OnLine Bits & Bytes Column

The allure of vintage British 'telephone boxes'

2012-02-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

Feb. 13, 2012
by Mark Ollig

It immediately captures your attention when you first see one.

They have the look of hand-crafted, well-made pieces of antique furniture.

It’s a reminder of early 20th century, artistry skill, and innovation.

They reflect the dedication of those who brought telecommunications to the people living in large cities, small towns, and rural areas throughout the United Kingdom.

What am I talking about?

The British call it a telephone box, or kiosk.

We call it a payphone booth.

Originally, all UK postal mail was under the sole control and operation of the UK’s General Postal Office or GPO, which Britain’s Charles II originally established in 1660.

When telegraph and telephone became available, they too, came under the GPO umbrella.

Those old British telephone boxes hold a certain fascination with me, and over the last few years, I have been collecting photographs of them, and visiting various UK websites to examine their history.

This allure I have about them is due, in part, to the time yours truly spent installing and repairing the payphones in my hometown.

I learned the British highly regard their beloved red telephone boxes as landmarks, and as an important part of their symbolic history.

Before the first telephone box was installed, the British were using an outdoor mail letter box or “pillar box,” painted green.

Unfortunately, those green mail letter boxes blended in too much with the green landscape. People were having a hard time finding them.

This led the UK’s post office to decide, in 1874, to repaint all the existing mail letter boxes a bright red, or what became called “pillar box red.”

That took 10 years to complete.

Today, these older mail letter boxes have become very popular, and are sought after by collectors.

One of the earliest outdoor British telephone boxes was called Kiosk No. 1 (K1). It appeared around 1921.

This kiosk telephone box used reinforced concrete, had a wooden entrance door, and two sides of paneled glass held in place by wooden muntin or glazing bars.

One of the distinguishing features of this particular telephone kiosk was its spiraling, spear-like ornament atop its roof.

Rooftop signs with the word TELEPHONE were attached to some K1 models starting in 1924.

These earlier telephone boxes were usually painted red, although I have seen some with added colors accommodating the local surroundings.

In 1927, bright red-painted cast iron K2 telephone boxes were installed along the streets of London.

White enamel was painted inside, underneath the kiosk’s roof.

Along all four sides of the top of the kiosk, it showcased the royal crest of King George V.

The K2 was heavy; this telephone box weighed in at 1.5 tons. Today, the K2 telephone boxes in London are preserved in the same manner we preserve buildings as national historic landmarks.

By 1931, K1 telephone boxes were no longer being installed, and the K2 had become obsolete by 1936, having already been replaced with the K3.

The K3, with a domed roof, was made mostly out of concrete, and was first introduced in 1929. It was intended for use in the more rural and urban areas outside London.

The K3 was greyish in color, with the window frames painted red.

It was later learned concrete was not a very suitable material for an outdoor telephone kiosk, and thus, the K3 was the last telephone box to be made with it.

Around 1928, a new, cast iron K4 was announced.

In addition to housing a telephone, the red painted K4 was also used for dispersing stamps and mailing envelopes.

A new transportable telephone kiosk, the K5, was introduced in 1934.

It was made of a type of steel-faced plywood, which could be disassembled and reassembled.

In 1935, to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V (June 22, 1911), a K6 Jubilee Kiosk was commissioned, and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed it.

The K6 was presented in 1936 – the same year King George V passed away.

This telephone box was made of cast iron

Inside, the K6 contained a Bellset D 3001 telephone made from black Bakelite plastic, an electric light, and an A/B pushbutton coin collection box which was bolted to the wallboard.

The outer portion of the K6 was decorated with crowned ornaments and panels, and painted red.

The K6 Jubilee Kiosk was topped off with a domed roof.

Yes, that was my pun for the day.

Before the end of the 1930s, over 20,000 of these popular K6 telephone boxes were in use throughout the UK.

You can see a picture of a K6 Jubilee Kiosk telephone box here: http://tinyurl.com/85v3p4w.

Under the Post Office Act of 1969, the UK established a public authority called Post Office.

The Post Office was responsible for the development and operation of all telecommunications in the UK until 1981, when the British Telecommunications Act of 1981 transferred those responsibilities to British Telecom.

Many people are collectors of these early 20th century British telephone boxes.

A company called BritishBits refurbishes and sells vintage K6 telephone and mail letter boxes.

BritishBits can be found at: http://www.britishbits.co.uk.

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me.
I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper. - Mark Ollig

International conference confirms technology's direction

2012-02-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

Feb. 6, 2012
by Mark Ollig

Cisco, the maker of computer networking hardware that powers much of the Internet and business, held a three-day international conference called Cisco Live 2012, last week in London.

Cisco’s “World of Solutions” contained walk-in labs, demonstrations, exhibitions, and 360 technical sessions.

There were 160 Cisco engineers available to talk to during the conference.

Many segments of the conference were broadcast live, over the “Cisco Live! Virtual” video stream.

The Cisco keynote address was presented by Cisco Senior Vice President Engineering/Chief Technology Officer, Padmasree Warrior.

Her talk was entitled “Acceleration from Zero to Zetta.”

