system-ON-key

Teen’s prize-winning invention may charge your phone in 20 seconds

struct — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:11:16 +0000

(CNN) — A tiny device that can recharge cell phone batteries in as little as 30 seconds won 18-year-old Eesha Khare a major science award that will help fund her college education at Harvard University.

Khare traveled from her California home to Phoenix last week for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, where her invention was honored as one of two winners of Young Scientist Awards.

“I’m in a daze. I can’t believe this happened,” Khare, a senior at Lynbrook High School in Saratoga, told CNN affiliate KPIX 5.

Khare’s device, a black, rectangular type of supercapacitor just over an inch long, can charge a cell phone battery in 20 to 30 seconds, she said.

“I developed a new supercapacitor, which is basically an energy storage device which can hold a lot of energy in a small amount of volume,” she told KPIX 5. The technology may also be able to speed up charging of automobile batteries, she said.

A videotape of the award ceremony showed an ecstatic Khare trotting up to the stage when her name was announced in Phoenix, then standing with other winners as the audience at the fair applauded and confetti fell on them.

The award includes a $50,000 prize that will come in handy when Khare heads to Harvard in the fall, she told KPIX 5. With a laugh, she predicted that “I will be setting the world on fire.”

In announcing the winners of what it billed as the “world’s largest high school research competition,” Intel cited Khare for recognizing “the crucial need for energy-efficient storage devices” as the world rapidly adopts portable electronics.

The other winner of a Young Scientist Award with Khare was Henry Lin of Shreveport, Louisiana, who received a $50,000 prize for “simulating thousands of clusters of galaxies” to allow scientists to “better understand the mysteries of astrophysics: dark matter, dark energy and the balance of heating and cooling in the universe’s most massive objects,” the Intel statement said.

The top prize at the fair went to 19-year-old Ionut Budisteanu of Romania, who used “artificial intelligence to create a viable model for a low-cost, self-driving car,” according to an Intel statement. He received the Gordon E. Moore Award, named after the Intel co-founder, which includes a $75,000 prize.

According to Intel, more than 1,500 young scientists from around the world were chosen to compete in last week’s fair.

Five Things To Watch For During Microsoft’s Xbox Announcement Tomorrow

struct — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:07:42 +0000

At 10 AM PDT tomorrow, Microsoft will announce its next generation Xbox mere weeks ahead of E3, where such a reveal would normally take place. It’s an effort to get on equal footing with Sony, who premiered the PS4 months ago, and presumably there’s so much to talk about with each system, that two full-length presentations still probably won’t be enough. Look for plenty of coverage here on Forbes, including my own liveblog which will kick off tomorrow just before the event.

The Sony presentation gave us a rough framework of what to expect or not expect from an event like this. Though they debuted many aspects of their console, they kept certain information hidden. With Microsoft, it stands to reason that they may indeed keep some of same info under wraps, giving people a reason to tune back in a few weeks from now during E3 itself.

Here are five questions that immediately come to mind when wondering what we’ll see from Microsoft tomorrow. Feel free to add your own queries in the comments.

How Much Will It Cost?

This is an item that Sony didn’t reveal during its presentation, and if I had to guess, I think that Microsoft may keep this a secret until E3 as well. That said, if they were to come right out and say that somehow, some way, they were making the next Xbox incredibly cheap in order to rack up a massive install base, that would be a headline grabbing story that would have all the buzz heading into E3.

Everyone’s best guess for how much the PS4 will cost at launch is generally around $400. It stands to reason that the Xbox could indeed come with a similar price tag, but rumors have been floating around that it could be much, much less. The idea there would be that Microsoft would take a huge loss on the console itself, but nearly everyone and their uncle would buy one, and they’d get their box installed as the cornerstone of a household entertainment system that does far more than play games. Of course, this could just be wishful thinking, and we won’t know until we hear it from Microsoft directly.

Will They Show the System?

Sony took a lot of flak for something that in the grand scheme of things, should be relatively unimportant. Much like Nintendo did with the first Wii U reveal, Sony showed the new controller for the PS4, but not the actual system itself. Sure, it doesn’t really matter what the console box looks like, as that has no real bearing on its specs, but it is rather odd to have a console reveal where the actual console is not in fact, revealed.

