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Posts Tagged ‘Nature’

TSA To Save Print Media? No Electronics On International Flights? What A Joke.

Before I begin, let me just state that TSA has yet to confirm any of this on its website, so the details aren’t entirely clear at the moment. That said, there are several indications that orders have been issued to cease the use of electronics during international flights. Yes, that means no laptops, no iPods, no Kindles, no CD players, no portable DVD players, no Nintendo DSes — nothing that requires any sort of power on these flights. If this is true, it’s absolutely awful news.

Obviously, this is all in reaction to the Nigerian man who attempted to bring down a plane coming into the U.S. And the TSA is going to do whatever it thinks is necessary to prevent further attacks of a similar nature. But the simple fact is that if the TSA was really this seriously worried about electronic devices, they could have banned them anytime since the attacks on September 11, 2001. Instead, they’re doing it more than 8 years later after a man apparently lit some sort of mixture of powder and liquid in his lap. How that relates to electronics, I’m not sure. This just reeks of a “well, we have to do something” move.

Again, all the details aren’t known yet, and it’s entirely possible that this is just a temporary measure that will be in place during a heightened security time following the attempted attack. Other reports suggest this will only affect planes coming into the U.S. Of course, if you leave the U.S. to go on an international trip, you’re very likely going to have to come back, so this will affect you.

So far, all the TSA is official saying is this:

Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere. Due to the busy holiday travel season, both domestic and international travelers should allot extra time for check-in.”

Those other security measures apparently include not being allowed to get up in the final hour of a flight (so, no bathroom), being limited to one carry-on bag, and not being allowed to have anything on your lap in this final hour.

We’ll update this post when the official policy becomes more clear, but given the previous policies of no liquids, taking off your shoes, etc, it wouldn’t be entirely shocking for a no electronics rule of some sort to be commonplace. And it comes at a time when air travel was becoming almost becoming bearable thanks to WiFi on a growing number of flights. Instead, it looks like we’ll have to revert back to the old standards: Books, magazines, and newspapers for these flights. If I were the print media companies, I’d jack up the prices in airports immediately. They may have just found a business model that will save them: Fear.

I stand by my statement earlier: If they take electronics away from us on plane, I’d much prefer to be put into a state of hibernation on the flights like in Avatar. That’s about the only thing that will make those cattle cars tolerable at that point.

[photo: flickr/sundaykofax]

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CoolerBot photographs nature, gets its power from it

If you’re into real life bunny wabbits and other such wildlife, but not a fan of the cold, wet and windy outdoors, what do you do? We’d say just boot up the console and shoot you some pixelated peoples, but Steve Norris’ idea might be just a tad more practical. He has authored the above mobile snap-station, which is equipped with an infrared video camera, a Nikon DSLR, and pairs of motors, 10Ah batteries, and solar panels. Power flows from the latter into the former to turn wildlife stalking into a pleasurable pastime for even the most indoorsy of folks. Video demonstration of the hardware after the break.

Continue reading CoolerBot photographs nature, gets its power from it

CoolerBot photographs nature, gets its power from it originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Totally Virtual: How ReadWriteWeb Operates

Recently I was the keynote speaker at the Unlimited Potential W2W (Wellington to the World) event in Wellington, New Zealand. The topic of my presentation was running a virtual company.

In the presentation, written by our Marketing Manager Elyssa Pallai, I spoke about the unique nature of ReadWriteWeb’s virtual business model and culture. Watch the video of my entire presentation below, for details of how our company is run and the Internet tools we use.

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As I explain in the video, ReadWriteWeb is a totally virtual organization. We have no head office, or any office for that matter. Our team work
from home or on the road, around the globe, in multiple time-zones, 24/7. Being totally virtual is about a cultural change – a mind shift.

Presentation, video-taped by Spring TV and available on Viddler:

Slides, via Slideshare:

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Game devs speak out on Valve, Steam and conflict of interest

In a recent interview, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford—the developer behind the upcoming Borderlands—revealed some surprising opinions about Valve’s Steam digital distribution platform. While the common sentiment among both gamers and developers tends to be positive, Pitchford told Maximum PC that “I don’t trust Valve” and that he believes “a lot of the industry doesn’t” as well.

Pitchford’s main criticism is that with Valve being both a game developer and a platform holder, this situation creates “so much conflict of interest…that it’s horrid.” According to the Gearbox CEO, Valve’s position allows them to exploit developers who use Steam to distribute their games. Given the surprising nature of these comments, Ars contacted several game developers to see just how widespread these opinions are.

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Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone App Launches: Lots of Power, But Too Expensive

Quite a bit ahead of schedule, Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone app appeared in the iTunes App Store today. The app, which costs $49.99, gives users full access to Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities and greatly improves on the speed and ergonomics of Wolfram Alpha’s mobile site. The company is targeting this app at students and professionals and marketing it as a replacement for stand-alone graphing calculators, which is clearly reflected in the price.

