Computed·Blg

Via DailyTech

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Between 2010 and 2015, the number of U.S. mobile Internet users will increase by a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent while PCs and other wireline services first stagnate, then gradually decline

The International Data Corporation (IDC) released its Worldwide New Media Market Model (NMMM) predictions yesterday, which forecasts that the number of people who use mobile devices to access the Internet will significantly increase over the next few years while wireline internet access will slowly decline.

According to the IDC's Worldwide New Media Market Model, more U.S. internet users will access the web through mobile devices rather than through PCs or wireline services by 2015. 

Between 2010 and 2015, the number of U.S. mobile internet users will increase by a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent while PCs and other wireline services first stagnate, then gradually decline. 

Globally, the number of internet users will increase from 2 billion in 2010 to 2.7 billion in 2015, as 40 percent of the world's population will have Web access by that time. Also, global B2C e-commerce spending will increase from $708 billion in 2010 to $1,285 billion in 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 12.7 percent, and worldwide online advertising will increase from $70 billion in 2010 to $138 billion in 2015. 

"Forget what we have taken for granted on how consumers use the Internet," said Karsten Weide, research vice president, Media and Entertainment. "Soon, more users will access the Web using mobile devices than using PCs, and it's going to make the Internet a very different place."

These predictions may seem unsurprising, considering the fact that tech giants like Apple, Samsung, Google and Motorola are consistently releasing smartphones and tablets (in Google's case, its Android OS). A recent study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 35 percent of American adults now own a smartphone instead of a feature phone. 

The spotlight was placed on the decline of wireline services last month when 45,000 Verizon wireline employees went on strike because the company had to cut pensions, make employees pay more for healthcare, etc. in order to cut costs and compensate for its declining wireline business.

 

Via Nexus 404

by J Angelo Racoma

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Automatic content generators are the scourge of most legitimate writers and publishers, especially if these take some original content, spin it around and generate a mashup of different content but obviously based on something else. An app made by computer science and journalism experts involves artificial intelligence that writes like a human, though.

Developers at the Northwestern University’s Intelligent Information Laboratory have come up with a program called Narrative Science, which composes articles and reports based on data, facts, and styles plugged in. The application is worth more than 10 years’ work by Kris Hammond and Larry Birnbaum who are both professors of journalism and computer science at the university.

Artificial vs Human Intelligence

Currently being used by 20 companies, an example of work done by Narrative Science include post-game reports for collegiate athletics events and articles for medical journals, in which the software can compose an entire, unique article in about 60 seconds or so. What’s striking is that even language experts say you won’t know the difference between the software and an actual human, in terms of style, tone and usage. The developers have recently received $6 million in venture capital, which is indicative that the technology has potential in business and revenue-generating applications.

AI today is increasingly becoming sophisticated in terms of understanding and generating language. AI has gone a long way from spewing out pre-encoded responses from a list of sentences and words in reaction to keywords. Narrative Science can actually compose paragraphs using a human-like voice. The question here is whether the technology will undermine traditional journalism. Will AI simply assist humans in doing research and delivering content? Or, will AI eventually replace human beings in reporting the news, generating editorials and even communicating with other people?

What Does it Mean for Journalism and the Writing Profession?

Perhaps the main indicator here will be cost. Narrative Science charges about $10 each 500-word article, which is not really far from how human copy writers might charge for content. Once this technology becomes popular with newspapers and other publications, will this mean writers and journalists —  tech bloggers included — need to find a new career? It seems it’s not just the manufacturing industry that’s prone to being replaced by machines. Maybe we can just input a few keywords like iPhone, iOS, Jailbreak, Touchscreen, Apple and the like, and the Narrative Science app will be able to create an entirely new rumor about the upcoming iPhone 5, for instance!

The potential is great, although the possibility for abuse is also there. Think of spammers and scammers using the software to create more appealing emails that recipients are more likely to act on. Still, with tools like these, it’s only up for us humans to up the ante in terms of quality.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, a real human did write this post.