If I had to guess, Microsoft will try to one-up Sony by either announcing the price or showing the system, but not both. Something has to be left for E3, after all. I would wager that the price is the more important aspect they might save for later, and as the biggest criticism of Sony’s event was that they did not show the system, it would be an easy trump card for Microsoft to pull.

How Much Will They Focus on the Living Room?

I’ve said before that I can see a clear positioning framework forming between the PS4 and the next Xbox. Sony went all-in on gaming, saying that the PS4 is a dedicated gaming machine and they even literally said out loud that they care less about “the living room” than they do the games. Conversely, that leaves Microsoft a wide-open opportunity to be the console that’s more than a console, and every year they seem to add more and more things that allows the Xbox to be more than just a gaming machine. You can even order Pizza Hut from your Xbox now for crying out loud.

The question heading into this next console generation is just how much overlap the two systems will have this time around. For all their rabid fanboys, the PS3 and the 360 were ultimately very similar, with only a few major difference like PSN vs. XBL and their respective handful of exclusive series. Now of course Microsoft will still focus on games, and Sony’s system can do more than play them, but they do appear to be seeking out somewhat different niches in the market. Microsoft has the potential to make the Xbox a must-have living room object for even non-gaming households that works in conjunction with all their other products. Sony doesn’t quite have that same sort of reach. Microsoft is famous for having half their keynotes not even mention games at all, and I’m wondering to what extent that will be true tomorrow.

Will They Negate Any Controversial Rumors?

One thing many are hoping to see from Microsoft is that the company dispels some of the nasty rumors that have been floating around concerning the new Xbox. The two main ones are somewhat related. First, it’s been said that Microsoft will require a constant internet connection for games to be played. That eventually evolved into the idea that it will be up to the publishers to turn that option on and off, but hopefully they will say outright whether or not that’s the case.

Secondly, it’s also been said that games must be installed to the hard drive to be played on the new system. That could work in tandem with the above “always on” functionality, but could also mean that theoretically, the new Xbox doesn’t play used games. Sony didn’t specifically say that the PS4 would play used games (or even play discs, for that matter), but had to clarify later in interviews that was indeed the case. Microsoft needs to come out at clear give a big yes or no on both of these issues. Best case scenario is they say neither are true, but if they say nothing? That would seem like a yes to me, and look for a thousand interviewers to ask those sorts of questions as follow-ups after the event.

What are They Going to Call This Thing?

It stood to reason that the PlayStation 4 was going to be called the PlayStation 4, but I don’t think anyone believes that the new Xbox will have a “720″ attached to the end of it. Rumored names so far include Xbox Infinity (my favorite), Xbox Fusion or just Xbox, the last of which seems very hip, though I’m not particularly a fan.

Think that a name isn’t all that important? Well, just ask the Wii U, which should have been called the Wii 2 in order not to confuse its customers about what it actually was. Many casual consumers believed (and still believe, for that matter) that the Wii U was simply an addition to the current system rather than a new system in itself. The Wii 2 or Super Wii wouldn’t have created nearly as much confusion.

I don’t think the next Xbox has to worry about people not knowing it’s a new console, but a name is important, and it’s one piece of information we’re absolutely guaranteed to learn tomorrow, no matter whatever else they choose to keep hidden.

What else do you want to know about the new Xbox? Let me know in the comments.

Follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to my Forbes blog here.

Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/05/20/five-things-to-watch-for-during-microsofts-xbox-announcement-tomorrow/

Lawmakers Show Concerns About Google’s New Glasses

struct — Mon, 20 May 2013 03:05:15 +0000

The letter, addressed to Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, outlined eight questions for Google and asked for a response by June 14.

“We are curious whether this new technology could infringe on the privacy of the average American,” the letter said. “Because Google Glass has not yet been released and we are uncertain of Google’s plans to incorporate privacy protections into the device, there are still a number of unanswered questions.”

The glasses, which are not yet for sale to the public, connect to the Internet and allow people to do things like take photographs, record and watch video, send text messages, post to social media sites and read text snippets. They have already raised privacy concerns on issues like unwanted recording.

The request, from the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, came as Google held its annual I/O developers conference in San Francisco, where it showed off Glass, gave software developers information about how to build apps for the device and introduced seven new apps, including ones from Facebook, Twitter and CNN.

The group, for which Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, is a co-chairman, asked questions including how Google would collect and store data from the devices, how it would ensure that it did not unintentionally collect private data, how Google would protect the privacy of people not using Glass when they are with people using it and whether the device would have facial recognition technology.