She began by saying we are fast entering the zettabyte era.

A zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes, or the number one with 21 zero’s behind it.

“That’s a lot of zeros,” said Warrior.

And of course, we all remember one zettabyte is equal to one billion terabytes of data.

In comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope collected 45 terabytes worth of data in its first 20 years observing the cosmos.

A report from the IDC (a market research firm), stated in 2010, the amount of information people had created and consumed surpassed 1.2 zettabytes.

By 2020, this number will reach 35 zettabytes.

Handling this mammoth amount of information will require an exceptionally efficient high-speed network.

I learned, during the next 10 years, the networking data speed on our computing devices is expected to increase by a factor of 20 times over what we are presently using.

We are, as Padmasree Warrior said, undergoing “data-deluge and technology transformations.”

The way we access and consume information, the devices we use to connect to the Internet, our workplace, home networks, and with each other, are rapidly changing.

We currently find ourselves being inundated on a regular basis with technology transformations.

Today, there are about 13 billion different devices connected to the Internet.

This number is expected to reach 50 billion by 2020.

The tremendous use of video is identified as the primary reason for this increase.

A recent report by Morgan Stanley, says video traffic alone will quadruple all existing Internet Protocol traffic by 2014.

It is staggering when we consider the sheer volume of video content being created and consumed over the Internet.

It is said that every second, one hour’s worth of video is being uploaded to YouTube.

The Cisco keynote addressed the dramatic increase of data content, and how new ways will be needed to handle it within a company’s IT (information technology) infra-structure.

Folks, the computing platform is moving to the cloud.

I feel eventually a majority of our software application usage, processing, content creation, delivery, consumption, information storage and retrieval – most of our computing – will be taking place via cloud deployment.

According to the information and technology magazine, CIO, cloud-based technology and services will be used by 70 percent of major enterprise businesses during this year.

Logica, an IT outsourcing firm, describes cloud computing as “the railway of the 21st century.”

Forrester Research reports 56 percent of organizations want to implement desktop virtualization.

Desktop virtualization can be described as when a computer user’s desktop software applications and programs are accessed from a remote location, or from the cloud. It is likened to a client-server computing environment.

Businesses will use desktop virtualization computing in order to meet increased user capacity, reduce in-house hardware computing requirements, and for controlling IT labor costs.

Recently, my computer workstation was converted to desktop virtualization.

My work computer is now connected via a high-speed data network to one of my company’s computer servers located in another state.

I am no longer using the desktop software programs stored inside the physical computer hard dive sitting on my desk, they are now located in my “virtual desktop” residing within my company’s private cloud server.

In 2005, futurist Thomas Friedman wrote the book “The World is Flat.”

He recently said when he wrote this book “Facebook did not exist, Twitter was a sound, the Cloud was in the sky, 4G was a parking space, applications were what you sent to college, LinkedIn was a prison, and for most people, Skype was a typo.”

We now find ourselves transitioning into the next stage of our informational evolution, which Padmasree Warrior calls, “the hyper-informational age.”

I am reminded of the 1982 book, “Mega Trends” by John Naisbitt.

In this book, Naisbitt talked about how the long-term perceptions of the upcoming informational society would be very different from the prior industrial one.

So, here we are, 30 years later, living in Naisbitt’s predicted informational societal age.

And while I sometimes become melancholy about the past, I am eager to witness new technologies like IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), becoming fully implemented across the entire Internet.

With IPv6’s nearly limitless IP addressing capacity, practically every electrical appliance, device, and gadget you can think of will be able to have an embedded IP address, and thus a presence on the Internet.

These appliances, devices and gadgets will not just communicate their information with people – they will also be communicating with each other.

Welcome to the hyper-informational age.

Highlights from the Cisco Live 2012 London conference can be viewed at http://www.ciscolive.com/london.

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper. - Mark Ollig

Macworld | iWorld 2012 Conference/Expo entertains, educates

2012-01-28T19:31:00.000-08:00

Jan. 30, 2012
by Mark Ollig

Since 1985, this event has brought together in one location all the attractions Apple computer lovers crave the most.

The Macworld | iWorld 2012 Conference and Expo took place last week at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco.

Advertised as “The World’s Ultimate iFanEvent,” the conference/expo covered three days of technical talks, exhibits, films, demonstrations, music, and more.

The Macworld conference portion of the event was Jan. 25-28, while the Expo sessions took place Jan. 26-28.

The conference/expo was designed to educate, as well as entertain, the folks attending.

Part showcase and part learning, the event included numerous vendor displays including exhibit hall, which featured “the largest collection of Apple-related products on the planet.”

Attendees could test (and purchase) these products and software apps (applications) which support the Mac, iPhone, and iPad platforms.

Several exhibit halls displaying pictorial information about Apple technology and software applications were located throughout the convention center.

The Mobile Apps Showcase featured face-to-face demonstrations of the newest iOS (user operating system inside Apple’s mobile devices) applications.

The latest software for the Mac computer was shown at the OS X Zone, located at booth 818.