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Personal comments:

One book to read about this: "Exemplaire de démonstration" by Philippe Vasset

Via Technology Review

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Sensing oxygen: This implantable sensor measures the concentration of dissolved oxygen in tissue, an indicator of tumor growth.
Credit: Technical University of Munich

Researchers hope to combine the sensor with a device to deliver targeted chemotherapy.

A team of medical engineers in Germany has developed an implant to continuously monitor tumor growth in cancer patients. The device, designed to be implanted in the patient near the tumor site, uses chip sensors to measure oxygen levels in the blood, an indicator of growth. The data is then transmitted wirelessly to an external receiver carried by the patient and transferred to his or her doctor for remote monitoring and analysis.  

"We developed the device to monitor and treat slow-growing tumors that are difficult to operate on, such as brain tumors and liver tumors, and for tumors in elderly patients for whom surgery might be dangerous," said Helmut Grothe, head of the Heinz-Nixdorf Institute for Medical Electronics at the Technical University of Munich.

The roughly two-centimeter-long device, dubbed the IntelliTuM (Intelligent Implant for Tumor Monitoring), includes a self-calibrating sensor, data measurement and evaluation electronics, and a transmitter. All the components are contained within a biocompatible plastic housing.

The device sensor detects the level of dissolved oxygen in the fluid near the tumor; a drop in that measure suggests the metabolic behavior of the tumor is changing, often in a more aggressive way. So far, researchers have tested the device in tissue grown in culture. The next step is to test it in live animals.

Most monitoring of tumor growth is currently done via CT scans, MRI, and other forms of external imaging. "The advantage of an implant over external imaging is that you can monitor the tumor on the go," says Sven Becker of the Technical University of Munich. "This means patients would have to pay fewer visits to the hospital for progression and postsurgery monitoring of tumors. They also wouldn't have to swallow contrast agents."

While the device is currently calibrated to monitor oxygen, its chips can also be used to monitor other signs of tumor change or growth. "Oxygen levels are one of the primary indicators of tumor growth, but we have also found a way to activate the pH sensors by recalibrating the device from outside the body," says Grothe.

Via Google green blog

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We’ve worked hard to reduce the amount of energy our services use. In fact, to provide you with Google products for a month—not just search, but Google+, Gmail, YouTube and everything else we have to offer—our servers use less energy per user than a light left on for three hours. And, because we’ve been a carbon-neutral company since 2007, even that small amount of energy is offset completely, so the carbon footprint of your life on Google is zero.

We’ve learned a lot in the process of reducing our environmental impact, so we’ve added a new section called “The Big Picture” to our Google Green site with numbers on our annual energy use and carbon footprint.

We started the process of getting to zero by making sure our operations use as little energy as possible. For the last decade, energy use has been an obsession. We’ve designed and built some of the most efficient servers and data centers in the world—using half the electricity of a typical data center. Our newest facility in Hamina, Finland, opening this weekend, uses a unique seawater cooling system that requires very little electricity.

Whenever possible, we use renewable energy. We have a large solar panel installation at our Mountain View campus, and we’ve purchased the output of two wind farms to power our data centers. For the greenhouse gas emissions we can’t eliminate, we purchase high-quality carbon offsets.

But we’re not stopping there. By investing hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects and companies, we’re helping to create 1.7 GW of renewable power. That’s the same amount of energy used to power over 350,000 homes, and far more than what our operations consume.

Finally, our products can help people reduce their own carbon footprints. The study (PDF) we released yesterday on Gmail is just one example of how cloud-based services can be much more energy efficient than locally hosted services helping businesses cut their electricity bills.

Via OStatic

By Sam Dean

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Now that Chromebooks--portable computers based on Google's Chrome OS--are maturing, it's easier to gauge the prospects for Google's first-ever operating system. As Jon Buys discussed here on OStatic, these portables have a number of strong points. However, there are criticisms appearing about them, too, and some of them echo ones made here on OStatic before. Specifically, Chrome OS imposes a very two-fisted, cloud-centric model for using data and applications, where traditional, local storage of data and apps is discouraged.   Recently, Google has sought to close this gap with its own apps, allowing users to work with its Gmail, Calendar and Docs apps offline. Will these moves help boost Chrome OS and use of Chromebooks? In enterprises, they may do so.

