CBS News Tech Guru Larry Magid Reports On How The Centuries-Old Institution Is Embracing Technology

The House Of Lords is scene during the state opening of Parliament on June 20, 2001.  (AP)

(CBS) I spent the afternoon at the House of Lords in Parliament as a guest of Baroness Glenys Thornton, whose husband, John Carr, is someone I’ve worked with over the years in the Internet safety arena. The House of Lords is the last place you’d expect to find modern technology. The august body, which dates back to the 11th century, is steeped in old tradition. The clerks still wear wigs, the chamber is adorned by a throne where the monarch sits for her annual address to Parliament, and there remain about 100 members who are “elected” from among the aristocracy by virtue of birth rather than good deeds or popular support. Yet this upper house of the British legislature has made some gestures toward the 20th and now 21st century, including allowing women to serve (starting in 1958) and appointing “life members” based on good deeds instead of hereditary status. It’s also embracing technology.

Although much of the chamber’s furnishings are from the 19th century, there are some very modern touches including a flat screen monitor displaying the topic of discussion and an “e-library” that serves members and staff from both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

After a very traditional lunch in the member’s dining room and an opportunity to watch members grill a government minister on the merits and foibles of a proposed national identity card, I spent a few minutes in Baroness Thornton’s office using her high-speed Internet connection while watching the proceedings from the floor on an overhead monitor.

But you don’t have to be in a member’s office to access the Net. In addition to the stately old Parliament buildings adorned by London’s famed Big Ben clock tower there is now a decidedly modern annex called Portcullis House, opened in 2001, that contains offices for 210 Members of Parliament as well as restaurants, conference rooms and an ultra modern “e-library” where members and their staffs can access the Internet and electronic copies of research materials.

And, thanks to technology, you don’t have to fly to London to watch the proceedings in Parliament. A website has live and archived videos of debates and discussions including the one I watched today. The webcasts can’t begin to convey the sense of history, tradition and pageantry that one gets from sitting in the chamber, but it does give you a ring side seat to the inner workings of Britain’s ancient yet increasingly modern deliberative bodies.

TAKEN FROM www.cbsnews.com/storie

Look what arrived on our doorstep today! That’s right — the shiny, expensive new iMac that’s now equipped with that funky custom and / or overclocked 3.06GHz CPU. Take a look at us wildly unboxing and handling the behemoth in the gallery below, and get a load of its fairly impressive Xbench scores after the break.

TAKEN FROM www.engadget.com

Making the most of its riches will take a lot longer than Google expected

In mid-April I spent some time at Google (GOOG) and YouTube. Even this far into Google’s remarkable run, there’s nothing quite like a sunny spring day at the Googleplex to make a print media guy’s shoulders slump; to make that guy feel like a third-term Democratic senator running for reelection in the fall of 1980, just as the implications of the phrase “The Reagan Revolution” were becoming brutally clear. I That’s not to say everything’s golden at Google, which last year took in $16.6 billion in revenue. Its great ad successes—AdSense, which places text ads across several hundred thousand partner sites, and AdWords, which displays text ads beside search results—are both simple, easily automated, and can scale to just about infinity. (Practically anyone can afford such ads and create them with a few snippets of text; you can sell truckloads without a sales force.)

Video ads on YouTube, though, do not yet lend themselves to easy automation. They’re also more expensive and still primarily the province of big-name advertisers. Selling to them nearly always requires the participation of an ad agency and calls for more labor-intensive sales methods. There are high-level concerns inside Google that the excitement around YouTube—which continues to increase its share of the Web video universe—isn’t readily translating into sales and ad dollars.

“It takes longer to bring in a YouTube dollar than it does to bring in a search dollar,” concedes Tim Armstrong, Google’s top U.S. ad-sales executive. “Can you make [that process] more efficient? We think “yes.’” He adds: “If you talked to me” about this in early ‘08, “I’d have been more anxious. But we’re making nice progress.”

Others wonder. The most successful ad format for Web video sites has been display ads that run near video clips, says Dave Morgan, founder of ad network Tacoda, which placed ads on YouTube before the Google deal. “No one is able to sell [these] display ads well in an automated way,” he says. “It requires a human sales force.”

