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Saturday, January 31, 2009

A new video has popped up on YouTube showing a short demonstration of an interesting new MP3 player design that uses motion detection to control playlist and playback functions. Think of it as a weird cross in aesthetics and functionality between a Slinky, a Rubiks Cube, and an iPod. Definitely high on the “unique” and “interesting” scale but probably not so much on mobility.

Still, the little cube looks to make for a very interesting object for desktops and office use (as it’s obviously not going to be very fun to use on the go) and gets a thumbs up for creative thinking in a device.

The controls look extremely precise given the scheme, and with the innovations in motion sensing recently seen in handheld and gaming spheres; it’s a bit of a shock that this sort of thing hasn’t been explored more.

The player is made by ELM and you can read more about it on the elm-chan.org website

Friday, January 30, 2009



Members of the UTLA march against the proposed budget cuts, January 29.


Thousands of teachers and other union members rallied Thursday at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles to oppose state and local cuts to education that are widely expected to result in larger classes for students as well as layoffs and more expensive healthcare.

Most of the rhetoric blistered Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his proposed budget, but speakers also took aim at the Los Angeles Unified School District and schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines.

"Mr. Cortines, tear down this bureaucracy now," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, in an echo of President Reagan's famous public challenge to unite East Germany and West Germany.

Duffy and other speakers called for stripping bare the district's central office to spare school sites.

The less-experienced teachers at risk of being laid off next fall include 24-year-old Tiffany Francis, a seventh-grade science teacher at Peary Middle School in Gardena, who attended the rally with several friends.

"I just love teaching kids, and I came to fight for our jobs and our students," said Francis, a second-year teacher who, at the moment, has no Plan B if she loses her job. "I just hope I can continue doing what I love to do."

Complicating the budget crisis is stalled contract talks.

To keep the pressure on L.A. Unified, Duffy reiterated his call for teachers to boycott faculty meetings and to refuse to give periodic assessments, which are district-mandated tests to guide teaching.

Duffy and the UTLA leadership have long spoken out against what they see as excessive standardized testing.

The event began at the school district headquarters on Beaudry Avenue, just west of the Harbor Freeway downtown, where Cortines watched from the 24th floor.

Demonstrators then marched to Pershing Square for the rally before marching again to the nearby Reagan State Office Building.

Cortines' staff produced research indicating that students who took all scheduled district assessments performed better on the state's annual tests.

And performance declined as students took fewer assessments, according to the district report. He said he has made no decision on disciplinary action that teachers could face for refusing to give the tests.

Schwarzenegger's office issued a statement late Thursday in response to the rally.

"The governor has gone to great lengths to protect education from feeling the full effect of the $42-billion state budget deficit," said spokeswoman Camille Anderson.

"But in this national economic downturn, it's necessary that every area of government tighten its belt."

Thursday, January 29, 2009



I don’t know many people that cook in their car, but if you are part of that group, check out this sandwich maker (Aka toaster) which be a good addition for your portable kitchen. The Road Pro 12 Volt Sandwich Maker, the device gets power from the cigarette lighter socket. The power cord only measures 5 foot, but since the cooking sessions are made inside the car, you probably don’t need much space.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009



Wireless has come of age as a reliable way to replace HDMI video cables within a room and transmit HD video throughout the house, advocates of competing solutions said during a Parks Associates seminar here at International CES this month. Panelists, however, were split over whether consumers are more interested in wireless for replacing HDMI cables within a room or for distributing HD video throughout the house. “We surveyed consumers worldwide, and 75 percent said in-room connectivity is their priority,” said John Marshall.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Charter schools have a new best friend - Bill Gates.

The co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has donated more than $2 billion to educational causes in the last nine years, touted charters yesterday as his new focus for reform.

"One of the key things these schools have done is help their teachers be more effective," Gates wrote in a letter.

This signals a shift from his push to create small high schools, a cause for which he's given New York City more than $51 million.

Gates called for eliminating state caps on charter schools, including New York's limit of 200, and for increasing their funding.

Advocates welcomed the news.

"If you look at the evidence and ignore the politics, it leads you to conclude the best schools are charter schools, which is, not surprisingly, what Bill Gates has himself concluded," said James Merriman, CEO of the New York Center for Charter School Excellence.

Monday, January 26, 2009



Devices that are able to recognize human's speech and identify it are not particularly new. In fact, they are very common. Some mobile phones have voice control features, so do automatic teller machines and recently we have found out a new voice controlled remote control for home media center. The last one is very interesting and we will come back to it later. However most of them are quite simple. Usually they have a number of words preinstalled, which correspond for example to its menu and they have to ask user on every step of the navigation or whatever the voice recognizing software does. To make things better, European researches have come up with idea of easing up the whole process, making it faster. In turn, voice recognition becomes more complicated from the inside. Nevertheless it didn't stop them trying.

For about three years already there is a project going on under the name of "LUNA Project" developing spoken language understanding in multilingual communication systems. They have come up with a lot of different stuff during these years. The one thing that will be borrowed for the recent study is the SLU - the Spoken Language Understanding system. Unlike the majority of voice recognition systems, this one will not have to ask for an action to do at every particular moment while surfing the menu. SLU provides recognition of every word said, and then filtering it. All the interjections like "hmmm", "oh", etc. will be thrown away, the rest of the words will be analyzed and configured into a command for the device. Such a way user can instantly access needed submenu without getting acquainted with all the peculiarities gadget might have. This is actually the same thing that Amulet Remote we have remembered earlier does successfully.

The conclusion is that if Amulet Devices managed to create a usable voice recognition system, no wonder European researchers will not fail. This is now only the matter of time. The best part of the system is that it will be translated in all European Union languages. The final version of it should aid tourists, take orders at fast food restaurants, help with ATM and in fact be useful at any public location out there.

Sunday, January 25, 2009



When you are up to a secret video and audio recording, you have a full set of possibilities. Every modern cell phone has a voice recorder inside, many of them have cameras. However, it would be clearly obvious that you are recording if you are holding phone in your hands. There are some special gadgets that are carefully designed for making discreet recordings, so it would be smart to use one of them. Usually they look just like ordinary things - pens, pencils, watches… This one looks like a belt buckle, and it really is a buckle - however, not the simple one. Details follow.

This buckle has a secret hidden inside of it - tiny video and audio recorder. While looking like a usual accessory, it turns out to be an ultimate spy tool. Inside of this buckle rests a useful gadget that can record video and audio, and is beautifully camouflaged! Wireless cameras are a no-go in places where they can be detected by wireless camera detectors, so when you are forced to use another way of recording - put it on your belt and it will film everything you want, with practically no risk of getting caught. Miniature camera records video in 3GP video format (176x144, QCIF) with sound, which can be saved on the microSD card from 128 MB up to 2 GB. After that, recordings can be played on PC or on your mobile phone. It can live 3 hours on one battery charge, but if you want to record a 3 hour length video you'll need some spare cards - 1 GB microSD card can only take up to 33 minutes of video. It is available in two models: classic one, called Buckle DVR, and strangely shaped one called Obaba DVR.

This gadget, named Ajoka Obaba Buckle DVR Camera, will be very useful for investigation or evidence collection. It can't be seen by wireless camera detectors, it is comfortably hidden inside your belt buckle - a perfect companion in such missions. However, not everything is so bright. Camera records in a very small resolution - even modern cameraphones can do much better. It will be very difficult to see small details, if not impossible at all. Quality was sacrificed to the size and comfort - so if you want almost invisible camera that is not detected by any sensors then you can give this gadget a try.

Thursday, January 22, 2009



The success of England's specialist schools is an illusion, with the extra money they receive and intake being the crucial factors, according to a report.

A University of Buckingham report said the system had led to schools with names that "did not mean very much".

It said 2007 research suggested pupils at schools specialising in music were more likely to get A grades in physics A-level than those at science schools.

The government said specialist schools were "thriving" and raising standards.

And the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust said specialisms were catalysts which could improve a whole school.

Nearly all - about 90% - of secondary schools in England now specialise in a particular area of the curriculum, such as technology, languages, science, sport or the performing arts.