Google officials have explained the logic behind allowing offline usage of key Google apps in this post, where they write:

"Today’s world doesn’t slow down when you’re offline and it’s a great feeling to be productive from anywhere, on any device, at any time. We’re pushing the boundaries of modern browsers to make this possible, and while we hope that many users will already find today’s offline functionality useful, this is only the beginning. Support for offline document editing and customizing the amount of email to be synchronized will be coming in the future. We also look forward to making offline access more widely available when other browsers support advanced functionality (like background pages)."

While Google had previously announced its intent to deliver this offline functionality, the need for it was undoubtedly accelerated by some of the criticisms of the way Chrome OS forces users to work almost exclusively in the cloud. It's also not accidental that the offline capabilities are focused on Google applications that enterprises care about: mail, document-creation apps, etc.

Guillermo Garron has gone so far as to reverse his previous criticisms of Chrome OS based on the new offline functionality, as seen in his post here. He writes:

"This is something specially good for Chromebooks. Now they are not just new toys, they can be real productive tools…now Chromebooks are ready for Prime Time at least to do what they were designed for, with no limitations."

Researchers at Microsoft have produced data before that shows that most people use a maximum of five software applications on a regular basis. In delivering offline functionality for mail, document creation, and other absolutely key tasks for working people, Google is hedging the cloud-only bet that it made with Chrome OS upon its debut. It's the right move for Google to be making, and is likely to help win over some enterprises that would find working exclusively in the cloud to be too limiting.

Via MyCE

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Symantec, the company behind Norton Anti-Virus, has published a startling report which estimates nearly $388 billion is lost each year to cyber crime – $274 billion in sheer wasted time, and the remaining $114 billion either spent to combat it or deposited into the bank accounts of criminals.

According to the “Norton Cybercrime Report 2011,” viruses and malware are the “preventable yet more prevalent” methods employed by cyber criminals. Conducted earlier this year by StrategyOne, who polled 19,636 adults, kids and teachers in 24 countries, the study revealed over 54 percent of online adults have indeed encountered either threat despite the fact 59 percent incorporate active, up-to-date anti-virus software. Online scams and phishing rounded out the most common methods.

Resolving a cyber crime is also a huge hassle for those affected. Norton’s research found the entire process takes anywhere from four to 16 days depending on where you live; on average, victims spend 10 days.

“These latest cyber crime statistics reflect crime rates in the physical world, where young adults and men are more often victims of crime,” said Adam Palmer, Norton Lead Cyber Security Analyst. “Countries like South Africa and Brazil, where physical crimes against people are among the highest in the world, are clearly emerging as cyber crime capitals, too.”

China topped Norton’s list of countries most affected by cyber crime, boasting an ignominious 85 percent of adults affected. The U.S. wasn’t too far behind at 73 percent.

The fact the Internet is such a huge part of everyday life in many countries means cyber thieves have ample prey. 24 percent of respondents said that they “can’t live without the Internet,” while 41 percent “need the Internet in their everyday life.” Considering that level of dependency, it’s not too shocking that nearly 70 percent of adults reported being the victim of some form of cyber crime.

Joseph LaBrie, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Loyola Marymount University, addressed the mental state of online users and their resistance to educating or protecting themselves.

“Often, because people feel the Internet is too complicated and the threats are unknown or ambiguous, they default to a learned helplessness where they simply accept cyber crime as part of the cost of going online,” said LaBrie. “Also, they cannot visualize online protection like they can offline security systems like a fence or alarm that act as a physical deterrent.”

Norton asserts that each day cyber crime affects over one million people and that 431 million people have been victims of cyber crime in the last year alone. (via Threat Post)

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The study

Via object

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Marloes ten Bhromer is a critically acclaimed Dutch designer. She produces some incredible outworldly shoe designs based on a unique combination of art and technological functionality.

One of her most exciting new designs is called the 'Rapidprototypedshoe' – created on the Objet Connex multi-material 3D printer.