Of course, Google and YouTube have a massive human sales force. And, like all big online players, Google has invested serious time and dollars (the $3.1 billion DoubleClick deal, for instance) in beefing up its display-ad capabilities.

YouTubers point out that most of their key ad formats—including the “overlay” format, which places an ad over a small portion of a video without interrupting it—have been available only since August. And, in a corollary to the saying at Google that warns “don’t bet against the Internet,” I wouldn’t bet against Google. But it will take time, and perhaps more than the company first reckoned. (A JPMorgan Chase (JPM) analyst estimated recently that YouTube will gross around $100 million this year, with the vast majority coming from display ads.)

There is a delicate dance between users’ expectations and advertisers’ desires for a site as naturally woolly as YouTube. Its tens of millions of users expect a degree of graininess, a lo-fi feel to what they see there. (Interestingly, internal research suggests that ultra-glossy ads on its front page tend to get tuned out.) And the site’s free-form format, wherein user-generated videos ranging from the innocuous to the stomach-turning still mingle with copyrighted content, makes many uneasy. “Clients are concerned about adjacency to inappropriate content,” says Mohan Renganathan, a vice-president at media buyer MediaVest. YouTube “is a haven for things that are not appropriate” for top brands.

There are also factors within the greater media ecosystem at play. At ad agencies, Web video ads can be subject to tug-of-wars and turf battles between TV buyers and digital buyers. An additional perversity of putting video ads on the Web: It can require agencies to take their most prized assets—the cinematic 30-second TV spot—and recut them for shorter attention spans, if not outright start over from scratch.

There are ways around these issues. YouTube is holding contests in which users upload videos to a sponsor’s page and thus, ideally, generate heat and page views for ad messages. (Among others, Toyota (TM) has sponsored multiple comedy-related YouTube contests.)

There’s nothing wrong wih this idea, and others for “safe” advertiser sites within YouTube. But they’re not a new notion that will set the world ablaze, and some ad execs sound lukewarm. “On balance, I haven’t been impressed” with YouTube, shrugs one digital media buyer. “Because what they’re offering is basically another venue for a micro-site”—Web pages within a larger site—”on steroids.” (Such micro-sites can be had with a minimum YouTube ad buy of around $200,000.) From what I saw at YouTube, the most interesting new ad format uses an algorithm to select videos from known YouTube contributors—be they cable networks or homegrown stars—to surround an ad on a dedicated advertiser page. This capitalizes on both YouTube’s vast programming archive and Google’s technical underpinnings.

I’m still not convinced that this can scale to Google-esque proportions, since these still can’t be automated as simply and elegantly as AdWords and AdSense. All the video, all the users, and all the data YouTube can claim as the Web’s biggest video depository means there’s an awful lot of treasure buried there. I’m just not sure how fast Google—or anyone, for that matter—can surface it.

TAKEN FROM www.businessweek.com

In January, I mentioned an internal Microsoft memo I had seen which provided details of how Microsoft plans to more tightly integrate its Windows 7 operating system with Windows Live services. Today, I’m providing the text of that memo in full, as part of the launch of my book Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era.

The memo — an internal planning document for what Microsoft calls “Windows Live Wave 3″ — dates back to August 2007. In it, Chris Jones, Corporate Vice President of Windows Live Experience; David Treadwell, Corporate Vice President of Live Platform Services; and Brian Arbogast, Corporate Vice President of Mobile Services share their vision for how Windows Live will evolve to be more tightly linked with Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, MSN and Live Search.

The memo outlines some of the possible ties between Windows 7 (which Microsoft has said is due in 2010) and Windows Live Wave 3 services (upgrades of Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger, Writer, Family Safety, etc., due to be rolled out late this year, if the team stays on schedule). These integration points are the potentially most fertile — and controversial — part of the Windows Live team’s vision. As the authors explain:

“We will work with the Windows 7 team and be a first and best developer of solutions on the Windows 7 platform. Our experiences will be designed so when they are connected to Windows 7 they seamlessly extend the Windows experience, and we will work to follow the Windows 7 style guidelines for applications. We will work with the Internet Explorer 8 team to make sure we deliver an experience that seamlessly extends the browser with our toolbar and other offerings.”