Such status attracts extra money from the government, but schools are required to raise up to £50,000 from the private sector to qualify.

Money


The authors of the latest study say specialist schools appear to do better because poorer performing schools were not granted specialist status.

Professor Alan Smithers said: "All the SSAT's (Specialist Schools and Academies Trust) comparisons amount to is that if you take effective schools and give them extra money, they do better than less effective schools without extra money."

The study showed, he said, that the extra money pumped into specialist schools, as well as their intake of pupils, had the biggest impact on results.

It looked in detail at the impact of specialist science schools on physics.

There has been a dramatic slump in the numbers of students taking A-level physics and going on to study it at university since 1990.

The researchers compared the physics A-level results of the various types of specialist schools.

They found that in 2007, 23.7% of entries for physics A-level at a non-selective specialist science school or college achieved an A grade.

At specialist music schools, the rate of A grades in physics was 36% - although the total number of science schools considered (124) was far greater than that of music schools (seven).

At language specialist schools, 26.5% of entries in physics were awarded A grades at A-level (32 schools considered).

The proportion of physics A grades achieved at science specialist schools was similar to that achieved at schools specialising in maths and computing (24.4%), where 85 schools were considered, and higher than at schools specialising in the humanities, the performing arts, business and others.

Report co-author Dr Pamela Robinson said: "It could be argued that specialist schools were a useful way of freshening up 'bog standard' comprehensives.

"But it seems to have left us with a lot of schools with names that do not mean very much. It is odd having music and languages schools that do better in science than the science schools."

Catalyst


The SSAT said science colleges had boosted science teaching and been a catalyst for improving whole schools.

Chief executive Elizabeth Reid said: "Specialist science colleges have boosted science teaching and take-up as even Professor Smithers acknowledges.

"His report says that 70% of specialist science colleges provided GCSE physics in 2007, up from 43% in 2003 and that science colleges were over five times more likely to offer physics than other schools.

"Specialist schools are fully comprehensive and, as Professor David Jesson's annual study for the SSAT shows, use their specialism as a catalyst for whole school improvement, ensuring more young people leave school with a good education and with a good set of qualifications."

The report from the University of Buckingham concludes: "It is an urgent problem for government to find ways of bringing together what is now a diverse collection of schools into a secondary education system with shape and coherence."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Yet again Professor Smithers is striving to do down the hard work of teachers and pupils rather than celebrating their achievements.

"Specialist schools are thriving. Specialist status gives a valuable cash boost to schools but more importantly it gives an extra focus and drive that raises standards across the board, not just in the relevant specialism. This can only be a good thing."

Wednesday, January 21, 2009



The HTC-built Android G2 phone has been leaked on the web. It looks to be thinner due to the lack of a fold-out keyboard, replaced, I’m assuming, by a virtual on-screen touch keyboard. As shown by the pic, it’ll sport a 3.2 megapixel camera, rounded corners, and a similar G1 interface.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009



It is a familiar drill in nearly all of the nation’s Roman Catholic school systems: a new alarm every few years over falling enrollment; church leaders huddling over what to do; parents rallying to save their schools. And then the bad news.

When the Diocese of Brooklyn last week proposed closing 14 more elementary schools, it was not the deepest but only the latest of a thousand cuts suffered, one tearful closing announcement at a time, as enrollment in the nation’s Catholic schools has steadily dropped by more than half from its peak of five million 40 years ago.

But recently, after years of what frustrated parents describe as inertia in the church hierarchy, a sense of urgency seems to be gripping many Catholics who suddenly see in the shrinking enrollment a once unimaginable prospect: a country without Catholic schools.

From the ranks of national church leaders to the faithful in the pews, there are dozens of local efforts to forge a new future for parochial education by rescuing the remaining schools or, if need be, reinventing them. The efforts are all being driven, in one way or another, by a question in a University of Notre Dame task force report in 2006: “Will it be said of our generation that we presided over the demise” of Catholic schools?

The Archdiocese of Chicago and dioceses in Memphis and Wichita, Kan., have begun or expanded radical experiments in recruiting new students and financing their educations. Administrators in a dozen dioceses, including Brooklyn’s, are rethinking the century-old norms of parish-run schools, where overworked priests have until recently been the single-handed bosses. These dioceses are now recruiting parents and alumni to play a bigger decision-making role.

A series of major studies in the past few years, including one by the White House Domestic Policy Council, have described the dwindling presence of parochial schools as a crisis not just for Catholics but for society.

The losses have already been deeply felt in impoverished urban neighborhoods, where parochial schools have attracted poor and minority students — including non-Catholics — seeking havens of safety and order from troubled public schools. Roughly 20 percent of parochial school students are not Catholic, according to experts.

The Archdiocese of Washington was so desperate to save seven struggling parochial schools last year that it opted for a solution that shook Catholic educators to the core. It took down the crucifixes, hauled away the statues of the Virgin Mary, and — in its own word — “converted” the schools in the nation’s capital into city charter schools.

The Washington choice seemed to limn in its most extreme form the predicament facing Catholic education: How to maintain a Catholic school tradition of no-frills educational rigor, religious teaching and character-building — a system that has helped shape generations of America’s striving classes since the turn of the last century — when Catholics are no longer signing up their children.

“It was taken for granted for a long time that Catholic schools would always be there,” said Dr. Karen M. Ristau, president of the National Catholic Educational Association, a lobbying group. “People are beginning to realize that this is a false assumption.”

The Rev. Timothy R. Scully, who led the Notre Dame task force study widely credited with igniting the current self-examination, was more blunt.

“There is a window open, and we may have a chance to reverse the trend of decline,” he said. “But I’m not sure how long it will remain open.”

Why this matters deeply to committed Catholics has been articulated repeatedly by parents, students and alumni of the nation’s roughly 2,000 parochial schools shuttered since 1990, a majority in just the last eight years.

Parents in Brooklyn last week, echoing those before them, said it was about bonds of faith, place and time.

“My grandmother and grandfather, my aunts and uncles, both my parents, my wife and I and now our kids have gone to Holy Name,” said Martin J. Cottingham, 38, a member of the class of 1984 of Holy Name of Jesus elementary school in Brooklyn, which would merge with a neighboring school under the Brooklyn Diocese’s reorganization plan. “The world can change, but if you got your school, your church, your sports all within a couple of blocks, you’re safe.”

At its peak in 1965, the church’s network of parochial schools numbered more than 12,000 in the United States. The bulk of those were built starting at the turn of the century, when Catholic bishops commanded every parish to build one, largely from concern that waves of Catholic immigrants then arriving from Ireland and Italy would be lost in a public school system that was openly hostile to their beliefs.

The goal set by the bishops in 1884 — “every Catholic child in a Catholic school” — was never quite met. But by 1965, roughly half of all Catholic children in America attended Catholic elementary schools, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.

The number today is about 15 percent. Among Latinos, the fastest-growing church group — soon to comprise a majority of Catholics in the United States — it is only 3 percent.

The church has blamed a stew of confluent trends, including the shortage of nuns and priests who once ran the schools at no extra cost and have been replaced by lay staff with pension benefits; the post-Vatican II relaxation of religious obligations, which once included sending one’s children to the parish school; and the demographic shifts by which relatively well-paid working-class parishioners of a generation ago were replaced in the pews by Latinos and other immigrants who are part of the working poor.

Disappointed parents, as well as education professionals, cite rising tuition as another factor. But they also say the church hierarchy has been slow to react to societal change and unwilling to admit to problems, and is not especially well trained to run businesses — schools — in environments like New York, where charter schools and a generally improving public school system offer parents, Catholic or otherwise, options they have not always had.

“There is not a single seminary in the United States offering courses in finance, marketing, business management or long-term planning,” said Richard J. Burke, president of Catholic School Management, a consultancy firm in Connecticut that has provided those services to hundreds of parochial schools — most still open, he said — over the past 35 years. “Parish schools today simply cannot be operated by individual pastors.”

Recently, many Catholic leaders have come to agree.