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Dual Keyboards

One of the most interesting feature of the app, besides the ability to quickly access all of the power that Wolfram Alpha now offers, is the fact that the company has found a way to make inputing queries very easy. Instead of a single keyboard at the bottom of the screen, the app actually displays two keyboards – one for numbers and symbols, and a regular QWERTY keyboard at the bottom of the screen. Given the nature of a typical query for Alpha, this makes perfect sense and we hope that others will follow Alpha’s lead here.

A Web-Connected Graphing Calculator, But With Some Limitations

It’s important to note that the app only works when a user is connected to the Internet. This could be a deal-breaker for some, but then, the app store already offers plenty of basic graphing calculators for those times when you don’t have Internet access. Thanks to its vast database of chemical compounds, nutritional data, geographical information, financial data, and its ability to solve pretty much any math problem that a high school or college student will ever encounter, the app can do a lot more than any current graphing calculator can offer.

For some students, though, the problem could be that some teachers won’t allow them to bring a full-blown Internet-capable device like the iPhone or an iPod touch into an exam. In addition, it’s also important to note that the Wolfram Alpha doesn’t offer the ability to write programs inside the app, though maybe somebody else will build an app that can do this based on Alpha’s newly released API.

It’s also important to remember that Alpha isn’t as easy to use as Google. Alpha, and, by extension, the app, can be rather strict about how you structure a query, for example. If you don’t capitalize a chemical formula, the app won’t know what to do with these symbols. While Google has virtually no learning curve, Alpha works best if you invest some time into exploring the intricacies of how to structure queries. To help you along the way, the app features a demo video, lots of example queries, and an FAQ section.

Native App Offers a Bit More Than the Web Service, But Is That Enough to Justify the High Price?

In its press materials, the Wolfram Alpha team stresses that the app offers a number of features that the web app can’t currently offer. The app can now make assumptions based on your location, for example. Wolfram also has added quite a few features that make using the app easier than using the web service. You can easily bookmark queries and the app keeps a running list of recent searches available as well. In addition, you can easily email queries or share them on Twitter.

Is $50 Too Much?

At $49.99, there can be no doubt that Wolfram Research is pricing the app at the higher end of the spectrum. A spokesperson for Wolfram Alpha told us that the company wants to target the app at “serious users, and is priced as such.” The team is clearly aware that this price could be controversial, especially given that the mobile web site offers a similar interface, though without the ergonomic benefits of the native app. In addition, Wolfram tells us that the team wants to use this price to make a statement about the “non-trivial nature” of Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities.

While the company plans to offer regular discounts and sales, we can’t help but wonder if the price isn’t a bit too high. At $9.99 or even $19.99, the app would be more of an impulse buy, while now, even though it obviously offers more features than a user would ever expect from a high-priced hardware graphing calculator which would generally retail for more than $100.

Verdict

Wolfram Alpha launched to so much hype that a backlash was inevitable when it finally launched. As Schoeller Porter, the product manager for the iPhone app, notes, the company is also launching this app “as an opportunity to highlight how far the system has come since launch.” Indeed, the Wolfram Alpha team continues to add new data sources and new ways to query them, making the service more useful with every new dataset it adds.

The high price will probably keep quite a few potential users from downloading the app, however. While we understand the company’s rational behind this high price, users generally consider a $10 app to be a ‘premium’ product. $49.99 is a hefty price for this app, especially considering that the majority of features is available through the web service. If you are a student or engineer who really needs these features, though, the app is worth a look, but we recommend you try the web service and see how it works for the kinds of queries you would enter before you spend $50, especially given that the company will surely offer discounts or bring the base price down at some point.

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Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone App Launches: Lots of Power, But at a High Price

Quite a bit ahead of schedule, Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone app appeared in the iTunes App Store today. The app, which costs $49.99, gives users full access to Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities and greatly improves on the speed and ergonomics of Wolfram Alpha’s mobile site. The company is targeting this app at students and professionals, which is clearly reflected in the price.

Sponsor

Dual Keyboards

One of the most interesting feature of the app, besides the ability to quickly access all of the power that Wolfram Alpha now offers, is the fact that the company has found a way to make inputing queries very easy. Instead of a single keyboard at the bottom of the screen, the app actually displays two keyboards – one for numbers and symbols, and a regular QWERTY keyboard at the bottom of the screen. Given the nature of a typical query for Alpha, this makes perfect sense and we hope that others will follow Alpha’s lead here.

A Web-Connected Graphing Calculator on Steroids

It’s important to note that the app only works when a user is connected to the Internet. This could be a deal-breaker for some, but then, the app store already offers plenty of basic graphing calculators for those times when you don’t have Internet access. Thanks to its vast database of chemical compounds, nutritional data, geographical information, financial data, and its ability to solve pretty much any math problem that a high school or college student will ever encounter, the app can do a lot more than any current graphing calculator can offer.

For some students, though, the problem could be that some teachers won’t allow them to bring a full-blown Internet-capable device like the iPhone or an iPod touch into an exam. In addition, it is also important to note that the Wolfram Alpha doesn’t offer the ability to write programs inside the app, though maybe somebody else will build an app that can do this based on Alpha’s newly released API.