More:

“We have an opportunity to make it much easier for customers to ‘get started’ with Windows Live. Our goal should be to have customers log in, type their Live ID, and then they are automatically ’set up’ with Live. For new machines, we want Windows Live to come with the experience and will consider investments to make this experience easy. For customers who are upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7, we will explore ways to make it easy for them to get Windows Live – particularly for photos, calendar, and movies where our applications complete the experience.”

The memo authors wondered aloud:

“What is better with Windows 7? What experiences or scenarios are Win7 only? How do we take advantage of or lay the foundation to take advantage of some of the hardware innovations already available or planned for Windows 7?”

How Office 14 (due in 2009 or so) will play with Windows Live is a topic the Windows Live team is mulling, too:

“Many customers will use Office and Office 14, and we will work to connect these customers to our experience. What happens when a customer sets up Windows Live and uses Office? It should be easy to use Windows Live Messenger and our communication services with the Outlook client. It should be easy to publish from Office applications to Live Folders.”

Given that it was written last year, the memo doesn’t call out by name Live Mesh, Microsoft’s platform and service for collaboration and synchronization introduced last week. Microsoft officials said last week they’d share more specifics about how Live Mesh will mesh with Windows Live at the Professional Developers Conference in October. But the mission statement layed out by Jones, Treadwell and Arbogast hinted at it:

“Our mission is to deliver the essential suite of software and services for individuals around the world, designed to help them stay connected (browse, create, manage, and share with the people they choose, on any device) and protected (provide safety and security for their information, their families, and their devices), built on the leading platform for developers, merchants, and advertisers.”

As the memo authors themselves noted, the features and functionality for the next versions of Windows Live services are still not cast in stone.  And that’s not because of any potential impact from Yahoo; any kind of integration between Yahoo and Microsoft services won’t even start for a year or more — when and if Microsoft ever ends up acquiring its hostile-takeover target.

But if there were any remaining illusions that there is a Chinese Wall (or three) separating the Windows, Office and Windows Live units, those should be thrown out the window.

What’s your take on Microsoft’s Windows 7-Windows Live integration plans?

TAKEN FROM blogs.zdnet.com

AT&T (T) is planning to put some extra shine on the even sleeker new Apple (AAPL) iPhone.

When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone sales partner with Apple, will cut the price by as much as $200, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

AT&T and Apple declined to comment.

At $200, the iPhone would be within reach of a much wider consumer market and give AT&T a strong magnet to pull lucrative customers away from rivals like Verizon Wireless (VZ), Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (DT). The $200 rebate or subsidy would be limited to AT&T customers and not available through Apple’s stores. The new iPhone sold by AT&T will likely be locked or programmed so buyers can’t take the cheaper iPhone to another phone service.

Subsidies of $100 to $200 are common in the U.S. phone market, where people buy their phones from their carriers. Lowering the consumer cost of the phone to win two-year subscribers is considered a small investment with a quick payoff. The average monthly wireless bill is around $50, so a phone company can recoup the phone’s cost in a matter of months.

The average iPhone user however, runs up a $100 tab each month due to the higher priced data and calling plan. This would give AT&T an even quicker payback on its $200 outlay. But AT&T doesn’t get to keep all the money it collects from its iPhone users. Unlike most other phonemakers (but like BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM)) Apple has a revenue-sharing arrangement that requires telcos like AT&T to pay somewhere between 9% and 25% of the money collected each month from iPhone users.

The new iPhone is expected to be released on the one-year anniversary of the original iPhone debut June 27 or thereabouts. A few weeks prior to that launch, Apple is planning to stop supplies of the older model iPhone, according to the source. This will help clear out inventory and stir up demand for the new device. It will also attempt to avoid the public relations pratfall Apple made when it cut the price of the iPhone without warning last year. To soothe the ire among people who bought the iPhone just before the sudden markdown, Apple issued store credits.

A few details about the new iPhone have also been confirmed by the source. The new iPhone will be 2.5 mm thinner than the 11.7 mm original. The iPhone will also have a GPS chip for navigation and other location-based services.