For all of my fellow Microsoft Windows users out there, OS X is the Mac computer’s Operating System version 10, which was released by Apple in 2001.

The conference/expo goers were able to use the new Apple program apps being displayed. In addition, they could talk directly with the actual programmers who created them.

The conference/expo’s First Looks displayed many of the new-to-market products, which were being shown for the first time.

One new product yours truly liked is from a company called Newer Technology.

Called the GripStand, this smart-looking, durable, and well-designed case, is for carrying and displaying an iPad.

The iPad is encased inside the GripStand’s hard protective plastic shell. The removable swivel stand can be rotated 360 degrees, and be adjusted for any viewing angle comfortable to the user. The swivel stand is also used as a handle for carrying the iPad.

Another product that caught my eye was the Power2U AC/USB Wall Outlet.

This new wall outlet provides power for a USB rechargeable device by simply plugging it into one of the two USB ports.

The UL-listed and approved Power2U AC/USB Wall Outlet works and looks just like your ordinary flush-mounted, on-the-wall, electrical outlet plate.

A standard four-pin Type-A USB port is located on each side of the two three-prong AC outlet plug-in receptacles.

Using the Power2U AC/USB Wall Outlet eliminates the entanglement of USB charging cables connected to one’s computer USB ports. It also does away with the hassle of having to use multiple USB AC adapters.

The Power2U AC/USB Wall Outlet adapter will work with all Apple iPads, iPods, Android Tablets, and phones, or any device using a standard USB connection for power re-charging.

The Macworld | iWorld 2012 Conferences midway allowed an interactive user experience of the Apple OS X and iOS products.

The midway showed how Apple technology is used in the creation of digital art.

This art was presented in the Digital Art gallery, and featured the digital art work created by 15 artists.

There was also an iPad Sketch Station. Here, conference attendees watched talented artists draw incredible images and pictures – just using iPads.

Another venue called Art Showings, showcased Apple Illustrations and Photoshop- created art galleries, photography displays, and creative tool training.

The Music Experience location presented live, daily solo, group, and nightly performances.

Some of the musical performers included Atomic Tom, Beats Unique, Eclectic Method, J Boogie, and Hank Shocklee.

I freely admit to not knowing any of these musical artists.

Musician workshops also were offered.

The iPhone Film Festival featured the screening of films made using the iPhone, along with tech-talks with film makers, directors, and general meet ups with other attendees and presenters.

I learned there is a full-length, unaired, “South Park” animated pilot episode which was created using only an iPhone.

User training and learning tips were presented at the conference on Apple’s OS X and iOS during the three-day Tech Talks product training and informational sessions.

Attendees had their choice of more than 75 sessions to participate in.

One of last Thursday’s Tech Talks included a discussion on Apple’s iPhone 4S Siri voice-interaction technology, which this columnist previously likened to the fictional “HAL 9000.”

Another Tech Talks session demonstrated some of Apple’s latest tools, including “iClouds Little Helpers,” iOS Filesharing Unleashed, “Living on 3 Screens — Mac, iPhone, iPad,” and “Appalooza: Discovering the Greatest Apps.”

Shellie Hall, a consultant for Ducktype Digital, talked about the top 25 iPad apps used for enhancing one’s social media profile or business brand.

More than 26,000 people attended last year’s event, and record breaking attendance was expected for this year’s Macworld | iWorld 2012 Conference and Expo.

For more information, check out the Macworld | iWorld website at http://www.Macworldexpo.com.

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper. - Mark Ollig

2012 International Consumer Electronics Show breaks record

2012-01-19T05:55:00.000-08:00

Jan. 23, 2012
by Mark Ollig

The official numbers are in.

A record-breaking 153,000 people attended the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Of this total, 34,000 came from 140 countries outside the US.

More than 3,100 exhibitors showcased their technology and electronic gadgets.

The first CES took place in 1967, at the Americana and Hilton hotels in New York City, and was attended by about 17,500 people and about 100 exhibitors.

During this year’s CES, in addition to Ryan Seacrest (who moderated Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer during his pre-keynote address), many notable celebrities also attended.

Being the name-dropper that I am, here are some of the other celebrities who appeared during the 2012 International CES:

• Justin Timberlake

• Justin Bieber

• Ludacris

• 50 Cent

• Will. i. am

• Wayne Brady

• Jillian Michaels

• LL Cool J

• Will Smith

• Kelly Clarkson

The winner of the 2012 CES Best of Show product award went to the 55-inch OLED (organic light-emitting diode) flat-panel TV, made by LG.

This ultra-thin, TV model EM9600 displays “life-like” images and is, according to LG’s Director of New Product Development Tim Alessi, “about three credit cards thick.” LG’s website states it is 4 mm thick.

The EM9600 has an unbelievable display contrast ratio of more than 100,000,000:1, or about 50 times better than what is seen on today’s LCD display panel televisions.

According to LG, “The TV [EM9600] uses a proprietary algorithm designed to improve and refine hues and tones when viewed from a wide angle.”

This model is scheduled for a third-quarter delivery date, with September as the probable month. No pricing was made available during the CES.

The Makerbot Replicator 3D printer placed second in this year’s CES Best of Show product award.