In Brooklyn, the centerpiece of the five-year plan unveiled last week by Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio is a two-tiered school management structure, with parish priests left in charge of religious matters. A board of laypeople, selected by priests and diocesan officials, would handle just about everything else: marketing, recruitment, managing the finances, even hiring principals.

While reserving the parish priest’s right to veto his board’s decisions, the plan clearly sets a premium on collaboration and on what Bishop DiMarzio called a “communion” of schools and dedicated people. That communion would cut across parish lines, as well as the line of authority that once separated clergy and laity.

“This is a paradigm shift, a whole new way of thinking about our schools,” said Auxiliary Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of the Brooklyn Diocese, who spearheaded the six-month assessment behind the new plan.

In the Archdiocese of New York, which lost 5,000 parochial school pupils last year alone, plans are under way to adopt a similar approach, tapping into the administrative and business talents of parents, alumni and wealthy donors. “Supporting Catholic schools is the obligation of the entire Catholic community,” said Timothy J. McNiff, the archdiocesan schools superintendent, adding that no decision had been made about further school closings. The diocese has closed 15 since the 2006-7 school year.

In Wichita and Memphis, where two of the earliest experiments in reinventing traditional parochial schools were started, Catholic educators see cause for optimism. The Wichita Diocese has mounted a campaign since 1985, asking its 120,000 Catholics to tithe as much as 8 percent of household income to its ministries, which include 39 schools.

The money was not earmarked solely for the schools, but it has allowed all of them to eliminate tuition starting in 2002, with enrollment approaching a 40-year high of 11,000.

In Memphis, with a small Catholic population, the diocese turned to private donors and philanthropic foundations to help support its 30 schools, particularly eight urban schools where only 10 percent of the pupils are Catholic. The diocese has since reopened those eight schools, which had closed because of budget problems, and added 1,500 students systemwide.

In the last few years, research papers published at Catholic universities like Notre Dame and Fordham and Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles have explored alternatives like dedicating church resources to educating only the poor, only the affluent or only children with disabilities.

What most proposals have in common is broadening the base of financial support. Some call for including all Catholics in the diocese; others focus on wealthy philanthropists; some use marketing campaigns aimed at filling empty seats with children, Catholic or not.

“The strength of parochial schools has always been the parish community,” Bishop Caggiano said. “But with the mobility of individuals today, that strength can also be a weakness, keeping people from looking beyond to the larger community.”

But it is that small community of family and friends that Catholics cite as the heart of the parochial school experience: looking around in church on Sunday and seeing one’s classmates, or knowing the names of the solemn young altar servers at the funeral Mass of one’s parent. It is the parochial in the parochial school.

Debbie DaGiau, mother of a seventh grader at Blessed Sacrament School in Queens, which is marked for closing this year, said that for the sake of that experience, some parents work two jobs to pay the $3,600 tuition.

“I send Matthew to this particular Catholic school because the school and church and parish are together,” she said. Since the announcement of the school’s proposed closing, Ms. DaGiau said, parents have mobilized to fight, raising funds and marshaling alumni.

“We’ll do whatever it takes,” she said.

Monday, January 19, 2009



This is almost certainly the last new serious portable media player we are going to meet this year. There were some fine examples of PMPs during 2008 like Cowon S9 Curve and the upcoming Sony Walkman. And here is a latest T9 PMP version from RAmos. Despite such a strange name spelling, this company is not going to let anyone make fun of its name and of its products, this is how serious they are about T9's image quality and assemblage quality, only that above named media players seem to be more progressive, more wanted if you want it. I am not sure how RAmos is going to compete with Sony and Cowon, but T9 still may be placed against other PMPs on the market since the price is yet unknown, but it will be unveiled in nearest future.

Why have we decided to put RAmos next to Sony and Cowon in advance? Because judging be features, T9 can compete with them. This is not only about image quality or style, etc. The thing is that T9 will not cost as much S9 Curve and Walkman for a slight feature shortage, but the rest is on the adequate level. T9's good sides are: screen – 4.3 inches versus Walkman's 3 inches. Resolution is 800 x 480 and colors, 16 millions of them on a LED display. Yes, S9 and Walkman do have OLED touchscreens and T9 hasn't but I bet that RAmos will release it faster than Sony, which is also a plus. Now, codes. Rumors reckon that T9 will have a long list of them, with DivX, XviD, MP3, Mpeg4, RM, RMVB and lossless for sound and H.264 for video. And then there is the body made from aircraft-grade aluminum and extremely durable glass. I find its look very attractive, but, far by me, no info on wireless Internet connection doesn't play good any for T9.

Sunday, January 18, 2009



Cellular broadband is a great thing especially with its 3G capabilities. It has very nice speed for both downloading and uploading content, wide coverage, even better than WiFi usually. However, having these advantages mobile networks have been serving very few digital photo frames. A brief while ago, in November '08, T-Mobile has introduced one, and there are no any other successful examples of cellular network digital photo frames coming to my mind. But we are getting one more this spring probably. Isabella Products has announced its "Vizit" photo frame with Internet connection based on cellular network and what's more, it is a 10.4 inch touchscreen with some interesting features in it.

Isabella Products may have done a questionable design work. Vizit looks a bit coarse with a large holder behind, but anyway developers though of different kinds of materials and colors. Silver or gunmetal body with rosewood or teak insertions will be available. But design is moved aside by 10.4 inch touchscreen and gadget's capabilities. The screen is LCD with not yet affirmed resolution, nor are its other features. Manufacturer promises of course high resolution and vivid colors. Isabella Products notices that the main advantage if Vizit photo frame is two-way communication, fast and easy photo exchange all via mobile network, which is priced higher than WiFi. However it is Vizit's main advantage. First of all it can easily be used by grandparents or even kids, because grandparents may not have WiFi at their home but can still keep in touch with recent photos of their relatives. Second advantage – user friendly menu. Visibly, Isabelle Product made touching areas quite big and there are not much confusing buttons.

Vizit photo frame will be in stores in short time. Not earlier than spring and most probably in March. MSRP for Vizit is 299 USD.

Saturday, January 17, 2009



Not since the days of the Grand Tour taken at the turn of the last century has travel to numerous countries on a single trip been so popular. Part of the reason lies in the fact that travel budgets have been reduced so that making the most out of any trip you take now makes good financial sense. But having the language skills necessary to communicate freely in the countries you need or want to visit is another matter entirely.

Now, thanks to the Ectaco iTRAVL, a remarkable new award-winning travel handheld, everyone has instant access to the resources needed to travel in comfort and style. Using an advanced combination of native-speaker voice narration, advanced speech recognition and speech synthesis, iTRAVL understands and speaks up to several million words and phrases instantly to save precious time when seconds really count.

Perfect for use in hotels, restaurants and shops, on the street when asking for directions, iTRAVL delivers the detailed facts you need and includes a translating Dictionary, Talking PhraseBook and Travel Guides to put the power of complete understanding to work for you.

But iTRAVL isn’t only great on the road, it even lets you increase your knowledge of foreign languages before and after your trip with a built-in Language Teacher system that uses speech recognition modules and learning games to let you speak like a local in no time at all. An Mp3 player for your favorite audio files and AudioBooks lets iTRAVL inform and entertain on long journeys. And with a talking calculator to perform instant currency conversions, you can easily check for the best exchange rates and save money while having the time of your life.

Friday, January 16, 2009



If you still haven't switched to a 3G mobile phone or you are going to do it soon, maybe you should not be in a hurry. Today we have found out that the next generation 4G format would not take long to wait for. TeliaSonera announced today that they are a first company in the world to sign a commercial contract with Ericsson and Huawei to provide 4G coverage. Both of these companies are located in Europe, such a way first 4G mobile broadband will appear in Nordic and Baltic countries.

4G as well as 3G format requires a whole new range of mobile phones. However GSM networks will not be switched off as soon as 4G comes. First of all, 4G will not spread immediately over the world and broadband providers still can see long-term potential in GSM networks. Anyway, 4G is going to change mobile experience completely. It is up to bring Internet speeds to immense range starting from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. From the other side 4G will provide more safety to users as it is based on IPv6. These features mean that high quality media content will be easily available for mobile gadgets. For instance, 100 Mbps allow downloading average DVD-5 movie in about 5 minutes or steaming for much bigger displays with higher pixelation.