TAKEN FROM techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

Photography is a very powerful medium and a very difficult craft. Excellent photos don’t only display some facts — they tell stories, awake feelings and manage to share with the audience the emotions a photographer experienced when clicking the shot button. Taking excellent pictures is damn hard as you need to find a perfect perspective and consider the perfect timing. To achieve brilliant photography you need practice and patience. However, it is worth it: the results can be truly stunning.

Below you’ll find 50 brilliant photos and stunning pictures — some pictures tell stories, some are incredibly beautiful, some are funny and some are very sad.

All pictures are copyright of their respective owners. Please explore the further work of the photographers by browsing through their work. We’ve tried to cover different themes so that everybody will find something interesting and spectacular for himself / herself. All screenshots are linked und lead to the pages from which they’ve been taken.

You may also want to take a look at the following posts:

• (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers covers desktop wallpapers related to typography, art, technology, photography and abstract themes,
• 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures presents 35 extremely beautiful and perfectly executed HDR-pictures.

(Really) Stunning Pictures and Photos

2. The Ball is Coming!
Analogue shot with Seagull 6×6 (Chinese clone of Rolleiflex), made in 1983. “The gulfball is suspended on a fishing line in front of the camera. It was a stormy day. So I had to shoot 5 or 6 films for getting one image with the ball in the center position AND a light reflection on the golf club.”

3. Sky
The sky is reflected in a drop of water. Beautiful scenery.

4. Returning to the same ocean
Beautiful sand textures, beautiful composition and somehow a very sad story hidden behind the image.

5. Tree
A colorful tree from a different perspective.

6. Gizmo
How adorable is that?

7. Glittery Ball
“The reflection in this water droplet, it looks like the glitter is stuck to the water, but NO, it is reflections from the glitter on the feather.”

8. Yaw? Weeeee
You probably shouldn’t try this in your local trains. Such pictures are unforgettable.

9. Leap of Faith
What does being one step away from falling into the abyss feel like?

10. Astronaut Self-shot Over Earth
Could this be the best self-shot ever? It’s truly out of this world.

11. Autumn in red
Pure beauty. No words are necessary.

12. FlickrMeeting - Genova - G3
Blue baloon, a small detail, gives the picture an incredible power.

13. Sea in the sea
Incredible scenery. Apparently, the shot was made on the boat in the middle of the sea.

14. If I was an old building…
“If I was an old building I would want to be by the ocean. Till’ the end of times”. Photographed at the old fishing piers of the Texas Bolivar Peninsula.

15. Bee the Cat
“It’s hard to get the right exposure, with them being white, and with the fact they don’t stay still unless they’re sleeping.”

16. Passing the Golden Gate Bridge

17. Glow
Smoke from a leaf pile.

19. Reflect
A reflection from the louvre’s pyramid.

20. Time To Go Home…
“Tthe way the birds are lined up makes the composition extraordinary fantastic.”

21. Seagull on a sign
This seagull seems to have its own personal understanding of human’s rules.

22. Marshmellow girl
A beautiful composition.

23. Refashioned Dahlia
Photo taken at Duncan Garden in Spokane, WA.

24. Bird and Meat

25. Water drop
A photo taken at the exact right time. Available as a desktop wallpaper in various resolutions.

26. Mt. Fuji

27. Two ways at looking at a fish

28. Blessed fog
A shot of Grande Madre di Dio in Torino, Italy.

29. Family of bugs

30. Pigeon Point Lighthouse
“Once per year at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse they shut down the weak insipid modern (presumably electric) light and switch over the the 5 kerosene lamps and fresnel lens of the original, as it was 135 years ago.”

31. Fire Shot
Location: Changa Beach, Coquimbo.

32. A conversation
Fox, bird and snow. This picture is titled “Good afternoon, my name is chikiricuatro”.

33. Shanghai - Acrobatic
Picture taken during an acrobatic show in a Shanghainese theatre.

34. Northern lights as seen from space

35. Red October Rise
Sunrise over Bogie Lake, Michigan.

36. Crystal clarity

37. Skier’s Paradise
“Climbing partner at 17,000′ on Denali carrying his skis down to around 16,200′ where he will be able to ski down the rest of the way to base camp at 7200′.”