This personal 3D printer is able to create plastic replicas up to 8.9 inches-by-5.7 inches-by - 5.9 - inches inches (about the size of a loaf of bread) of any object download to it via an SD (Secure Digital) memory card.

The SD card contains the data file of the object to be replicated, which was created using a computer 3D program.

The Makerbot Replicator is available in two models.

The single extruder printer, priced at $1,749, comes with one color nozzle. The dual-extruder, priced at $1,999, performs 3D printing using two different colors.

A video by Bre Pettis, the CEO and Co-Founder of MakerBot Industries, explains the new MakerBot Replicator. You can watch it at http://bit.ly/wSjXiG.

The website for the MakerBot Replicator is http: makerbot.com/replicator.

Since 1967, the CES has been used as the launch pad for announcing many new products to the public.

At the 1970 CES, the VCR was introduced by Phillips, at a retail price of $2,000.

The 1974 CES saw the arrival of the Laserdisc player.

The Atari Pong home console was displayed at the summer 1975 CES.

Inexpensive digital wrist watches showed up during the 1976 CES.

The 1981 CES presented us with the CD (compact disc) and camcorder.

Popular with the baby boomers, the Commodore 64 computer was introduced during the 1982 CES.

In 1985, the Nintendo Entertainment System was shown.

HDTV (high definition television) made its appearance at CES in 1998.

Microsoft’s Xbox console and controller were introduced by its CEO Bill Gates during his 2001 keynote address at the 2001 CES. Gates demonstrated two Xbox games: “Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee” and “Malice.”

The Blu-Ray DVD (digital versatile disc) came on the scene during the 2003 CES.

Many CES-goers will never forget the 2005 event with TV host Conan O’Brien.

O’Brien had some fun when Microsoft CEO Bill Gates’ demonstration of the Windows Media Center’s integration of digital photography, caused the computer to crash.

Technology convergence, and a flood of new digital content services, made up most of the 2006 and 2007 CES shows.

A huge 150 inch Plasma and OLED TV, made by Panasonic, was shown to the public at the 2008 CES.

During the 2009 CES, 3D webcams, HDTVs, “green gadgets,” and netbook computers were introduced.

At the 2010 CES, there were tablet computers, Panasonic 3D HDTV flat panel plasma televisions, Sharp LED lamps (light bulbs), and Android smart devices.

The 2011 CES Best of Show award went to Motorola, for their new Xoom 10.1-inch personal computing tablet.

Concept vehicles like the General Motors EN-V (electric networked vehicle) were demonstrated, while Ford Motor Company showed off its 2012 all-electric Ford Focus.

Consumer 3D technologies, such as the JVC Everio GS-TD13D camcorder, were also shown.

What new technological marvels do we have to look forward to during the Jan. 8-11, 2013 International CES?

It’s anyone’s guess; however, yours truly thinks we may see some innovative cloud-computing technology, an exhibit displaying Apple products, and increased Google participation.

Of course, the 2013 International CES will be showcasing the next-generation of smartphones, computing tablets, e-readers, flat panel HDTVs, 3D technology, and new electronic devices.

It will also include plenty of eye-candy gadgets.

We may even be witness to thousands of brainy robots aimlessly wandering the CES exhibit floors, mingling with the folks in attendance.

Well, maybe not thousands.

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper. - Mark Ollig

2012 International CES hosted in Las Vegas

2012-01-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

Jan. 16, 2012
by Mark Ollig

Over 150,000 people attended this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), including the media, who were eager to learn about the newest technology.

The International CES is the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow.

With over 3,100 companies showcasing more than 20,000 electronic gadgets and computing devices, there was plenty of high-tech eye candy to be found.

And when I say plenty, I mean over 37 football fields’ worth of consumer electronic technology displayed over 1.85 million net square feet of floor space.

This year’s CES offerings included Intel’s lightweight Ultrabook, digital health care devices, smartphones, solar charging cases, and many other computing devices.

With an introduction by radio and television personality Ryan Seacrest,
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer provided the pre-CES keynote address.

Ballmer told those in attendance (along with yours truly, watching via the streaming online video), that after 15 years, Microsoft will be taking a “pause” from attending any future CES shows.

He went on to announce Microsoft’s Kinect technology will be available for use on Microsoft’s Windows operating systems Feb. 1.

There was a short demonstration of Windows 8; however, much of this demo was already shown during the Microsoft Build Professional Developers Conference in September of last year – which your columnist wrote about on Sept. 19, 2011.

The new CES Windows 8 demo left me somewhat disappointed, as I was hoping Microsoft would reveal more details about it.

Microsoft also demonstrated their new Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) software operating on the Nokia Lumia 900 and HTC Titan 2 mobile phones.

Microsoft’s new Xbox, with Kinect two-way interaction, was also demonstrated to the CES audience.

Kinect, as you know, is an entertainment and informational hub which provides a personalized, interactive viewer experience.

The Microsoft CES Kinect virtual interaction demonstration started off by showing a large display screen with the Sesame Street character Elmo, counting the coconuts he was collecting inside a cardboard box as they were being “virtual thrown” to him by a young girl on the CES stage named Ainsely.