TeliaSonera declared 4G release date for the year 2010 in Oslo and Stockholm. In Oslo it will be Huawei and in Stockholm Ericsson will be in charge.



Shortly after Windows Vista launch, appeared first gossips about intensive work on a new OS - codenamed Windows Vienna. Seeing the blast that made Windows Vista in delivering completely new user interface, compared to XP, everybody thought that next Windows will have even more differences and will be completely revolutionary. Years passed, Microsoft released first Service Pack for Vista, renamed Windows Vienna to Windows 7 and we all started to wait for the first information about new OS. Now, when Windows 7 Beta is publicly available, we must say that it IS a big step forward: not revolutionary (like Vista after XP), but evolutionary. After all piles of garbage that were thrown at Vista during its lifespan, it is pleasing to see that Windows 7 is not a completely new OS - it is Windows Vista made how it was meant to be. In this review we'd like to describe some new features, compare it to the previous version, and warn users about possible bugs and glitches in Beta.

After Windows Vista launch, appeared several images that appeared to be "first screenshots of upcoming OS from Microsoft". Majority of them were fakes, some of them were just concepts. People started to think that Microsoft will totally revamp User Interface so it will be completely different, so many of them were shocked when first real screenshots hit the web. They were completely indistinguishable from Vista - UI was almost completely the same! There were many differences in the inside, but on the outside it wasn't different from Vista. To prevent people from disappointment, Microsoft launched big press conference, dedicated to the upcoming Windows 7, where all the features were carefully presented and explained. It created big rise of interest, many were anticipating announced "feature complete" Beta. Microsoft plans for admitting only 2.5 million of Beta testers were overthrown with huge amount of users interested in trying new OS, so they stopped the counter and released their Beta for everyone who wants to test it. Of course, we got interested in it too, so we installed it on our spare HDD. Configuration of our test machine is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 @ 2.53GHz
2 GB DDR2 RAM @ 1033 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 256 MB
Samsung HDD 230 GB SATA2

So, let's begin our test.

First impressions

After the installation process, which was fast (approximately 25 minutes), we noticed that Microsoft at last made an attractive Boot Screen. After the poorly done Vista loading bar, Windows 7 animations during the boot time are very pleasing. Modern OS must be modern in anything, so this change, while not so significant, shifts the impression from the OS to the positive side. After attractive animation, desktop showed in. After Aurora theme in Windows Vista, made in green / yellow colors, Microsoft shifted to the blue theme. Logon screen looks like water, with rays of light shining from the surface. Thoughts about water confirmed when default wallpaper showed in - it got a pretty fishy in its center. Famous SuperBar, one of the most hyped features of Seven is here, we'll return to it later. Aero effects are the same, same transparent glass window borders, same Windows Flip 3D animations. Icons look a little refreshed; they seem somehow less glossy and more serious. Overall, the UI speed was increased, Windows 7 feels much more responsive than Vista, on the same machine and in the same conditions. But what's new in the next installment of Microsoft OS compared to Vista?

New features

One of the most hyped and anticipated feature is Microsoft's evolution of Windows taskbar, where all open windows minimized to. Now it is called Superbar and it works similar to Mac OS dock. For better understanding, imagine that quick launch panel got combined with taskbar. You still have big application launch buttons, but when you open application, it minimizes into its button. If that application has several minimized windows, they will all minimize to one button, making button look like a pile of icons. Clicking on that pile will bring menu, very similar to that window thumbnails that was shown in Vista while hovering an item in taskbar, with a significant difference - you can close and activate windows by clicking on them. Hovering the mouse over one of them will bring that window to the front, making other windows fully transparent, it will return to the previous state when mouse pointer leaves thumbnail's position. This feature is called Aero Peek and is very useful in deciding which window must be maximized, or, as name tells, for brief look on the page contents.

Other interesting function of Superbar is Jump List, quick menu that is accessed via right clicking an icon. It is unique to every application, and contains some useful elements, which can be selected before launching application. It can be the "recently opened" file list, or some special functions like history of visited web pages or quick access to bookmarks in IE8. Unfortunately, at this moment such jump lists are available only on the built-in applications like Internet Explorer, but it is only a matter of time before such lists will appear in other applications. Some of the applications, like Internet Explorer or Windows Explorer can display progress bars right on the icon, so user can always see the progress of downloading or copying. These functions improve the friendliness of user interface and greatly increase effectiveness of work.

System tray was also greatly reworked. From the pile of unneeded and useless icons it became a fully customizable panel. From now on, user can configure behavior of every icon, show it always or show only notifications. Unneeded icons hide in handy box menu, which is way more comfortable to use than old "arrow-styled" method.

In Windows 7 Microsoft introduced new way to organize windows on the desktop, which is called Aero Snap. It includes many functions, which make window management much more efficient. When user drags a window to the edge of the screen, transparent borders will show what position that window will take, if dropped. Dragging window to the right side maximize it to the right side of your screen, same with the left, dragging to the upper side maximizes window to full screen. Very handy when you need to compare something or when working with several open documents! Shaking the window while dragging it will minimize all other windows to Superbar - an interesting function, when you need to quickly hide all other windows except the one you work with.

Windows Sidebar, while keeping its name, is no longer a sidebar - gadgets are now a part of desktop, and can be placed everywhere on it. Of course you could do that in Vista too, but now they are completely standalone, and can be accessed by right clicking the desktop. Also, very useful feature of new gadgets - they are no longer minimized when you press "Show desktop" button or WIN+D. Unfortunately, not every Vista gadget will work in the new OS, some of them experience unpleasant graphics issues while some are not working at all.

Windows Vista added useful option for virtual folders in User folder - in Windows 7 they moved even further. Microsoft introduced Libraries, so every virtual folder is not a single folder anymore, but a compilation of folders you like. At last they do not limit user to using only one folder for music and one for video - now you can make compilations from whatever folders you like, which leads to greatly increased content management.



Other convenient feature of Seven is Home Group, tool that simplifies network sharing of media files. With it enabled user can easily manage what content should be accessible from other network computers, and what permissions to give. Of course, it can be done manually, however it is much easier with automated tool. It also protects user from accidentally leaving security holes in his network, so only multimedia folders will be shared. Speaking of network features, Windows 7 also simplifies selection of Wireless networks, which are now easily accessed right from network tray icon.

Another hugely hyped feature of Windows 7 is Device Stage, a useful tool to manage external devices. Unlike to previous Windows versions, where external devices needed some third party applications to be recognized in Windows, this time all that work should be done inside the OS. With the especially designed drivers, it should be possible to work with every of your devices in one especially designed for that device window. Microsoft representatives gave an example with mobile phone, which was recognized by Device Stage and had its own control window, which showed basic information about the device (battery state, signal strength) and all the actions that can be made with it, i.e. synchronization etc. Let's hope that every manufacturer will support this feature, because it seems very useful and interesting.

One of the most annoying features in Windows Vista was User Account Control, aka UAC. It was announced like one of the main features of Vista, but it turned out to be a real pain for the users. It asked your permission for doing almost everything, including going to Control Panel or installing / uninstalling applications. It was intended for security purposes, and it indeed helped to make working with PC safer, but many users turned it off because it annoyed them. Folks in Microsoft understood that, and improved UAC a bit. Instead of on / off switch as before, it has a slider that adjusts the "security meter" from total paranoia to complete shutdown. There are four positions, so you can carefully adjust this level for every user.

Interesting option appeared in the User Management, called Safeguard PC. It can be used on simple User accounts by checking the appropriate checkbox. After that, if this user makes some changes during his session, after log off all files and settings will be restored to initial state - very useful for small children that may mess up your computer accidentally changing some options.