38. Bird and Water

39. Photograph Taken at the Exact Right Time

40. All alone.
This shot is taken on a Norway’s cliff Prekestolen (also known as Preacher’s Pulpit).

41. Looking out of the window

42. Above the clouds
The shot taken during the flight from Vienna to Frankfurt, approaching Frankfurt.

43. The Waves

44. The Waves. One more time.

45. Cockfight
Taken by Jan Sochor.

46. Polar lights
Öxarárfoss in Iceland - Aurora Borealis taken by Arnar Valdimarsson.

47. Concentration

48. Cat and deer

49. Here floats a bubble in the air…

50. A girl portrait

Sources and Resources

You’ll find many more excellent photos, illustrations and pictures on the following sites:

• Pixdaus.com
  A social community dedicated to sharing photos. Pixdaus is a place where anyone can post his pictures, photos and others rate it. If it’s cool it gets to the main page and more people can enjoy it.
• Ffffound.com
  Image bookmarking. An invitation-based service.

TAKEN FROM www.smashingmagazine.com

The advent of DSL and cable modems gave rise to a slew of popular web services, produced multibillion dollar companies and reshaped consumers’ daily lives — all with relatively wimpy “broadband” connections that top out at a mere 3 to 6 megabits per second (Mbps).

Now two of the largest ISPs in the United States are hoping to kick off yet another broadband renaissance, this time with home connections that promise to reach 50-100 Mbps, enabling a slew of high-definition content, better-quality video-sharing sites and even 3-D video. Call it Broadband 2.0.

Experts say this increased bandwidth — when it becomes widely available — will have a profound effect on everything from our social interactions on the web to the way we consume media.

“The YouTube philosophy is really the primary motivator here,” says Connie Chang-Hasnain, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and expert in broadband communications. “Even grandmas post things on YouTube. But, right now, the resolution is terrible and there are some very predefined limits due to bandwidth.”

All of that will change with 50 Mbps download speeds, she said, and by simply improving the sound and video quality of video streaming sites, you can dramatically change how a society learns, teaches and communicates.

“Basically, people are going to do a lot of the things they normally do today, but in a better, more satisfying, way,” says Crick Waters, co-founder of Ribbit, a Silicon Valley company that sells an internet-based telephony platform.

Waters says that first and foremost, we can expect everything to go high-definition: We’ll download HD movies from Netflix, upload HD content to YouTube, and watch more sophisticated HD content on our televisions. The added bandwidth may even spur development of extra goodies, like stereoscopic 3-D video and high-fidelity audio.

“Believe me, the minute someone puts the pipes out there, people will find a way to use them,” Waters says.

While the technologies they use differ, Comcast and Verizon have both started offering ultra-high-bandwidth services to select customers that are as much as 25 times faster than today’s average broadband speed of 4.8 Mbps, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Comcast’s new “extreme high-speed internet service” uses the latest version of cable modem technology, while Verizon’s FiOS service delivers the internet to your home via optical fibers.

Both services are currently available only in relatively limited geographic areas. Earlier this month, Comcast started offering a service to some Minneapolis/St. Paul residents that features download speeds of 50 Mbps for a hefty $150 a month. During his CES keynote in January, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said his company plans to expand this new service in 20 percent of the area it serves by the end of the year, as well as offer speeds in excess of 100 Mbps in two years.

Verizon’s FiOS has a yearlong head start on Comcast’s service, and Verizon currently offers it in parts of 17 states. Verizon said it will offer its fiber-to-the-home services to more than 18 million people — half of the geographic area it now serves — by 2010.

Obstacles remain for both companies. Deploying the services widely will take time — and lots of money. And even if the companies sink their capital into second-generation broadband networks, there’s the risk that customers won’t pony up for them unless there is compelling content to go along with that bandwidth.

“If you put a 60 Mbps service out there, people are also going to want to have services associated with it. Yet no one is going to create those services unless the 60 Mbps is there,” Water says. That hesitation may not last long, because consumers always find ways to use up whatever bandwidth is available — and then some — says Rudolf van der Berg, the author of a recent study on the future of fiber networks (.pdf).