Elmo would look at Ainsely and ask her to throw a coconut to him.

Ainsely would do this by pretending to toss one towards the display screen, where Elmo was waiting to catch it inside the cardboard box he was holding.

You can watch Microsoft’s YouTube video titled “The Magic of Kinect with Sesame Street” at http://tinyurl.com/6o28anr.

Meanwhile, Intel presented one of its new Ultrabook personal computers, which are being factory-made under various brand names.

Some define an Ultrabook as an enhanced netbook computer.

The new Lenovo Ultrabook with ArcSoft Quick Photo personal computer includes a self-opening cover, touchscreen, voice recognition, DX11 graphics card, and built-in Near Field Communication, or NFC.

NFC is a short-range, wireless communications protocol which will initially be used for the quick scanning of credit card information when making purchases.

NFC technology will also be used for supporting the new short-range wireless features currently being developed.

Intel showed how an Ultrabook computer, equipped with a NFC chip, could complete a quick, on-the-go, credit card transaction by simply tapping a credit card against the Ultrabook’s touchpad.

Another model shown by Intel was a hybrid Ultrabook/tablet or “slider” model, which could be used as either a notebook or a tablet computer.

Some Intel Ultrabooks allow the user to see incoming messages when the computer lid is closed via a “quick notification panel.”

Intel said it will be making Ultrabook computers available to the public by the end of this year.

Sony announced the Android-powered Walkman Z, and its new line of Android smartphones called Xperia S, and the US version, the Xperia Ion.

The Walkman Z is a digital media player which features an Android 2.3-or 4.3-inch display and Tegra 1GHz 2 dual-core processor.

The Walkman Z will be available late February.

The Xperia S features a 4.3-inch display, 12-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture, and a 32 GB memory. Its dual-core processor operates at 1.5 GHz.

The Xperia Ion will operate over AT&T’s 4G LTE network, and will sport a larger 4.6-inch display screen for those of us in the US, which is great, because I have a hard time reading small text.

Both Sony smartphones will include NFC, and a HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) port.

These smartphones will be available by the end of March.

Another interesting device was the solar-powered Amazon Kindle e-reader case cover made by SolarFocus.

On the front of the case cover is the solar panel; the Kindle e-reader is nestled inside and “plugged into” the case cover, or shell, if you will.

After being exposed to about eight hours’ worth of sunlight, the solar-charged battery inside the SolarFocus case cover, can fully charge the Kindle e-reader’s battery.

A reserve battery inside the SolarFocus case cover powers the built-in LED reading light, and provides reserve power for the Kindle e-reader when the Kindle’s battery runs out.

This light-weight, form-fitting case cover makes it look as if you are holding a book while reading the Kindle.

The new SolarFocus Kindle case cover is now available at a retail price of around $80.

Next week, yours truly reveals a few of the out-of-the ordinary gadgets shown during the 2012 International CES.

Below is the solar-powered Amazon Kindle e-reader case cover made by SolarFocus.

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper. - Mark Ollig

'Star Trek' medical scanner soon to be a reality

2012-01-05T07:25:00.000-08:00

Jan. 9, 2012
by Mark Ollig

As we boldly go into 2012, a futuristic medical device from a popular science fiction television series may soon be coming along with us.

This device will certainly change how we diagnose illnesses, and monitor our health.

On the original television series “Star Trek,” set in the 23rd century, the physician used a “medical tricorder” scanning device to diagnose a sick or injured person’s physical ailments in order to treat their condition.

This medical tricorder was waved over – but did not come into direct physical contact –with the person being scanned.

The medical tricorder was also used to obtain information about one’s overall general health.

Scanadu, a private company founded one year ago, is on the brink of bringing this type of futuristic technology to those of us living in the 21st century.

The company is working on a non-contact, non-invasive, medical diagnostic tool for consumer use.

This technology will provide instant health information, allowing individuals to learn more about their own current health condition, in addition to being provided with an instant diagnosis and suggested treatments for physical ailments.

This new medical device is called the Scanadu Tricorder.

The company said in a press release their first product will be a sensor app (application) that “walks” a person through the steps needed for obtaining vital information in order to advise and diagnose a medical condition.

The app sensor integrates wirelessly with a person’s smartphone.

Scanadu states this new medical device will fall under FDA jurisdiction, and that they will be working closely with the FDA to get the Tricorder to the marketplace.

There are six doctor’s serving on Scanadu’s Medical Advisory Board.

Scanadu founder, Walter de Brouwer (a fan of “Star Trek”) said “whatever this product is, in order to be completely adapted by the entire world, it must be non-invasive, non-sampling, not [physically] contacting the body, and not counting on cooperation from the patient. This is the real Tricorder. It will change everything.”

He also said being able to immediately diagnose the person right in front of you, and instantly see what is happening, would reduce a lot of anxiety in our lives.

The Scanadu Tricorder website showed a fictional re-enactment video of two parents taking care of their child Alex, who was ill and had a rash on his chest.

One parent held the small Tricorder device in one hand and waved it over the rash on Alex.