Interface and appearance improvements, while some are major, like redesigned taskbar, others are minor, but noticeable. Menus in Control Panel are sliding in and out, which makes it feel way smoother than on Vista. "Computer" screen has an useful option to hide all empty drives, so multi-format card readers will not make a huge list of empty drives - they will appear only if card is inserted. At last that useful Remaining space colored bar show the remaining space on removable drives too, not only on hard disks - very strange that they haven't done it earlier, now it seems much more logical. Other minor improvements were made to the Customization menu, which now is tuned to make customization way easier than on Vista. Some will find useful new wallpaper slide-show feature, which can change wallpapers from selected list in a set time intervals. Good side of all this is that all customization functions, like theme, wallpaper, screensaver and sound scheme settings are brought in one place. Overall the looks of new OS feels much more polished than on the Vista, and this is a very positive sign - Microsoft at last gave attention to the small details, which, when combined together, influence the overall impressions about the OS.

Found bugs

In the process of our testing we found several bugs and glitches, some of them are simply annoying, some were a little more serious. Amazingly, no critical bugs were found - system showed very good stability for the first Beta. In any case, we would list them, to warn all possible users of Windows 7 Beta about them.

The most significant bug is hidden inside the Windows Media Player. If your MP3 files have images written in tags, such as Album Art, WMP chops the first 5 seconds of the file. Unfortunately, this change cannot be undone, so backup your library before synchronizing it with Media Player. Shortly after first reports about this problem showed in, Microsoft released the KB961367 hotfix for this problem, so it is already fixed.

Fortunately, other bugs are much less critical as never so destructive as the first one. If UAC is disabled, gadgets are not working - they work only in Administrator account. So if you use User account and you hate UAC, the only solution is to adjust the UAC level so to the second position, leaving it working on the lowest setting possible. Or wait for MS to fix it in final version; it's all up to user.

Another small and insignificant issue is the size of context menu, which sometimes gets very wide if some context menu options have images. Customization menu sometimes hangs when opening folder with many pictures in it, and sometimes themes are "stuck" so only system reboot will fix them. There exist some other small glitches, but they don't deserve to be reviewed as they are very insignificant.

Conclusions


It is amazing that the amount of critical bugs in Beta is minimal, previous Betas from Microsoft suffered from many critical errors and were very unstable. This time Microsoft did a good job in releasing polished Beta version that is working faster than stable version of Vista - even in the same conditions. Of course, not all software is compatible with Windows 7, however due to it using the same kernel as Vista, almost every program that worked in Vista can be launched in Windows 7 - directly or with help of Compatibility Wizard. In the process of testing we found that almost all software worked, problems occurred with drivers and hardware-based applications only. Developers will need some time to release Windows 7 compatible drivers and programs, and this is normal - all the hard work will be done before the public release of Final RTM version. It is curious that Windows 7 will work on every PC that supported Vista and won't ask for an upgrade, it works better than Vista on the same hardware - amazing results, Microsoft! For now, we have an excellent example of how people should learn on its mistakes - Windows 7 looks and feels like a very polished Windows Vista. It delivers many new features that make the work with OS pleasant quick and comfortable. So let's wait until the end of 2009 to see the final version of this interesting OS.

Thursday, January 15, 2009



If you get nervous that maybe you’ve had too much to drink, now you can have a more accurate test to figure it out. Keep this little keychain on your keys and you’ll never have to worry that somehow you miscounted how many beers you have had. Of course it also means if you ignore it and get pulled over, if the cop sees that, you’re going to be in even deeper trouble. He’ll know that you knew full well and went ahead anyway, which means there isn’t a prayer that you’ll get off easy.



Recently, traditional monitor maker ViewSonic not only came out with a netbook computer but also an all-in-one PC. The ViePC VPC100 is a space-saver at 35mm thin, and is ideal for office productivity and Web-based applications. An 18.5-inch display device, the product features a 16:9 aspect ratio LCD screen so users can experience razor-sharp images in crisp detail.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Dear President-elect Barack Obama,

In the afterglow of your election, Americans today run the risk of forgetting that the nation still faces one last great civil-rights battle: closing the insidious achievement gap between minority and white students. Public education is supposed to be the great equalizer in America. Yet today the average 12th-grade black or Hispanic student has the reading, writing and math skills of an eighth-grade white student.

That appalling four-year gap is even worse in high-poverty high schools, which often are dropout factories. In Detroit, just 34% of black males manage to graduate. In the nation's capital -- home to one of the worst public-school systems in America -- only 9% of ninth-grade students go on to graduate and finish college within five years. Can this really be the shameful civil-rights legacy that we bequeath to poor black and Hispanic children in today's global economy?

This achievement gap cannot be narrowed by a series of half-steps from the usual suspects. As you observed when naming Chicago superintendent Arne Duncan to be the next secretary of education, "We have talked our education problems to death in Washington." Genuine school reform, you stated during the campaign, "will require leaders in Washington who are willing to learn from students and teachers . . . about what actually works."

We, too, believe that true education reform can only be brought about by a bipartisan coalition that challenges the entrenched education establishment. And we second your belief that school reformers must demonstrate an unflagging commitment to "what works" to dramatically boost academic achievement -- rather than clinging to reforms that we "wish would work."

Those beliefs led us to form a nonpartisan coalition last year, the Education Equality Project (EEP), which seeks to greatly narrow, if not eliminate, the achievement gap. Mr. Duncan has signed on to the EEP, as have most of the nation's leading big-city school superintendents, such as Paul Vallas in New Orleans, Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., and Colorado's new U.S. senator, former Denver superintendent Michael Bennet. Mayors Richard M. Daley in Chicago, Michael Bloomberg in New York City, Adrian Fenty in Washington, D.C., and Cory Booker in Newark, N.J., are on board, too. Several prominent Republicans, including John McCain and Newt Gingrich, have joined our coalition as well.

EEP seeks to ensure that America's schools provide equal educational opportunity, judged by one measuring stick: Does a policy advance student learning? It's an obvious litmus test. Yet the current K-12 school system is designed to serve the interests of adults, not children.

EEP's mission thus turns out to be unexpectedly radical -- and we have run afoul at times of longtime Democratic allies. While we recognize that the No Child Left Behind law has numerous flaws that need correcting, we staunchly support NCLB's core concept that schools should be held accountable for boosting student performance. Dismissing the potential of schools to substantially boost minority achievement, as is now fashionable in some Democratic circles, is ultimately little more than a recipe for defeatism. Like you, we also support expanding parental choice. High-performing urban charter schools such as the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools are showing that minority students can close the achievement gap if given access to high-quality instruction.

Finally, our coalition also promotes the development and placement of effective teachers in underserved schools and supports paying them higher salaries. By contrast, we oppose rigid union-tenure protections, burdensome work rules, and antiquated pay structures that shield a small minority of incompetent teachers from scrutiny yet stop good teachers from earning substantial, performance-based pay raises.

What can you and your administration do to close the achievement gap? Although the funding and oversight of public schools is chiefly a state and local responsibility, you still retain the power of the bully pulpit. Beyond expanding federal support for charter schools, as you have proposed, we would urge you to press forward with two other, far-reaching policy reforms.

First, the federal government, working with the governors, should develop national standards and assessments for student achievement. Our current state-by-state approach has spawned a race to the bottom, with many states dumbing down standards to make it easier for students to pass achievement tests. Even when students manage to graduate from today's inner-city high schools, they all too frequently are still wholly unprepared for college or gainful employment.

Second, the federal government should take most of the more than $30 billion it now spends on K-12 education and reposition the funding to support the recruitment and retention of the best teachers in underserved urban schools. High-poverty urban schools have many teachers who make heroic efforts to educate their students. But there is no reward for excellence in inner-city schools when an outstanding science teacher earns the same salary as a mediocre phys-ed instructor.

Study after study shows that good teachers have, by far, the highest impact on student learning. "The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of [a student's] skin or where they come from," you stated on the campaign trail. "It's not who their parents are or how much money they have -- it's who their teacher is." We couldn't agree more. To close the achievement gap, start with a three-word solution: Teachers, teachers, teachers. The fierce urgency of now cannot be allowed to dissipate into the sleepy status quo of tomorrow.