Van der Berg predicts that the average household will need 50 Mbps download speeds (and 10-50 Mbps upload speeds) between 2010 and 2020. And even that might not be enough: “Every new advance … has enabled new services over the available bandwidth,” he says.

In the end, the more bandwidth that becomes available to customers, the easier it becomes to develop new content offerings.

For example, Verizon suggests that its services might enable companies to offer not just HD programming, but multiple views of sporting events, wide-angle views comparable to an Imax experience, and ultra-large screens (beyond 100 inches). Eventually, the company suggests, we’ll clamor for Super HD (2160 vertical lines) and Ultra HD (4320 vertical lines) television broadcasts, which could require as much as 256-480 Mbps of bandwidth.

In other words, whatever bandwidth you’ve got now is never going to be enough. Broadband 3.0, anyone?

TAKEN FROM /www.wired.com

Made in China? Police believe some flags may have already been shipped

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper.

Tibet independence

The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.

Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.

Thousands of flags had already been packed for shipping.

Police believe that some may already have been sent overseas, and could appear in Hong Kong during the Olympic torch relay there this week.

Known as the Snow Lion Flag Introduced in 1912 Banned in mainland China Inside Tibet: Clickable guide

The authorities have now stepped up the inspection of cars heading to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and onwards to Hong Kong.

The Olympic torch is due to tour Hong Kong on Friday. It will then travel to a series of cities in mainland China before reaching Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games in August.

Its progress around the world has been marked by pro-Tibet demonstrations in several cities - including Paris, London and San Francisco.

Rallies began in the main Tibetan city of Lhasa on 10 March, led by Buddhist monks.

Over the following week protests spread and became violent - particularly in Lhasa, where ethnic Chinese were targeted and shops were burnt down.

Beijing cracked down on the protesters with force, sending in hundreds of troops to regain control of the restive areas.

But it has since agreed to resume talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama.

TAKEN FROM news.bbc.co.uk

Some U.S. soldiers in Iraq are already equipped with wearable computer systems. But the lack of efficient input devices restricts their use to safer environments, such as the interior of a Humvee or a base station, where the soldier can set down his weapon and use the keyboard or mouse tethered to his body. Now RallyPoint, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, has developed a sensor-embedded glove that allows the soldier to easily view and navigate digital maps, activate radio communications, and send commands without having to take his hand off his weapon.

For soldiers carrying a plethora of equipment, finding and using electronic controls on their bodies can be awkward, says Forrest Liau, the president and cofounder of RallyPoint. “We wanted to make a device that would have all the necessary components in a combat-ready way,” he says. The Natick Soldier Systems Center in Natick, MA, has a contract with RallyPoint and is currently testing a prototype of the glove, called a Handwear Computer Input Device (HCID), for use with its electronic systems.

A sensor-laden glove for wearable computing is not an entirely new concept. Researchers at MIT, the University of Toronto, and the Georgia Institute of Technology have been working on systems that focus on detecting hand and arm movements by using accelerometers, gyroscopes, and other high-tech sensors. But Gerd Kortuem, an assistant professor of computing at Lancaster University, in England, says that most of these prototypes “don’t work reliably and are not robust enough.” Microsoft and Sony have also worked on gesture recognition and wearable-mouse technologies, but their research has yet to yield usable devices.

RallyPoint has a “very clever design and has actually created something practical by focusing on a particular domain–the military,” says Kortuem.

A typical wearable computer system consists of a helmet-mounted display and hardware the soldier wears around his waist. RallyPoint’s engineers have designed their glove so that soldiers can grip other objects, such as their weapons or a steering wheel, and still be able to use their electronic systems. The glove has four custom-built push-button sensors sewn into the fingers near the tips. Sensors on the lower portion of the index finger and the tip of the fourth activate radio communications, a different channel for each finger. Another sensor on the tip of the index finger changes modes, from “map mode” to “mouse mode.” In map mode, the fourth sensor, located on the pinky finger, is used to zoom in on and out of the map; in mouse mode, it serves as a mouse-click button.

Also sewn into the pad of the middle fingertip of the glove is an “anywhere mouse” that uses force sensors and acts as a track pad. “When a soldier presses down against the side of his weapon, a wall, or any hard surface and rolls his finger around, he can manipulate things on the screen,” says Liau.