It’s also important to remember that Alpha isn’t as easy to use as Google. Alpha, and, by extension, the app, can be rather strict about how you structure a query, for example. If you don’t capitalize a chemical formula, the app won’t know what to do with these symbols. While Google has virtually no learning curve, Alpha works best if you invest some time into exploring the intricacies of how to structure queries. To help you along the way, the app features a demo video, lots of example queries, and an FAQ section.

Native App Offers a Bit More Than the Web Service, But Is That Enough to Justify the High Price?

In its press materials, the Wolfram Alpha team stresses that the app offers a number of features that the web app can’t currently offer. The app can now make assumptions based on your location, for example. Wolfram also has added quite a few features that make using the app easier than using the web service. You can easily bookmark queries and the app keeps a running list of recent searches available as well. In addition, you can easily email queries or share them on Twitter.

Is $50 Too Much?

At $49.99, there can be no doubt that Wolfram Research is pricing the app at the higher end of the spectrum. A spokesperson for Wolfram Alpha told us that the company wants to target the app at “serious users, and is priced as such.” The team is clearly aware that this price could be controversial, especially given that the mobile web site offers a similar interface, though without the ergonomic benefits of the native app. In addition, Wolfram tells us that the team wants to use this price to make a statement about the “non-trivial nature” of Wolfram Alpha’s capabilities.

While the company plans to offer regular discounts and sales, we can’t help but wonder if the price isn’t a bit too high. At $9.99 or even $19.99, the app would be more of an impulse buy, while now, even though it obviously offers more features than a user would ever expect from a high-priced hardware graphing calculator which would generally retail for more than $100.

Verdict

Wolfram Alpha launched to so much hype that a backlash was inevitable when it finally launched. As Schoeller Porter, the product manager for the iPhone app, notes, the company is also launching this app “as an opportunity to highlight how far the system has come since launch.” Indeed, the Wolfram Alpha team continues to add new data sources and new ways to query them, making the service more useful with every new dataset it adds.

The high price will probably keep quite a few potential users from downloading the app, however. While we understand the company’s rational behind this high price, users generally consider a $10 app to be a ‘premium’ product. $49.99 is a hefty price for this app, especially considering that the majority of features is available through the web service. If you are a student or engineer who really needs these features, though, the app is worth a look, but we recommend you try the web service and see how it works for the kinds of queries you would enter before you spend $50, especially given that the company will surely offer discounts or bring the base price down at some point.

Discuss

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Tweetvite: An Events Site Dedicated To Planning And Finding Tweetups

A little over a year ago we saw the launch of Anyvite, a Y Combinator funded competitor to Evite that was looking to streamline event planning. Tonight, that startup is launching a spin-off site called Tweetvite — a site dedicated to helping plan and discover Tweetups.

For those that haven’t encountered the term before, a Tweetup is a real-life get together between people who use Twitter. Beyond that, the rules are flexible: Tweetups can be large events or small gatherings, can involve grabbing a few drinks or just socializing for a bit, and can be planned for in advance or spontaneous. Founder Jeff Morin says that while there are plenty of sites that cater to traditional events, like birthday and BBQs, the Tweetup niche is underserved.

Setting up an event with Tweetvite will be familiar to anyone who has used an event site like Anyvite or Evite. To get started, you enter the name of your event, the location, who is hosting it, and other essential information. But the site includes a few attributes that you won’t find anywhere else: it asks you to designate a hashtag for the event, as well as a custom shortened URL. The site also makes it easy to Tweet out your event, or share it with other services like Facebook and MySpace. Another big difference from traditional events sites is the fact that Tweetvite offers a directory of upcoming Tweetups (given the nature in which they’re announced, they’re generally open to the public).

Once you’ve created your event, you can use the site’s control panel to monitor for any tweets containing your hashtag and see how many people have viewed your page and RSVP’d. The site also offers a widget that you can embed on your blog to inform visitors of your upcoming tweetup.

Tweetvite looks great, with a very polished interface and a streamlined event creation process that only takes a minute or two. At this point the biggest question in my mind is how many people actually throw Tweetups — they may be becoming increasingly popular but are nowhere near as common as traditional events are, so it may be tough to build a business around this niche. That said, Twitter is obviously still in its infancy, so the number of Tweetups may grow rapidly over the next few years.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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NVIDIA Tegra is ready for its close-up with Zune HD launch

In a briefing on Wednesday morning, NVIDIA talked about the Tegra APX2600 processor that’s inside Microsoft’s new Zune HD. The nature of the system-on-a-chip (SoC) powering the new player was the subject of much speculation before the use of Tegra was officially acknowledged. The new Zune is the first major design win for the mobile chip, which NVIDIA has been talking up since 2007. “We believe it will be an amazing showcase for what Tegra is capable of doing,” Michael Rayfield, General Manager of Mobile Business at NVIDIA, told Ars.

Let’s take a look at the brains of the Zune HD, and at the major challenges that NVIDIA faces in pitting Tegra against established ARM SoC products from the likes of TI, Broadcom, and Qualcomm.

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