Mr. Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, and Rev. Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, are co-chairmen of the Education Equality Project.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009



A British technology company developed an electronic babysitter. The gadget looks like a wristwatch and with its help parents will always know where their offspring are at all times.

According to Matthew Salmon, a spokesman for lok8u, company that invented the GPS Child Locator, or num8, the device features a Global Positioning System (GPS). The GPS has an accuracy of about 3 meters, the spokesman said. The num8 activates only when it is attached to the wrist and it is extremely complicated to get it off.

However, if the child somehow manages to take off the num8, the device instantly sends an emergency SMS to the cell phone of his or her parents. "It would give you a Google Maps image with their exact location, the street name and the zip code," said Mr. Salmon.

Whenever parents want to find out about the current location of their child, they only have to send a short text message saying "wru" and they will receive the required information to their computer or cell phone. They may also find the exact location of their child by logging on to the official website of the company.

Mr. Salmon also mentioned that parents can set up a perimeter, which is a kind of invisible fence and each time their child walks out of it, the device sends a warning. The invisible fence can be set up on the Internet. The gadget is waterproof and shockproof. A full charged battery can power the num8 for three days.

The gadget will be available in UK and the United States this year and its price will be 0 with a monthly subscription fee of . Thousands of people have already expressed their opinion about the device shortly after it was launched. Half of them are positive about num8, while the other half expressed their concerns over the device.

Monday, January 12, 2009

A LEADING London girls' school has suspended 29 pupils for posting malicious comments about a teacher on Facebook.

Dozens of pupils at The Grey Coat Hospital School, a Westminster comprehensive, subscribed to a group called The Hate Society on the social networking site.

The "deeply insulting comments" came to light when a pupil printed the page and passed it around. It has since been removed from the web. The unnamed female teacher targeted was reportedly so upset that she needed counselling.

The girls were suspended for between two and 15 days just before Christmas, but some pupils feel the punishment was extreme. One said: "The school handled it very badly by suspending a huge number of people. It was just a stupid game that no one took any notice of. We have said sorry."

Grey Coat is rated "outstanding" by Ofsted. Former pupils include Labour politician Tamsin Dunwoody and television presenter Sarah Greene.

Teaching unions said the problem of cyberbullying was becoming worse

Headteacher Rachel Allard said: "The vast majority of parents who have been to see me about this incident understand why we have taken firm disciplinary action."

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile) today announced a new mobile phone accessory, the award-winning* MBP200 Pico Projector. The Samsung MBP200 is the ultimate wireless accessory, offering advanced features designed to enhance the mobile experience.

Compact and lightweight, the portable MBP200 can connect to mobile phones and laptops and by utilizing the DLP® pico chip from Texas Instruments it allows users to transform their traditional two inch screen to a 50-inch viewing screen allowing others to share in the video experience. In addition, users can easily transfer files and project content independent of an attached source via the microSD card slot. The MBP200 has a simple shape and design with touchpad controls on the right side of the device for easy navigation and a 2.2-inch QVGA LCD screen which allow users to view content privately.

Samsung’s MBP200 offers the latest entertainment features and independently supports standard Microsoft Office and PDF formats for display. With the MBP200, users can listen to music and create playlists, as well as view video, pictures or PDF, PowerPoint, Word or Excel files.

The Samsung pico projector delivers a superior picture from a mobile device and is powered by a miniaturized version of the same imaging technology found in DLP HDTVs, home theater projectors and large-scale cinema houses. The unit can accommodate a range of projected image sizes – from an 8 ½ x 11 standard sheet of paper to a large 50-inch screen. For added convenience, the MBP200 comes with a small screen holder with a telescoping pole hidden inside, which can instantly turn a standard sheet of paper into a screen to view movies, document files or pictures. The 3.5mm standard jack allows users to enjoy their own headphones or speakers, or the built-in external speaker allows the MBP200 to play audio directly from the device.

The MBP200 will be available later this year.

*The MBP200 was named the CES Innovations 2009 Design and Engineering Best of Innovations in the wireless handset accessories category. The Best of Innovations is given to the most highly honored products in each category.

Palm, Inc. unveiled its groundbreaking Palm® webOS™ mobile platform, built from the ground up to be constantly connected to the web, and the new Palm Pre™, the first phone based on the new platform Pre is scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in the first half of 2009.

Palm webOS is a brand-new kind of platform, invented exclusively for mobile use. webOS recognizes that you want your people, calendars and information to move with you, wherever you are, wirelessly, as opposed to being bound to a personal computer. Palm webOS is the first mobile platform to automatically bring your information from the many places it resides - on your phone, at your work or on the web - into one simple, integrated view.(1) The new Palm Pre and webOS are designed to be so in sync with your needs that it feels like Pre is thinking ahead for you.

"Palm products have always been about simplifying lives and delivering great user experiences," said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executive officer. "webOS and Pre bring game-changing simplicity to an increasingly mobile world by dissolving the barriers that surround your information. It's technology that seems like it's thinking ahead to bring you what you care about most - your people, your time, and your information - in the easiest and most seamless way."

"Pre continues Sprint's leadership in open access to the content customers want for a great web-connected experience," said Dan Hesse, Sprint chief executive officer. "We look forward to bringing this remarkably innovative device to our customers on America's most dependable 3G network.(2)

Palm's new OS is the first mobile platform to be built from the ground up to combine standard technology, innovation and integration. At its core, webOS leverages several industry-standard technologies, including web technologies such as CSS, XHTML and JavaScript. On top of that, Palm has included creative and innovative advancements to enhance the overall user experience and provided a deep integration of all elements within the platform.

The new platform was designed to allow a vast ecosystem of partners, including developers, hardware suppliers, and accessories manufacturers, to develop core solutions to complement the platform and product line. For developers, webOS shatters traditional barriers to mobile-application development by offering a rich open development environment that's familiar to tens of millions of web developers. More people can develop for the platform and can do it faster than ever before. The platform's flexible environment will also allow developers to distribute their applications over-the-air via an on-device Palm application store.

Your Life, Brought Together


The new platform introduces Palm Synergy™, a key feature of webOS that brings your information from all the places it resides into one logical view. You don't have to worry about tracking multiple calendars, contacts and messaging applications - Synergy brings it to you for a more comprehensive and truly representative view of your life.

*Linked contacts - With Synergy, you have a single view that links your contacts from a variety of sources, so accessing them is easier than ever. For example, if you have the same contact listed in your Outlook(3), Google and Facebook accounts, Synergy recognizes that they're the same person and links the information, presenting it to you as one listing. And if you update a contact on your webOS device, it also will be updated in your various accounts, whether on a personal computer or on the web.

*Layered calendars - Your calendars can be seen on their own or layered together in a single view, combining work, family, friends, sports teams, or other interests. You can toggle to look at one calendar at a time, or see them all at a glance.

*Combined messaging - Synergy lets you see all your conversations with the same person in a chat-style view, even if it started in IM and you want to reply with text messaging. You can also see who's active in a buddy list right from contacts, and start a new conversation with just one touch.

Your Information, Effortlessly

By smartly integrating your information, webOS is designed to think ahead for you and keep you on top of the things that happen in your life, but that's just the first step. The platform's unique interface brings your information to you with the ease that only Palm can offer.

*Web-connected applications - Applications are seamlessly connected to the web and always active(4), ensuring you have the most up-to-date information.

*Run multiple applications at the same time - Palm's revolutionary webOS lets you manage multiple activities more effectively than any other mobile platform today. It lets you keep multiple applications open and instantly flip from one to another.(4) *Instinctive user interface - With its multi-touch interface, webOS lets you move easily between activities like flipping through a deck of cards and rearrange items simply by dragging them; when you are done with something, just throw it away. And finding what you need is easy with universal search - as you type what you're looking for, the OS narrows your search and offers results from both your device and the web.(5) *Intuitive and unobtrusive notifications - When important things come up or new updates arrive, you'll receive notifications with a diplomacy that's a radical departure from other mobile platforms. For example, if you receive a text message or email, a scrolling notifications bar at the bottom of your screen lets you address it right away or leave until later. webOS alerts are one step ahead, ensuring that you never miss a thing, but never lose your place or train of thought.