Semiautomatic mouse pad: Forrest Liau, one of the glove’s engineers, is demonstrating how a soldier could use its controls while gripping a weapon. Credit: Brittany Sauser

Three accelerometers are built into the back of the glove to sense the orientation and position of the hand, so that conventional hand-arm signals–long an important communication mechanism on the battlefield–can be used to send text commands to other soldiers’ screens. A miniature computer built into the glove connects through a USB cord to the soldier’s wearable computer system.

Thad Starner, an associate professor of computing at Georgia Tech and one of the pioneers of wearable computing systems (he has worn one daily since 1993), says that RallyPoint’s real innovation is sensors that are light enough for soldiers’ use and can be sewn into a glove.

The problem with most new soldier technologies is that people are trying to do too much, says Starner. Land Warrior, a wearable computer system built by the U.S. Army last year, was full of cords, batteries, and hardware that weighed almost 17 pounds. “It was an overkill of features, and the military stripped it down to its most essential parts,” says Starner. “Soldiers are adapting the technology to their needs.”

Starner says that by incorporating new types of sensors, like the track-pad-style mouse, into the glove, RallyPoint is creating something novel. The next step, he says, would be to make the glove wireless and to design it so that it doesn’t impede soldiers’ tactile sensations.

It’s time that someone created something real and usable, and RallyPoint seems to have done just that, says Kortuem.

TAKEN FROM www.technologyreview.com 

MOSCOW — Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman president of the Russian republic of Chechnya, seemed fascinated. The object of his curiosity was the latest must-have toy for Russia’s elite: the iPhone.

At a business conference in the southern city of Krasnodar this year, Kadyrov sat with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president-elect; Dmitry Kozak, the minister of regional development, and Alexander Tkachev, the local governor. According to a journalist at the conference, the four passed the Apple phone back and forth as Kozak demonstrated its features to Kadyrov.

These powerful officials are not alone in their interest. There are approximately 500,000 iPhone users in Russia — a country where the phone is not officially for sale, according to Eldar Murtazin, head of analysis at Mobile Research Group in Moscow, citing data obtained from Russia’s cellphone operators.

“Russian people love anything that is forbidden,” said Murtazin, adding that iPhone sales in Russia are the third-highest in the world, after the United States and China (where the phone also cannot be sold legally).

The phones are bought in bulk in the United States, and an 8-gigabyte model sells in Russia for at least $700, nearly twice the price in the United States. Still, the price of an iPhone in Russia has fallen dramatically since its launch in the United States last year, when they went on sale here for $1,800.

What was once exotic is now widely available at electronics stores and through Internet sales across the former Soviet Union. Besides Medvedev, other prominent politicians spotted using iPhones include Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Sergei Bobovnikov, a dealer in Soviet propaganda art, said there was a line of about 40 people, mostly tourists, in an Apple store he visited on a trip to Miami. Bobovnikov and a friend bought seven phones, which they brought back to Russia and sold to friends at cost.

“It’s a prestige thing,” Bobovnikov said. “Having an iPhone is like being part of a club.”

AT&T is Apple’s exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States, and the phone is locked to prevent its use on another wireless network. But for about $40, Russian hackers will unlock the phone, install a Russian language pack, and make it work with Russian cellphone operators.

“You can have all the features except visual voice mail,” said Maxim, a 16-year-old high school student who unlocks phones and did not want his last name published. “It takes about 45 minutes.”

The phone has reportedly become commonplace at the Kremlin and in the corridors of Russia’s parliament. But the use of unauthorized software to make the iPhone work in Russia raises some ticklish questions for the leaders of a country that has long been assailed for a flourishing trade in unlicensed goods. The smuggled and hacked iPhones deprive Apple of fees and the Russian treasury of import duties and taxes.

Medvedev’s office said no one was available to comment, and his spokesman has previously refused to comment to the Russian media on the issue.

A spokesman for Apple in Moscow would only say that the iPhone is not for sale in Russia; officials at the company’s headquarters in California did not respond to messages requesting comment.

TAKEN FROM www.washingtonpost.com