Steve Lee, director of product management for Google Glass, addressed the facial recognition question in a statement.

“We’ve consistently said that we won’t add new face recognition features to our services unless we have strong privacy protections in place,” he said.

Google has faced punishments over privacy violations with past products, including a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over a social networking tool and another one with 38 states over data collection during its Street View mapping project.

In a session at the conference, Mr. Lee addressed other concerns in the letter. Google followed all its privacy and data collection policies with Glass, he said, and built social cues into the device to help prevent certain privacy violations. For instance, users have to press a button or speak to Glass to take a photograph or record video, and look directly at whatever they are shooting.

Still, one developer said he had already built an app for Glass that enables users to take a photograph with a wink.

In a statement, Chris Dale, a Google spokesman, said, “We are thinking very carefully about how we design Glass because new technology always raises new issues.”

He added that Google was slowly selling early versions of the device, which cost $1,500, to people who sign up for them, “to ensure that our users become active participants in shaping the future of this technology.”

Yahoo Is Planning to Buy Tumblr for $1.1 Billion

struct — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:03:31 +0000

The deal, which is expected to be announced as soon as Monday, would be the largest acquisition of a social networking company in years, surpassing Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of Instagram last year.

For Yahoo and its chief executive, Marissa Mayer, buying Tumblr would be a bold move as she tries to breathe new life into the company. The deal, the seventh since Ms. Mayer defected from Google last summer to take over the company, would be her biggest yet. It is meant to give her company more appeal to young people, and to make up for years of missing out on the revolutions in social networking and mobile devices. Tumblr has over 108 million blogs, with many highly active users.

Yet even with all those users, a basic question about Tumblr and other social media sites remains open: Can they make money?

Founded six years ago, Tumblr has attracted a loyal following and raised millions from big-name investors. Still, it has not proved that it can be profitable, nor that it can succeed on mobile devices, which are becoming the gateway to the Internet. Even Facebook faces continued pressure from investors to show it can increase its profits and adapt to the mobile world.

“The challenge has always been, how do you monetize eyeballs?” said Charlene Li, the founder of the Altimeter Group, a consulting firm. “Services like Instagram and Facebook always focus on the user experience first. Once that loyalty is there, they figure out how to carefully, ideally, make money on it.”

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment. A representative for Tumblr did not respond to requests for comment.

If the deal is approved, Ms. Mayer will face the challenge of successfully managing the takeover, given Yahoo’s notorious reputation for paying big money for start-ups and then letting the prizes wither. Previous acquisitions by Yahoo, like the purchase of Flickr for $35 million and a $3.6 billion deal for GeoCities, an early pioneer in social networking, have been either shut down or neglected within the company.

Because of this, Ms. Mayer will face pressure to keep Tumblr’s staff, led by its founder, the 26-year-old David Karp, who dropped out of high school as a 15-year-old programmer. It is unclear whether all of Tumblr’s 175 employees, based in New York City, will move over to Yahoo.

At the same time, analysts and investors are likely to question whether buying a site that has struggled to generate revenue makes sense.

“This is not an inexpensive acquisition, but they’re willing to pay to get back some of what they’ve lost,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners. “They want to be hip.”

In her short tenure as chief executive, Ms. Mayer has bought a string of tiny start-ups. Most of those were aimed at buying engineering talent that could help freshen Yahoo’s core products, like mail, finance and sports, as well as build out new mobile services.

Ms. Mayer has had ambitions to hunt bigger game, armed with $4.3 billion in cash from selling half of Yahoo’s stake in the Chinese Internet titan Alibaba.

She has had conversations with a number of other big-ticket targets, like Foursquare, a mobile app that lets users find nearby restaurants, stores and bars, and Hulu, the video streaming service, according to people with knowledge of those discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Tumblr brings something that Ms. Mayer has sought for some time: a full-fledged social network with a loyal following. The start-up claims more than 100 million blogs on its site, reaching 44 million people in the United States and 134 million around the world, according to Quantcast.

But in some ways, Yahoo isn’t pursuing users — it already claims 700 million, one of the biggest user bases on the Web — but products and services that would again make it a central destination. Once the biggest seller of display ads in the United States, Yahoo has lost market share to the likes of Google and Facebook. Its share of all digital ad revenue tumbled to 8.4 percent last year, from 15.5 percent in 2009, even as total advertising spending grew, according to eMarketer. Google now claims about 41 percent.