Palm Pre: The First webOS Phone

Pre has a breakthrough interface and hardware design that makes it the most integrated and user-friendly phone for mobile users. Featuring a smooth, rounded ergonomic design and a physical keyboard that slides out only when needed, Pre is engineered to feel natural in the hand and comfortably small in the pocket. When closed, the phone is ideal for phone calls, web browsing, music, photos and videos; when open, Pre is optimized for email and text messaging. With its curved slider and gesture-controlled touch interface, Pre fuses exquisite design with the revolutionary webOS software for fast access to anything on the device or web. It's an instinctive user experience that seems to anticipate your needs.

"As our lives revolve more and more around the web, devices like Palm Pre that transform how we interact with the web will lead the way," said Hesse. "We are focused on bringing our customers a superior experience that includes easy-to-use devices, simple pricing and value with Simply Everything all-inclusive offerings, plus Ready Now, our exclusive retail program that helps customers leave the store feeling comfortable and confident they know how to use their new device."

Pre will support a variety of differentiated on-device Sprint services, including Sprint TV®, offering an extensive selection of live and on-demand programming. Sprint Navigation provides GPS-enabled audio and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, one-click traffic rerouting and more than 10 million local listings. Sprint also offers more than a dozen streaming-radio applications, including Sprint Radio with more than 150 channels.

Palm Pre features include the following:

*High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A or UMTS HSDPA)

* Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g(6)

* Integrated GPS(7)

* Large 3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320x480 resolution HVGA display

* Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation

* Slide-out QWERTY keyboard

* Email, including Outlook EAS (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (POP3, IMAP)

* Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities)(4)

* High-performance, desktop-class web browser

* Great multimedia experience and performance (pictures, video playback, music), featuring a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack

* Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support

* 8GB of internal user storage (~7.4GB user available)

* USB mass storage mode

* MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed

* Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear

* Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage

* Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective

* Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch

* Removable, rechargeable battery

* Dimensions: 59.57mm (W) x 100.53mm (L, closed) x 16.95mm (D) [2.35 inches (W) x 3.96 inches (L, closed) x 0.67 inches (D)]

* Weight: ~135 grams [4.76 ounces]

An array of compelling accessories also will be available for Pre, including the first inductive charging solution for phones (sold separately). Simply set Pre down on top of the elegantly designed Palm Touchstone™ charging dock without worrying about connection, orientation or fit. Pre is active while charging, so you can access the touch screen, watch movies or video, or use the speakerphone.

Availability and Pricing

Palm Pre is scheduled to be available first in the United States exclusively from Sprint in the first half of 2009, and will be followed by a world-ready UMTS version for other regions. Sprint's pricing for the phone has not yet been determined.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Thousands of children are being sexually bullied and even assaulted in school, an investigation has found

Children, some as young as four, have been victims and perpetrators of sexual misconduct ranging from name calling, inappropriate touching to serious sexual attacks.

Groping and the use of sexually-abusive nicknames have become almost part of daily life for some pupils, according to BBC One's Panorama.

Testimony from two young girls who were left traumatised after being sexually assaulted by classmates is featured in the programme, to be broadcast tomorrow.

In most cases, offenders are not expelled. Official figures show that 3,500 pupils were excluded for sexual misconduct in 2007 - equating to 19 exclusions per school day - including 260 cases in primary schools. Sexual misconduct can cover anything from sexually explicit graffiti to rape.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families does not routinely publish a breakdown of reasons for permanent exclusions but the number kicked out of school for sexual offences is small.

"We are receiving more calls about this on our helpline," said Michele Elliott, the director of anti-bullying charity Kidscape. "It is alarming that children as young as 10 and 11 feel that they can dominate and bully others by the use of inappropriate sexual touching. In some bullying gangs it is used as an initiation.

"We had a case where two boys in an inner city school who were constantly bullying a girl, eventually pulled her in to the boys' room and pulled her pants down.

"Children see sexual misconduct all around them in the footballers and celebrities they admire and look up to. That has something to do with the problem, as has the reluctance of parents to pull kids up for inappropriate behaviour."

The programme reveals that many incidents could be going unreported because pupils learn to accept inappropriate behaviour. One teenager said: "After a while, I know it sounds really weird, but you just learn to deal with it."

A 13-year-old girl described how she was a victim of a sexual assault after months of inappropriate comments and touching by a boy in her class. After reporting the assault, she was shunned by her friends who felt she should have kept quiet.

"One of them said I'd be the most hated girls in school, why should I be doing this? He does it to everyone. His friends, they think of it as funny," she said.

Another teenager was forced to move schools after being subjected to a serious assault by a group of boys. Her father described how she was lured in to a classroom before school started by fellow pupils and forced to perform a sex act on one while the others watched. The boys were later prosecuted and given custodial sentences.

Paula Telford, children's services manager at the NSPCC, said the charity had treated victims and perpetrators as young as four years old.

"Schools react to sexual misconduct with a range of responses," she said. "Some schools will identify the problem, manage risk and take the appropriate action. Others panic.

"They are scared and don't know how to deal with it. They are frightened of other parents' reaction to an incident. Excluding children is a response but it does not deal with the core problem or help to manage the risk elsewhere.

"That is why the NSPCC is campaigning for the Government to develop a strategic response to the issue of sexually hurtful and inappropriate behaviour among children. We want to see detailed guidance and training for teachers and other practitioners."

The programme explores the sexualisation of childhood and how gang culture, music, the internet and TV are affecting how young people view the world.

* Panorama: Kids Behaving Badly, Monday 5th January, 8.30pm, BBC One

Documents released to the Sunday Telegraph paint a disturbing picture of the challenges facing Britain's teachers.

It is 9am, the start of the school day, and already an English teacher has been on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse from a 15-year-old boy. Outside on the playing field, the PE teacher has stopped a lesson to deal with teenage pupils who are swearing and not doing as they are told.

Later that afternoon, three more members of staff will report being verbally abused by their charges, and the day will end with a pupil vandalising the library.

This is just another typical day at Northfields Technology College in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. It is not a particularly extreme example of the unruliness that many state schools have to deal with on a regular basis, but it is a snapshot that will horrify parents as they prepare their children for the new term.

Records of classroom and playground incidents, known as behaviour logs, from five schools on the National Challenge list (those in which fewer than 30 per cent of pupils leave with five "good" GCSEs, with grades A* to C), reveal for the first time the struggle to maintain order in our secondary schools.

The logs, obtained by the Sunday Telegraph under freedom of information legislation, and taken from April and October 2008, show some secondaries recording up to 30 incidents a day. Children storming out of class and refusing to work is now commonplace.

More worrying, however, are the serious offences contained in the logs. During one week, which was chosen at random, a pupil at Tong School, Bradford, was stabbed in the thigh by a student and had to be taken to hospital.

"The age of deference is dead," says Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. "As these documents show, in some schools, keeping behaviour under control is a massive challenge. Schools may well be coping, but it shows the level of indiscipline that teachers have to deal with every working day."

The picture painted by the logs comes as no surprise to Colin Adams, 50, a former IT teacher who was awarded £250,000 compensation in an out-of-court settlement last month after an assault by a pupil ended his career.

Adams joined the teaching profession after working as an engineer. He loved his job and was head of department at Kingsford Community School in east London. In 2004, a 12-year-old pupil strangled him to the point of unconsciousness. Colleagues who witnessed the attack were at first too afraid to pull off the boy in case they were accused of assaulting him.

According to Adams, deteriorating behaviour in schools is a reflection of society. "I have seen children coming in high because they have smoked their fourth joint on their way to school," he says. "I have also had students who have brought knives in to school because they are worried about what will happen to them on their way home. Society, if it is not broken, has a lot of problems and these are mimicked by children."

The boy who attacked him fits an all too familiar profile – he came from a broken home, with a father who lived 100 miles away. Within a few months of joining the school, the pupil had chalked up 27 serious incidents, nine for violence. Adams was on the receiving end of the tenth.