The Tricorder sent the image of the rash to the smart phone the parent was holding in the other hand.

This image was then wirelessly transmitted to the cloud, via the smart phone, and was analyzed along with Alex’s symptoms.

The image of the rash and Alex’s symptoms were then matched with a known condition.

Once this information was obtained, the results and course of action were displayed on the smartphone.

The results provided said the condition was diagnosed as Roseola rash, a common virus in children, and that this type of rash normally appears in children three to five days after a high fever.

The recommended action shown on the smartphone’s display screen said to “rest at home, [as the] Roseola rash usually disappears after three days.”

In this case, getting the correct analysis and diagnosis saved the parents the time and expense of having to take Alex to the doctor – and relieved them of their worry.

If the results for Alex had determined a serious medical condition, the family’s physician would have been notified and been provided with the information obtained by the Tricorder.

Of course, this was only a demonstration video of what the Tricorder will ultimately be capable of.

According to Scanadu, “a fully-functioning Tricorder will help change user behavior in the short term. We plan to help parents move from anxiety to action about the health of their kids.”

“The first Tricorder will be affordable for most families. It is anticipated that there will be some split between payers (i.e. insurance companies) and users (parents, families),” Scanadu stated in a press release.

Allied Business Intelligence Research Inc. (ABI) reports, “The market for wearable wireless medical devices will reach more than 100 million units annually by 2016.”

In the near future, medical wireless devices will be commonly worn by people to monitor their overall physical fitness, and general well-being.

ABI also said “These devices, ranging from heart rate monitors for measuring an individual’s performance during sports, to wearable blood glucose meters, will all enable greater detail in tracking, monitoring, and care – often through connections provided by mobile phones.”

The Scanadu Tricorder will be compatible with a variety of cellular network technologies and will use Bluetooth short distance transmission standards.

We are now witnessing the birth of a whole new generation of body-worn medical sensors that may become as popular to use as a home thermometer.

To see the video of the medical Scanadu Tricorder in action, check out http://www.scanadu.com.

The video with Walter de Brouwer can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/7zafsph.

About Mark Ollig

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Chocolate company's 1912 predictions for 2012

2011-12-28T14:44:00.000-08:00

Jan. 2, 2012
by Mark Ollig

How does a French factory operating in 1912, improve sales of their chocolate products?

By creating imaginative promotional advertisement cards showing how technology would look 100 years into the future.

The folks from the Lombart chocolate company came up with the idea to use the “technology in the year 2012” theme, to increase sales of their various chocolates.

These 1912 advertisement cards (about the size of a postcard) were quality-made, fully illustrated, and in color.

The cards were produced and printed by the highly regarded French Norgeu family.

These future-themed cards were titled “En I’an 2012” meaning “In the year 2012.”

Six cards were made for En I’an 2012.

Each skillfully hand-drawn card, depicts how a specific future technology from the year 2012, would assist in the delivery of yummy-tasting Lombart chocolate.

Included with the chocolates Lombart sold to customers in 1912, was one of the 2012 cards.

The good folks at Lombart, no doubt, hoped these thought-provoking, futuristic 2012 cards would entice customers to want more cards, which would mean purchasing more of their chocolate.

One of the six 1912 cards which immediately caught this telecommunication veteran’s attention, was titled “Picturephone of the year 2012.”

The card shows a father standing next to the mother, who is sitting down at a table and speaking into the transmitter of a circa 1912 telephone handset.

Both are also looking straight ahead at the living room wall.

The parents are watching and participating in a real-time video phone call with their son, who they can see is talking to them from his telephone in a distant location.

This real-time, video phone call is being displayed, or projected onto the parent’s living room wall, roughly 5 feet in front of them.

The live broadcast transmission of their son seen on the wall is coming from a movie projector-like device sitting on the table, which is wired into a small, enclosed electrical device, along with the telephone handset the mother is using.

Since this card was intended to help sell more Lombart chocolate, the mother is reportedly saying “Hello, my child. We sent your chocolate Lombart by the aircraft.”

The Picturephone of the year 2012 as hand-drawn in 1912 can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/77qdqz7.

The oldest picture I found showing a phone call where both parties could see and talk with each other in real-time, was hand-drawn in 1879 by George Du Maurier.

In this picture, Du Maurier shows parents conversing live with their daughter over a large screen on a wall in their home using the Edison Telephonoscope.

Thomas Edison had envisioned a communication device that would “transmit light as well as sound” and be capable of showing real-time events, such as allowing two groups of people, who were separated by a great distance, to see and talk with each other in real-time.

George Du Maurier’s futuristic picture from 1879 can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/7mlpemp.

Little did they realize in 1879 (or 1912) that in 2012, we would be using software applications such as Skype, and Apple’s iChat and FaceTime. We also have Facebook and Google’s voice and video chat, (and others) to use for video conferencing.

The 1912 depiction of the 2012 Picturephone projection apparatus is not so far-fetched.

Today’s portable, integrated pico-projector devices use a wall for beaming images and video onto – so, why not our video phone calls?