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Jenna Wortham contributed reporting.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/technology/yahoo-to-buy-tumblr-for-1-1-billion.html?pagewanted=all

Google Glass: Privacy, policy violation worries arise with wearable gadget

struct — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:00:53 +0000

Originally published: May 19, 2013 9:59 AM
Updated: May 19, 2013 10:05 AM

By REUTERS

Photo credit: AP | Google co-rounder Sergey Brin wears Google Glass glasses at an announcement for the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences at Genentech Hall on UCSF’s Mission Bay campus in San Francisco. (Feb. 20, 2013)

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Google staged four discussions expounding on the finer points of its “Glass” wearable computer during this week’s developer conference. Missing from the agenda, however, was a session on etiquette when using the recording-capable gadget, which some attendees faithfully wore everywhere – including to the crowded bathrooms.

Google Glass, a cross between a mobile computer and eyeglasses that can both record video and surf the Internet, is now available to a select few but is already among the year’s most buzz-worthy new gadgets. The device has geeks all aflutter but is unnerving everyone from lawmakers to casino operators worried about the potential for hitherto unimagined privacy and policy violations.

“I had a friend and we’re sitting at dinner and about 30 minutes into it she said, ‘You know those things freak me out,’” said Allen Firstenberg, a technology consultant at the Google developers conference. He has been wearing Glass for about a week but offered to take them off for the comfort of his dinner companion.

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On another occasion, Firstenberg admitted to walking into a bathroom wearing his Glass without realizing it.

“Most of the day I totally forget it’s there,” he said.

Many believe wearable computers represent the next big shift in technology, just as smartphones evolved from personal computers. Apple and Samsung are said to be working on other forms of wearable technology.

The test version of Glass looks like a clear pair of eyeglasses with a hefty slab along the right side. Since it began shipping to a couple thousand carefully selected early adopters who paid about $1,500 for the device, it has inspired a bit of ridicule – from a parody on “Saturday Night Live” to a popular blog poking fun at its users.

Other industry experts take a more serious tack, pointing out the potential for misuse because Glass can record video far less conspicuously than a handheld device.

Glass also has won many fans. Google and some early users maintain that privacy fears are overblown. As with traditional video cameras, a tiny light blinks on to let people know when it is recording.

Several Glass wearers at the developers conference said they whip the device off in inappropriate situations, such as in gym locker rooms or work meetings. Michael Evans, a Web developer from Washington, D.C., attending the Google conference, said he removed his Glass when he went to the movies, even though the device would be ill-suited for recording a feature-length film.

“I just figured I don’t want to be the first guy kicked out of the movies,” he said.

NO GLASS ALLOWED

A stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on the left side of a pair of eyeglass frames, Glass can record video, access email, provide turn-by-turn driving directions and retrieve info from the Web by connecting wirelessly to a user’s cell phone.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt dismissed concerns about the brave new world of wearable computers during a talk at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in April.

“Criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of change or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society to it,” he said.

Schmidt acknowledged that there are certain places where Glass will not be appropriate but that he believed new rules of social etiquette will coalesce over time. Firstenberg said it will take time for all sides to get comfortable with the new technology.

“I don’t think we should go into the conversation assuming that Glass is bad,” he said.

Indeed, previous technology innovations such as mobile phones and wireless headsets that initially raised concerns are now subject to tacit rules of etiquette, such as not talking loudly on the bus and turning a ringer off in a meeting.

Still, some have decided to leave nothing to chance.

Casino operator Caesar’s Entertainment recently announced that Glass is not permitted while gambling or when in showrooms, though guests can wear it in other areas. In March, Seattle’s Five Point Cafe made headlines for becoming the first bar to ban Glass. “Respect our customers privacy as we’d expect them to respect yours,” says a statement on the cafÃ©’s website.

The California Highway Patrol says there is no law that explicitly forbids a driver from wearing Glass while driving in the state. But according to Officer Elon Steers, if a driver appears to be distracted as a result of the device, an officer can take enforcement action.

PRIVACY TRACK RECORD

Lawmakers are beginning to consider Glass.

On Thursday, eight members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, asking for details about how Glass handles various privacy issues, including whether it is capable of facial recognition.