Why did she use rapid prototyping? According to Marloes, this is because; "rapid prototyping – adding material in layers – rather than traditional shoe manufacturing methods – could help me create something entirely new within just a few hours."

And why Objet? Again, in her words; "Objet Connex printers make it possible to print an entire shoe – albeit a concept shoe – including a hard heel and a flexible upper in one build, which just isn't possible with other 3D printing technologies."

The Objet Connex multi-material 3D printer allows the simulatneous printing of both rigid and rubber-like material grades and shades within a single prototype, which is why it's used by many of the world's largest shoe manufacturers. And of course, because it's 3D printing and not traditional manufacturing methods, there are no expensive set-up costs and no minimum quantities to worry about!

This particular shoe design is based on a modular concept – with an interchangeable heel to allow for specific customizations as well as easy repairs (see the bottom photo which shows the heel detatched).

The 3D printed modular shoe will be available for viewing at the Power of Making exhibition – starting today at the world-famous Victoria and Albert Museum in London. If you are anywhere near the UK this is worth a visit.

If you can't make it right at this moment, don't worry – the shoe and the exhibit will remain there until January 2nd.

The Power of Making exhibition is created in collaboration with the Crafts Council. Curator Daniel Charney's aim is to encourage visitors to consider the process of making, not just the final results. For this the 3D printing process is particularly salient.

For more details on this story read the Press Release here.

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See also the first 'printed' plane

Via big think

By Dominic Basulto

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Far too many people are walking around with their heads immersed in their tiny mobile devices, or communicating affectionately with their tiny smart phones while out in public with perfectly acceptable human companions. The only problem, of course, is that humans are not evolutionarily equipped to act like this – and that inevitably leads to awkward scenes like people running into things on a city street or couples awkwardly texting with other people while having dinner "together." Tiny screens, while useful for monitoring the electronic minutiae of our daily lives, are not so useful for keeping our heads up and making eye contact with other humans. Fortunately, a number of tech companies are thinking of ways to make Looking Up the new Looking Down.

Mobile device makers, encouraged by the rapid adoption of tablet technologies and people's embrace of post-PC screens, are busy developing new ways of interacting with these smaller screens that are not "inappropriately immersive." Finland’s mobile phone giant Nokia, bowed and bruised after failing to keep up with Apple in the development of sleek new mobile devices and other objects of consumer lust, is exploring a new strategy to take on Apple: developing cleverly-designed phones that enable you to make eye contact and become aware of the environment around you. As Nokia's head designer Marko Ahtisaari explained to the Wall Street Journal, "When you look around at a restaurant in Helsinki, you'll see couples having their heads down instead of having eye contact and being aware of the environment they're in... Designing for true mobility... is an example of what people would not explicitly ask for but love when they get it."

Nokia is still being mysterious about what it has in store for future mobile users, but most likely, a "Look Up mobile device" (for lack of a better word) would be designed to combine the viewing potential of big screens with thr easy-to-operate interface of a smaller device. This is actually harder than it sounds. According to usability expert Jakob Nielsen, there are five different screen experiences – what he refers to as TV, mobile, desktop, "very small" (i.e. screens no larger than an RFID chip) and "very big" (i.e. screens as large as buildings). It's not enough, though, simply to translate a "very large" screen experience to a "very small" screen -- the usability considerations change, according to the different screen experiences. That's why it's always been so frustrating to browse the Web on a mobile phone - there are very different usability characteristics once you shrink a screen.

So what would a Look Up phone experience feel like? The answer might be a hybrid form of experience that uses mobile screens for mobility and geo-location, but takes advantage of larger viewing surfaces. Take U.K. retail shopping giant Tesco, for example, which has been experimenting with "virtual shopping walls" that users can interact with while using their mobile devices. While these shopping walls are completely mobile-enabled, all the activity takes place with shoppers tilting their heads up. Think of bounding out of a subway car and ordering groceries for dinner as you exit the station, all via a mobile device -- and all while keeping your ahead aloft.