Logic Wireless Technologies has a built-in video projector on some of their cellphones; one is the Logic Axis Projector Phone. However, I do not believe it can project real-time video of a live phone conversation.

Aircraft from 2012 is shown in another colorfully hand-drawn Lombart card.

This card shows futuristic dirigibles or “lighter-than-air” aircraft, commonly known as blimps, floating in the night sky over London.

One dirigible is seen sitting atop a building delivering Lombart chocolates.

Moored balloons with attached, brightly shining globes about 2,000 feet over London, are spaced roughly 100 yards apart from each other.

The globes light up the night sky.

Bathed with light, the dirigibles appear to be in an airport-like holding pattern, waiting to deliver Lombart chocolate onto rooftop landing pads below them.

All the dirigibles have “Chocolat Lombart” written in bold, red lettering across their large, skeletal-framed, gas-filled balloon envelopes.

The interior-lit gondola crew cabin, suspended under each dirigible, looks like the caboose from a train, and has two propellers attached on the front.

The automobiles of 2012 fly. They are shown with side-wings and a propeller fastened to the engine.

One flying car is seen landing to pick up some Lombart chocolate.

Hey, it’s 2012 . . . I am still waiting for my Jetsons flying car.

Another 1912 card shows a trip to the moon from Paris via a futuristic looking 2012 “spaceplane.”

This spaceplane has an attached passenger cabin and a roof spotlight with its light beam focused directly at a large, full moon.

A card of a 2012 underwater submarine shows people peering out a large cabin window, while fish slowly swim by.

A male passenger talks on the intercom. He is probably asking the submarine driver to stop at the nearest underwater Lombart chocolate store.

These futuristic images created in 1912, are from the book “History of the Future: Images of the 21st Century” by Christiphe Canto and Odile Faliu.

"The Picturephone of the year 2012" as hand-drawn in 1912.

George Du Maurier’s futuristic picture from 1879.

About Mark Ollig

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Looking back at this year's highlights

2011-12-21T19:02:00.000-08:00

Dec. 26, 2011

by Mark Ollig

As this year ends, I want to express my appreciation to, my readers, for having spent a few moments of your time each week reading this column.

In looking back over this past year, January started with 140,000 people attending the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Highlights of the CES included “passive polarized” 3D television, and General Motors futuristic concept vehicle called the EN-V (Electric Networked Vehicle).

January ended with Apple’s Macworld Conference and Expo event in San Francisco.

In addition to more than 250 vendor exhibits, Apple presented dozens of new products to the nearly 20,000 visitors who attended.

In February, Watson, the smart supercomputer by IBM, made history when it played against (and defeated) two player-champions on the television show “Jeopardy.”

We also learned about The Computer History Museum, located in Mountain View, CA, which an in-house collection containing thousands of computer-related artifacts.

March 21 was the fifth anniversary of the first Twitter message: “twttr” sent by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

Coffee-Cam was the subject of the April 4 column.

In 1991, many of the University of Cambridge academic researchers (working in various parts of a multi-story building) needed to walk several flights of stairs in order to pour themselves a cup of coffee from the coffee maker.

Understandably, these folks became somewhat agitated whenever discovering an empty coffee pot.

Two of these resourceful researchers rigged up an electronic video “frame-grabber” device and captured time-sequenced, still-frame images from the video camera they had pointed at the coffee pot inside the coffee maker.

Updated images of the coffee pot were sent over the universities local computer network, appearing in a corner of each researchers computer screen.

This delighted the researchers; they could now simply glance at their computer screen to know how much coffee remained in the coffee pot.

They no longer worried about holding their empty coffee cup in front of an empty coffee pot.

April also brought some computer nostalgia for the baby boomers.

The popular Commodore 64 computer form the early ‘80s was remanufactured.

The C64 was fully-modernized on the inside, while retaining its vintage look on the outside.

On May 16, this columnist wrote about Roger Fidler’s futuristic 1994 video demonstration entitled “Tablet Newspaper.”

This video showed people using what looked like an Apple iPad – 17 years before they were made.

In June, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., took the stage at the opening of Apple Computer’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

During this conference, an enthusiastic Steve Jobs talked cloud-computing, and about Apple’s iCloud data center.

Jobs said the center of our digital lives will be migrated into the cloud.

Jobs clearly illustrated Apple’s “next big insight” of demoting the PC and Mac to being devices like the iPhone, iPad, or iPodtouch.

In July, Google’s field-testing version of their new social media site, Google+, was online.

After testing Google+, I thought it would make a legitimate challenge to Facebook’s dominance.

I am still waiting for Google+ to make a legitimate challenge.

In August, we discovered how to save our pictures, music files, and other digital data for 1,000 years, by using the new M-DISC, made by Millenniata, Inc.

It started in 1996, when Barry M. Lunt, Ph. D., experienced a revelation while examining petroglyph (rock engraving) images northeast of Price, UT.

He realized these ancient images were created by etching or chipping away at the outer layer of the dark rock, which exposed the lighter layer of rock beneath its surface.

Lunt helped develop a method of permanently “etching” digital data onto a new type of DVD surface material.