According to Google, there are no facial recognition technologies built into the device and it has no plans to do so “unless we have strong privacy protections in place.” During one of this week’s conference sessions – an open discussion about Glass – members of the Glass team answered a question about privacy by noting that social implications and etiquette have been a big area of focus during the development of the product, which is still a test version.

Some of the Glass-phobia may stem from Google’s own track record on privacy. In 2010, Google revealed that its fleet of Street View cars, which criss-cross the globe taking panoramic photos for the Google Maps product, also had captured personal information such as emails and web pages that were transmitted over unencrypted home wireless networks.

“The fact that it’s Google offering the service, as opposed to say Brookstone, raises privacy issues,” said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit privacy advocacy group, citing Google’s history and its scale in Internet advertising.

Rotenberg says his main concern centers on the stream of data collected by the devices – everything from audio and video to a user’s location data – going to Google’s data centers.

Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor who specializes in privacy and technology, said Glass is not very different from other technologies available today, whether it is a smartphone or “spy” pens that secretly record audio.

But Glass is on people’s faces, so it feels different.

“The face is a really intimate place and to have a piece of technology on it is unsettling,” Calo said. “Much as a drone is unsettling because we have some ideas of war.” For all the hand-wringing, some early adopters are sold.

Ryan Warner, who recently graduated from college and who has developed a recipe app for Glass with Evans, said he was surprised by the reaction he got when he went to a bar.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I should have it on or not.’ I was kind of in that phase,” he said, “and the bouncer was like, ‘Oh, my god, is that Google Glass?’ He was excited.”

Mice return from a month in space

struct — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:58:31 +0000

MOSCOW – A Russian capsule carrying mice and lizards has returned to Earth after spending a month in space.

Scientists say the experiment is intended to test the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure.

Russian state television showed the capsule and some of its inhabitants after it landed safely Sunday in a planted field near Orenburg, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) southeast of Moscow. The report said not all of the animals survived the flight.

Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, said it was the first time that animals had spent so much time in space on their own.

The mice and lizards were to be flown back to Moscow to undergo a series of tests at the institute.

Article source: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/19/mice-return-from-month-in-space/

As technology marches on; privacy can topple

struct — Sat, 18 May 2013 19:52:05 +0000

For a product that has yet to officially hit the market, Google Glass has already caused heads to turn.

Google Glass is a wearable computer that looks like a pair of eyeglasses, only lens-free, with a small device attached to the right frame. It will allow users to access the Internet, take photos and even shoot short videos. Users could activate it by speaking or touching it, although one program in the works could eliminate the need for gestures or voice commands.

With only a few thousand test pairs on the street, the reaction to Google Glass has ranged from excitement to alarm. Early adopters can’t wait to slip a pair behind their ears – while gambling casinos in Las Vegas, bars in Seattle and legislators in West Virginia have already taken steps to pre-emptively ban them, the New York Times reported recently.

It’s the latest chapter in a debate that is older than you might imagine: How does technology test the boundaries between privacy and the First Amendment?

Technology was instrumental in solving the Boston Marathon bombing case a month ago. Knowing there were thousands of smartphones and cameras in the crowd, authorities tapped the power of crowd-sourcing by putting out a call for pictures, videos and other tips.

Investigators plowed through thousands of pieces of information, including shots from mounted surveillance cameras, to help identify the bombers. Facial recognition technology narrowed the search, social media spread the word and thermal imaging led to the apprehension of a suspect hiding under a tarp in a boat just outside Boston.

It was a powerful message about how technology can help resolve public safety emergencies. In fact, an upcoming PBS episode of NOVA will examine the role played by technology and science in capturing the Boston bombing suspects.

For many people, however, technology comes with a troubling flip side when it comes to privacy.

The federal government’s seizure of telephone records of reporters and editors at The Associated Press, as well as the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, raise questions about how public officials might employ cutting-edge technology in more intrusive ways. Some companies are reluctant to work with government agencies in devising cybersecurity strategies for fear it will lead to more problems than it will solve.

It’s a debate that involves tech companies, privacy advocates, politicians and the courts, to name a few. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted in April to require law enforcement to have a warrant to seize email, a much higher standard than a simple subpoena. A California district court ruled recently that private messages on social media are protected without a warrant.

The same people who might love the latest gadgets might also find themselves on the wrong end of the technology, either intentionally or by accident.

Then again, the search for techno-privacy balance is nothing new to modern society.