"The day he assaulted me, he had already punched two other pupils, but was still in school. I had not been made aware of what had been going on," says Mr Adams. "He came from behind and ran at me, knocked me down and when I was on the floor, he strangled me. The teacher who eventually intervened had to prise his thumbs off my neck."

Months earlier, the boy was involved in a fight which led to staff requesting his permanent exclusion from the school. Their concerns were not acted upon.

However, the former teacher's experience, and the incidents revealed by the Sunday Telegraph's investigation of school behaviour logs, are not recognised by the Government as significant. Ministers insist that behaviour in schools is improving, and that head teachers have more powers than ever to deal with unruly behaviour.

Last week, they dismissed figures which revealed that thousands of pupils were escaping expulsion, despite violent and sexual offences which the Government's own guidelines class as serious enough to deserve permanent exclusion.

Teachers' unions complain that head teachers – under pressure from local authorities, which have a duty to provide alternative education for expelled pupils – are avoiding the ultimate sanction. Heads are also finding their decisions increasingly overturned by appeal tribunals or even their own governors, who are afraid of legal challenges.

Even the National Union of Teachers, which argues that schools are still one of the safest places for many children, has concerns.

"While teachers have the powers to deal with bad behaviour, it has become a serious matter for wider society that the behaviour of a minority of pupils and, in some cases, their parents, has seriously worsened in recent years," says Christine Blower, the NUT's acting general secretary.

Even if schools are dealing swiftly and efficiently with the challenging behaviour they encounter, at the very least other children are having their education ruined on a daily, even hourly, basis.

At Cheshire Oaks School in Ellesmere Port, the behaviour log for one week shows 73 cases of pupils talking, shouting and disturbing lessons, 61 refusing to obey the teacher, including more than 20 incidents of children simply walking out of the lesson, 65 incidents of poor behaviour, 32 refusing to work when asked, 39 cases of rudeness, 20 cases of verbal aggression towards staff, 10 incidents of children wandering around the classroom or using mobile phones, 14 incidents of lateness, 15 cases of pupils throwing things in lessons and four physical assaults.

And during one week at John Bunyan School in Bedford, pupils were reprimanded for smoking, verbal abuse, aggressive behaviour, drugs, dangerous behaviour and physical assault. Hayling Manor High, in Croydon, averaged between 20 and 30 incidents of bad behaviour a day.

None of the schools which provided records for the Sunday Telegraph study are thought to be failing in the eyes of officialdom. Indeed, inspectors say many are improving, and have "clear and consistent" policies for dealing with threatening behaviour from pupils.

However, all of the schools studied are operating in difficult circumstances. Each has a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals. Ofsted inspections have found that many children entered these secondary schools, at the age of 11, still unable to read and write properly.

According to Adams, despite the big increases in spending in the last 10 years, staff do not have the training and resources to deal with the increasing number of pupils who display problems. "It is true that some head teachers and local authorities do not take behaviour seriously enough and support teachers," he says. "But there is also not enough money to deal with these children. I had one class where eight of the 19 pupils had behavioural and emotional difficulties. When you're spending your time trying to separate them and keeping them in their seats, the level of teaching plummets."

The Conservatives have promised greater powers to exclude pupils who otherwise "fester" in the mainstream, as well as better provision for those who are kicked out. Labour's answer is the £5 billion academy programme, which is supposed to transform education in deprived areas. However, recent problems at academies in Southampton and Carlisle have revealed that these "independent" secondaries are not immune from the behaviour issues that plague other schools.

As revealed last month in the Sunday Telegraph, an emergency Ofsted inspection was triggered at the Richard Rose Central Academy in Carlisle, when complaints were made about gang fights and bullying. The head of the Oasis Academy in Southampton resigned in November after a riot at the school led to five pupils being expelled and 25 suspended.

"The public has no idea about what goes on in schools," says Adams. "At the three I worked in, there were examples of children involved in prostitution, the selling of drugs, gangs, intimidation. Teachers do their best to police it and keep these things external, but they are still getting in to our schools."




All of us who have been on a plane know about how long you have to wait before you can board because of the annoyingly thorough check-ups you have to pass before you can go on your trip. But from now on you can leave all those controls behind thanks to the new Flyclear card. And it only costs $99.95 a year and the fee for TSA of $28.

To get one, you have to go to a Clear center and present two official identification cards. Then you have to take a photo and give them your biometric information. They suggest that you should have a US passport, but foreign people are welcomed to.

So now you can eliminate the stress from your plane trips, not worry about those hidden pierces and miss a lot less planes. The Flyclear has already been put into function but for very few airports like Orlando, San Jose and JFK and the service is not available all day long. But there are plans to expand this technology.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Paging Systems are wireless communication systems that are designed to send brief messages to a subscriber. It’s a one-way messaging system in which Base Station send messages to all subscribers. The Paging System transmits the message also known as Page, along with Paging System access number, throughout the service area using Base Station, which broadcast the page on a radio link.
Types of Paging Systems

The Paging Systems can be of two types.

* Manual Paging System: In a manual paging system, a message is sent to the paging operator through telephone call by the caller. The message is then delivers to the pager through paging network by the operator.
* Automatic Paging System: In an automatic paging system, the incoming requests are automatically processed by the paging terminal and then this information is delivers to the pager. Automatic Paging Systems are mostly used.

Messages in Paging Systems

One of the following four types of information messages can be delivered in a Paging System.

* Alert Tone Message
* Voice Message
* Digital String Message
* Text String Message

Alert Tone Message: In the alert tone message, a dedicated telephone number is assigned to the receiver, which is also known as Tone Pager. The pager is triggered by dialing the number. To generate tone-type messages, the advantage of tone paging is that it utilizes a small amount of airtime.

Voice Message: In the voice message, a voice message can be transmitted in some tone paging systems after the beep.

Digital String Message: In digital string message, the receiver is a Numeric Pager. The string can be the telephone number of the caller or a coded message. This coded message is generated on request of the caller by the paging center and is decoded by a codebook built into the pager. This type of paging takes less amount of airtime.


Text String Message: In the text string message, the receiver is an Alphanumeric Pager, which has large screen to display the text strings. This type of messaging is becoming more popular than numeric messaging.
Paging System Architecture

The Paging System network consists of six basic elements.

* User Terminal Equipment (Input Devices)
* Paging Terminal
* Operation and Maintenance Center (OMC)
* Base Station Controller (BSC)
* Base Station (BS)
* Pager

User Terminal Equipment (Input Devices): Terminal equipment is used by the caller to send messages. The equipment can be a telephone handset, a computer with modem and a specific input device. A telephone handset is used to generate alert tone or numeric type messages and is delivered through the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN), while alphanumeric messages are generated by the computers and are delivered through the Public Switch Digital Network (PSDN).

Paging Terminal: The messages are sent to the paging terminal through user access interface. A paging terminal can supports 1 million pagers and is connected to a central office of PSTN. The paging terminal also maintains a database of the customer which conations information such as page number, pager code etc.

Operation and Maintenance Center (OMC): The OMC is used for operation, administration and maintenance functions of a paging network. The customer’s database which is stored in terminal paging can be accessed by the OMC to add or delete new customer’s records.

Base Station Controller (BSC): The paging terminal and base stations are connected by the BSC by powering up the base stations. In transmitting mode, the BS consumes the high power and when it is in idle mode it consumes low power.

Base Station (BS): The messages to the pager are broadcasted by the BS over radio links. The BS and its pagers have dedicated paging channels. The messages from the paging terminal to the BS are transmitted by using transmission technologies, which are leased telephone lines and satellite based networks.

Pager: A pager includes four basic elements.

* A Receiver: To receive and demodulate the paging signals, the receiver is tuned to the same radio frequency (RF) as the BS.

* A Decoder: The binary information is decoded by the decoder.

* A Control Logic: The control logic provides control for duplicate messages, locking messages and freeze messages.

* A Display: A display is used to read messages.

Paging Systems have ultra-reliable coverage, high infra structure, high complexity and high hardware cost.