The transmedia experience - formerly the exclusive domain of entertainment brands and Hollywood - is starting to blend over into every aspect of our lives. Transmedia – which refers to seamless storytelling across different online and offline platforms – has been re-interpreted by mobile designers to include surfaces and screens. When done right, this cross-surface storytelling leads to entirely new types of interactions and experiences. BERG London, in collaboration with Dentsu London, for example, has been experimenting with "incidental media" that transform everyday objects into interactive surfaces. One thing is certain -- the future is sure to turn a few heads - or at least, tilt them upward for awhile.

Via SlashGear

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Microsoft Windows chief Steven Sinofsky has taken to the Building Windows 8 blog to explain the company’s decision to keep two interfaces: the traditional desktop UI and the more tablet-friendly Metro UI. His explanation seemed to be in response to criticism and confusion after the latest details were revealed on the new Windows 8 Explorer interface.

On Monday, details on the Windows 8 Explorer file manager interface were revealed showing what looked to be a very traditional Windows UI without any Metro elements. Reactions were mixed with many confused as to what direction Microsoft was heading with its Windows 8 interface. Well, Sinofsky is attempting to answer that and says that it is a “balancing act” of trying to get both interfaces working together harmoniously.

Sinofsky writes in his post:

Some of you are probably wondering how these parts work together to create a harmonious experience. Are there two user interfaces? Why not move on to a Metro style experience everywhere? On the other hand, others have been suggesting that Metro is only for tablets and touch, and we should avoid “dumbing down” Windows 8 with that design.

He proceeds to address each of these concerns, saying that the fluid and intuitive Metro interface is great on the tablet form factor, but when it comes down to getting serious work done, precision mouse and keyboard tools are still needed as well as the ability to run traditional applications. Hence, he explains that in the end they decided to bring the best of both worlds together for Windows 8.

With Windows 8 on a tablet, users can fully immerse themselves in the Metro UI and never see the desktop interface. In fact, the code for the desktop interface won’t even load. But, if the user needs to use the desktop interface, they can do so without needing to switch over to a laptop or other secondary device just for business or work.

A more detailed preview of Windows 8 is expected to take place during Microsoft’s Build developer conference in September. It’s been rumored that the first betas may be distributed to developers then along with a Windows 8 compatible hardware giveaway.

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Personal comments:

In order to complete the so-called 'Desktop Crisis' discussion, the point of view of Microsoft who has decided to avoid mixing functionalities between desktop's GUI and tablet's GUI.

The Subjectivity of Natural Scrolling

Switched On: Destop Divergence

Is The Desktop Having an Identity Crisis

Via TechCrunch

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You may recall the Raspberry Pi, a barebones PC for emerging markets that they hope to sell for $25. When we wrote it up earlier this year, there wasn’t much in the way of demonstration: a few stills of the PCB and a video with founder David Braben describing his plan for the device. But today we have a demo that both captures the geek imagination and proves the device has legs:they’ve got it running Quake III.

Not that it’s some big accomplishment to run a game released in the last millennium, but it actually does pretty well. The device uses a 700MHz ARM processor and has 128MB of RAM enabled here, and lacking any on-device storage, it’s running the OS (Debian CLI) and the game off an SD card.

They could hit higher framerates, but wanted to show that 1920×1080 with 4xAA was possible. Naturally you could reduce this quite a bit and max out the refresh rate on your monitor; Q3A isn’t exactly the most graphics-intensive game on the market.

The game isn’t being emulated; they actually compiled the open source version for their Debian build. They plan on networking a few together and playing a deathmatch soon.

Now, the point of this isn’t that now, impoverished children in Kazakhstan will be able to hone their all-important FPSing skills. It’s more of a proof of concept showing that a (fairly) modern piece of software can be adapted to the hardware they’ve put together: the Raspberry Pi really is a full-on computer. And while there are Micro ATX boards and systems out there (very useful ones in fact), they don’t come anywhere near the $25 mark. You still need an LCD, keyboard, SD card or USB drive, and so on, but the Raspberry Pi Foundation is all about lowering the entry barrier and providing everything that’s needed in a basic computer for as low a price as possible.

Keep up with the project here. They’ve still got a lot of work to do before they make this a viable product, but things seem to be moving along rapidly.