Writing in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and his law partner Samuel Warren said “numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the housetops.’ “

They were writing about the mass commercialization of photography, which is ubiquitous today and has been so for nearly a century. Likewise, few people today seem to care – or at least have become adjusted to – all types of social and electronic media that make every user a paparazzi-in-waiting. For the most part, those are technologies that didn’t exist a decade ago.

Some tech companies take the attitude it’s not about their innovation – which the marketplace should not hold back – but about people doing dumb things they shouldn’t do in the first place. Others are somewhat more introspective, recognizing that technology can invite regulation if asocial people consistently use it for asocial purposes.

We want to buy cool, new stuff – and we also want to protect what little real privacy we might have left in public settings. Between the law, social values and technology itself, perhaps the uneasy balance between “closet” and “housetop” can be maintained.

Tom Still is president of the Wisconsin Technology Council and the Wisconsin Innovation Network. He can be reached at tstill@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com.

Article source: http://www.jsonline.com/business/as-technology-marches-on-privacy-can-topple-mp9o8eu-208008161.html

Google I/O: 10 Big Developments

struct — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:47:45 +0000

If you were expecting maybe a new Nexus 7 tablet, Android 4.x, Google Glass for $199 or even self-driving (or self-flying) cars, this week’s keynote at Google I/O was a bit of a letdown. The presentation at San Francisco’s Moscone Center was a three-hour endurance test for the live audience, which sat through a lengthy status report on Google’s less flashy undertakings, including upgrades to the Google Play store, Chrome browser and OS, Google+ social network and the company’s cash cow, Google Search. But even if audience members began to grow a little restless after, say, 120 minutes of demos and more demos, each was rewarded with a shiny (and very expensive) Google Chromebook Pixel.

Interestingly, Google didn’t try to top the spectacle of its 2012 I/O event. There were no new tablet or phone announcements. No mysterioso consumer gear like the infamous Nexus Q, the media streamer that went MIA before it ever shipped. No bombastic Google Glass demos with skydivers descending onto the Moscone Center. Rather, the 2013 keynote ended on an earnest, relaxed tone, with Google CEO Larry Page waxing philosophic on an esoteric mix of questions from the audience.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was what the keynote didn’t contain. In the weeks preceding the event, tech rumors hinted that Google would use the keynote to debut an updated Nexus 7 tablet, one with a higher resolution display, faster processor and a rear-facing camera. But said product never materialized. Nor did a new version of of Android — not even a relatively minor, version 4.3 update — that some Google watchers had expected.

Google Glass? Nothing new there hardware-wise. Maybe that’s no surprise though, considering the flood of media attention that Google’s prototype computing eyeglasses have gotten recently. When Saturday Night Live has fun at your expense, it may be time to give the PR effort a rest, at least temporarily. However, Facebook and Twitter announced Glass apps.

Another interesting aspect of the 2013 keynote: Google focused more on Chrome than Android, highlighting its efforts to add sophisticated capabilities to the former, while giving the latter relatively little attention.

Why the lack of Android and Nexus news? It’s possible that Google is planning separate events for upcoming releases of these products, which are mainstream enough to warrant standalone media events. In fact, the techie developments highlighted at the 2013 keynote, such as some pretty interesting upgrades to Google+ and Chrome, might have gotten little media love (outside of the tech press) had Google devoted much of the event to Android and Nexus.

Check out our visual tour for more detail on the 10 most interesting announcements at Google I/O 2013.

Google’s wearable Glass gadget: cool or creepy?

struct — Sat, 18 May 2013 07:46:00 +0000

Sat May 18, 2013 9:59am EDT

* Google expects Glass etiquette to evolve

* Casino has banned devices while gambling

* “Those things freak me out”

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO, May 18 (Reuters) – Google staged
four discussions expounding on the finer points of its “Glass”
wearable computer during this week’s developer conference.
Missing from the agenda, however, was a session on etiquette
when using the recording-capable gadget, which some attendees
faithfully wore everywhere – including to the crowded bathrooms.

Google Glass, a cross between a mobile computer and
eyeglasses that can both record video and surf the Internet, is
now available to a select few but is already among the year’s
most buzz-worthy new gadgets. The device has geeks all aflutter
but is unnerving everyone from lawmakers to casino operators
worried about the potential for hitherto unimagined privacy and
policy violations.

