as ZDNet noted, its $14.99 price point does seem to line up with what the Daily had previously claimed as the straight dope from Redmond. Let’s assume that Microsoft is building the equivalent of Office Home and Student for the iPad. That edition contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Now, we know that OneNote costs some $14.99, so let’s continue that price for each of the individual applications. Naturally, are assuming that Microsoft will release the applications discretely, as Apple has done, and as it has done in the past on the iPad. That means that Office will cost any user roughly $60 for the full set.

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/12/12/onenote-for-ipad-may-hint-at-future-pricing-of-office-for-the-device/

by the Next Web

Much has been made of the use of technology in the worldwide protests, from the Occupy Movement in the US, to anti-governmental protests throughout the Middle East, some of it warranted and some a little exaggerated. From Twitter to Facebook, from Bambuser to Red Phone. The latest innovation, The People’s Skype, takes Occupy’s People’s Mic and injects a bit of technology into it, to make it go even further. If you’re not familiar with the People’s Mic – it involves one person speaking, and the crowd around repeating each sentence, to amplify it.

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/12/12/the-peoples-skype-is-technologys-answer-to-the-peoples-mic/

by Drew Olanoff, the Next Web

Back in October, Blogger started letting select users choose to display their Google+ profile with their blog, instead of the original boring Blogger profile. That feature has been made available to all Blogger users today, along with another handy new feature. If you’ve connected Google+ with your Blogger profile, you will now have the option to automatically share each published post to Google+. While it’s not the most exciting feature, it’s a step towards integrating Google’s social product into its most popular social product on the web before Google+, Blogger. The team promises more features in the coming months to join the two service experiences together.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/12/12/google-begins-to-roll-out-google-features-for-blogger/

Brad McCarty, the Next Web

There’s something lovely about the 45° view on Google Maps. Rather than just seeing things from the top down, the angled view helps you to get a better idea of the surroundings, making the already-useful Google Maps that much more so. According to the Google Lat/Long Blog, 21 more cities have just gotten the angled view, including one of my favorite places in the world, Boulder Colorado.

http://thenextweb.com/2011/12/12/google-maps-now-gives-you-a-45%c2%b0-view-on-21-more-cities/

by Jon Russell, the Next Web

Touchscreens have become almost standard across so many smartphones and tablets thanks to the intuitive and easy way that they allow us to browse the Internet and use apps. Most of us, however, have had issues with a touchscreen, “fat finger” syndrome — i.e. tapping the wrong part of a screen — being the most common, and boy is it frustrating. But now, there is a new solution that could soon spare us from such touchscreen mishaps, and helps us use the screens more effectively.May we present…the LunaTik Touch Pen. The product is a Kickstarter initiative to build a product that combines the features of a stylus with the ‘offline’ capabilities of a regular biro-type pen.

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2011/12/13/lunatik-launches-a-new-kickstarter-campaign-to-crowdfund-the-best-stylus-pen-ever/

by Martin Bryant, the Next Web

The Open Data movement has received a significant boost today with the announcement of the European Commission’s Open Data Strategy for Europe. The move, which follows success with opening up public data to be used to create new apps and services in the UK and France, will see the Commission launching a three-pronged Open Data initiative. This will see it opening its own data portal, establishing standards for how open data should be handled across the European Union, and offering €100m in grants over the next two years to fund research that examines better technology for handling data.

http://thenextweb.com/eu/2011/12/12/open-data-in-europe-gets-a-huge-boost-from-new-eu-rules/