“I had a friend and we’re sitting at dinner and about 30
minutes into it she said, ‘You know those things freak me out,’”
said Allen Firstenberg, a technology consultant at the Google
developers conference. He has been wearing Glass for about a
week but offered to take them off for the comfort of his dinner
companion.

On another occasion, Firstenberg admitted to walking into a
bathroom wearing his Glass without realizing it.

“Most of the day I totally forget it’s there,” he said.

Many believe wearable computers represent the next big shift
in technology, just as smartphones evolved from personal
computers. Apple and Samsung are said to be
working on other forms of wearable technology.

The test version of Glass looks like a clear pair of
eyeglasses with a hefty slab along the right side. Since it
began shipping to a couple thousand carefully selected early
adopters who paid about $1,500 for the device, it has inspired a
bit of ridicule – from a parody on “Saturday Night Live” to a
popular blog poking fun at its users.

Other industry experts take a more serious tack, pointing
out the potential for misuse because Glass can record video far
less conspicuously than a handheld device.

Glass also has won many fans. Google and some early users
maintain that privacy fears are overblown. As with traditional
video cameras, a tiny light blinks on to let people know when it
is recording.

Several Glass wearers at the developers conference said they
whip the device off in inappropriate situations, such as in gym
locker rooms or work meetings. Michael Evans, a Web developer
from Washington, D.C., attending the Google conference, said he
removed his Glass when he went to the movies, even though the
device would be ill-suited for recording a feature-length film.

“I just figured I don’t want to be the first guy kicked out
of the movies,” he said.

NO GLASS ALLOWED

A stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on the left side of
a pair of eyeglass frames, Glass can record video, access email,
provide turn-by-turn driving directions and retrieve info from
the Web by connecting wirelessly to a user’s cell phone.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt dismissed concerns
about the brave new world of wearable computers during a talk at
Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in April.

“Criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of
change or who have not figured out that there will be an
adaptation of society to it,” he said.

Schmidt acknowledged that there are certain places where
Glass will not be appropriate but that he believed new rules of
social etiquette will coalesce over time. Firstenberg said it
will take time for all sides to get comfortable with the new
technology.

“I don’t think we should go into the conversation assuming
that Glass is bad,” he said.

Indeed, previous technology innovations such as mobile
phones and wireless headsets that initially raised concerns are
now subject to tacit rules of etiquette, such as not talking
loudly on the bus and turning a ringer off in a meeting.

Still, some have decided to leave nothing to chance.

Casino operator Caesar’s Entertainment recently announced
that Glass is not permitted while gambling or when in showrooms,
though guests can wear it in other areas. In March, Seattle’s
Five Point Cafe made headlines for becoming the first bar to ban
Glass. “Respect our customers privacy as we’d expect them to
respect yours,” says a statement on the café’s website.

The California Highway Patrol says there is no law that
explicitly forbids a driver from wearing Glass while driving in
the state. But according to Officer Elon Steers, if a driver
appears to be distracted as a result of the device, an officer
can take enforcement action.

PRIVACY TRACK RECORD

Lawmakers are beginning to consider Glass.

On Thursday, eight members of the U.S. Congress sent a
letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, asking for details
about how Glass handles various privacy issues, including
whether it is capable of facial recognition.

According to Google, there are no facial recognition
technologies built into the device and it has no plans to do so
“unless we have strong privacy protections in place.”

During one of this week’s conference sessions – an open
discussion about Glass – members of the Glass team answered a
question about privacy by noting that social implications and
etiquette have been a big area of focus during the development
of the product, which is still a test version.

Some of the Glass-phobia may stem from Google’s own track
record on privacy. In 2010, Google revealed that its fleet of
Street View cars, which criss-cross the globe taking panoramic
photos for the Google Maps product, also had captured personal
information such as emails and web pages that were transmitted
over unencrypted home wireless networks.

“The fact that it’s Google offering the service, as opposed
to say Brookstone, raises privacy issues,” said Marc Rotenberg,
the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, a non-profit privacy advocacy group, citing Google’s
history and its scale in Internet advertising.

Rotenberg says his main concern centers on the stream of
data collected by the devices – everything from audio and video
to a user’s location data – going to Google’s data centers.

Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor who
specializes in privacy and technology, said Glass is not very
different from other technologies available today, whether it is
a smartphone or “spy” pens that secretly record audio. But Glass
is on people’s faces, so it feels different.

“The face is a really intimate place and to have a piece of
technology on it is unsettling,” Calo said. “Much as a drone is
unsettling because we have some ideas of war.”

For all the hand-wringing, some early adopters are sold.

Ryan Warner, who recently graduated from college and who has
developed a recipe app for Glass with Evans, said he was
surprised by the reaction he got when he went to a bar.

“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I should have it on or not.’ I
was kind of in that phase,” he said, “and the bouncer was like,
‘Oh, my god, is that Google Glass?’ He was excited.”

Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/18/google-glass-idUSL2N0DY29L20130518

Could photo magic lure you over to Google+ (and away from Facebook)?

struct — Sat, 18 May 2013 02:41:02 +0000

Social media

3 hours ago

During the Google I/O developers conference this week, the tech giant unveiled a slew of new photo-related features now available on Google+. Could those features — which work their magic without any user intervention — be what lures some away from the billion-user mammoth that is Facebook and into Google’s 190-million-user “ghost town” over time?

“I remember, about nine months ago, we were doing some early tests with some users,” Google senior vice president Vic Gundotra told NBC News in an interview. “And [an individual in the test group] was so blown away by the improvement of the quality of her pictures that she actually downloaded them and shared them on another social site.”

The upshot of these changes? “To a large number of users, their photos are just going to look better. They’re not really gonna know why,” he said.

The reason some of the photos uploaded to Google+ will mysteriously look better to users is a little feature called Auto Enhance. When you upload photos to Google+, they are automatically analyzed and tweaked. Brightness, contrast, saturation, structure, noise, focus and “dozens” of other aspects are automatically adjusted. (Of course, you can turn off Auto Enhance or you can just edit photos manually using the tools Google offers on the Web and on mobile.)

In some cases, the improvements can be dramatic — during Wednesday’s keynote presentation, Gundotra showed how wrinkles on his own forehead were softened significantly using Auto Enhance — but in most instances the changes are incredibly subtle.

And while most of the changes are positive, there are a few instances in which the Auto Enhance versions of images aren’t exactly preferred. In our own tests of the feature, we found that it was typically images which had already been edited by a user that didn’t mesh too well with the feature. (Photos which were already sharpened prior to upload often look atrocious, skin which was already softened turned into something right out of a bad Glamour Shots studio session, and so on.)

The times when Auto Enhance genuinely shines involve photos uploaded directly from mobile devices, un-retouched images from cameras and pictures synced from Google Glass.

When it came to those photos, the slight enhancements put more focus on people in images, made landscapes look brighter, and did just enough to make originally flat images pop. It’s almost as if Auto Enhance encourages one to put less effort into capturing images and more into focusing on being in the moment, a theme evident in other recent Google products such as Glass.

In addition to Auto Enhance, Google+ users now also have access to a group of features labeled Auto Awesome. Auto Awesome kicks into action when you take a bunch of photos in a row, creating animated images (GIFs), confirming smiles in group photos, stitching panoramas, sorting portraits together into photo booth-style arrangements, and turning sets of bracketed exposures into HDR photos. In our tests, Auto Awesome wasn’t consistently good about stitching together panoramas or dealing with group photos, but it definitely handled animated images well. The extra images it generated were always a bit of a surprise, appearing in the Photos folder like a little gift from Google.

While a Google spokesperson declined to share how many photos had been uploaded to Google+ since its launch in June 2011, a public Google+ post by product manager Denise Ho suggests that there are “billions and billions of pictures” on the service already. (We, of course, do not know if Ho’s vague statistic would include photos sucked into Google+ from Google’s Picasa image organizer.) A Facebook spokesperson did tell NBC News that more than 240 billion photos have been uploaded to Facebook since its launch in 2004, and that about 350 million new images are uploaded each day.

It’s hard to argue that photos aren’t important to those who use social media. And Google+ appears to be banking on that little detail. “If we can make your memory more beautiful, you’re going to be more likely to love it and share it,” Gundotra remarked.

Facebook offers a number of photo-editing options and even has a Facebook Camera app, which — as the name implies — is dedicated to capturing images. But the social network doesn’t have something that compares directly to the Auto Enhance and Auto Awesome features of Google+, which kick in without user intervention. Will that lack of auto-magic be enough to make users more likely to dip their toes in more Google-y waters and share their images on Google+ instead? Maybe, maybe not. But those animated images generated by Auto Awesome are pretty darn tempting.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You’ll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her onTwitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.