During September, our friends at Microsoft released their new Windows 8 Operating System.

On October 4, Apple Inc. did not present us with the much anticipated iPhone 5, but instead offered the iPhone 4S.

The “4S” was suggested to be an abbreviation meaning, “For Steve.”

On Oct. 5, the computing world mourned the loss of Apple Inc. co-founder, Steve Jobs.

During mid-October, the merging of film and fragrances inspired this columnist to write “Smell-O-Vision II.”

We journeyed back to 1906; inside a small-town movie theater where Samuel Lionel Rothafel took a wad of cotton wool soaked with rose oil, and placed it in front of an electric fan during a silent-film showing of the 1906 Rose Bowl parade.

The pleasurable aroma of fresh-cut roses drifted upon the people watching the film.

Today, a rectangular-shaped device equipped with 128 fragrance scent capsules called the Odoravison System, is available for use with home theater systems.

November’s columns reviewed the benefits of medical robots, and Microsoft’s motion-sensing “Kenect Effect” add-on device for the Xbox 360 console.

This month we learned about teen's use of online social media sites, and the dominance of Google Search and tablet computing.

December also saw the return of Jessica’s favorite elf informant, Finarfin Elendil.

Bring on 2012.

This columnist is ready to write more about the Internet, ground-breaking technologies, social media, innovative high-tech companies, and new computing devices.

And, you know I like to look back at technology’s history every once and awhile, too.

I also want to wish my brother Tom, a very happy birthday.

About Mark Ollig

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Yes Jessica, Santa Claus uses computers

2011-12-15T05:43:00.000-08:00

Dec. 19, 2011
by Mark Ollig

One of my readers, Jessica, asked me a question I promised to investigate and write about before Christmas Day 2008.

Jessica wanted to know if I could find out whether Santa Claus used computers to help him deliver Christmas presents.

I emailed my entire list of elf contacts at the North Pole, hoping one would get back to me before the newspaper’s holiday deadline.

To my surprise, one game elf did reply.

And who was this accommodating gnome?

As some of you may remember, his name was Finarfin Elendil.

The following is what I wrote for Jessica (with revisions).

Dear Jessica, Santa does indeed use computers when delivering those Christmas presents.

That smiling, well-nourished, red-cheeked, jolly old man with the white beard, is in fact, extremely computer-savvy.

You see, during the Christmas off-season, the geekier elves, along with Santa, attend advanced computer technical training classes, at an undisclosed location in Redmond, WA.

One cooperative elf, Finarfin Elendil, gave me the inside scoop about the “Santa Claus Super Computer Center” (SCSCC), which is located near the North Pole’s largest toy-making factory.

The SCSCC is highly-computerized and totally cloaked, rendering it undetectable from all earth-orbiting satellites, high-altitude surveillance aircraft, and those Google street-view mapping cars.

Santa doesn’t mention the SCSCC when he’s out in public – he mainly concentrates on asking children if they were good this year, along with what they want for Christmas.

Finarfin Elendil reported Santa uses the SCSCC as the North Pole’s Christmas command and control center – and to store and maintain Santa’s new high-tech Christmas sleigh.

The SCSCC’s hangar bay is home to Santa’s newest mode of travel for delivering presents during Christmas: Sleigh-One.

Let it be known that Sleigh-One is not your average wooden toboggan.

Sleigh-One is a state-of-the-art, fully computerized, jumbo-sized, high-flying bobsled.

Its on-board computer receives in-flight location coordinates via an enhanced global positioning system.

Reindeer pulling efficiency, or mpr (miles per reindeer), is conveniently displayed on the cluster instrument panel.

Sleigh-One also receives “toy-inventory-remaining” Facebook telemetry and updated “who’s-naughty-or-nice” Twitter reports from the elves broadcasting back at the SCSCC.

Sleigh-One communicates using 3G technology, but Elf rumor has it Santa will be upgrading to 4G LTE wireless broadband transceivers soon.

Santa was said to have chuckled when he learned the helper elves traveling on Sleigh-One installed eggnog cup holders next to their seat armrests like the ones on Santa’s driver side armrest.

The SCSCC is home to the world’s most advanced supercomputer.

This supercomputer is exceptionally sophisticated; your humble columnist thinks Santa and the elves magically performed reverse-engineering on some highly-advanced extraterrestrial technology obtained from inside Area 51.

Finarfin Elendil described how the supercomputer’s data-stream is algorithmically encrypted, using session initiation protocol signaling transferred through nanotubed optical-fiber bus architectures within the North Pole’s local area network.

And to think this is all maintained by those geeky elves who take off-season computer classes . . . amazing.

These same elves also designed and manufactured the supercomputer’s E1 (Elf-1) Multi-Quad-Core-Super-Duper processor chip.

The E1 can process up to four hundred quindecillion FLOPS (floating operations per second).

Finarfin Elendil brags how the engineers from computer chip-maker, Intel Corp., are always asking the elves for advice.

Santa uses the E1’s processing speed to instantly map the exact coordinates of every rooftop and fireplace chimney throughout the world, where he, needs to deliver the good girls and boys Christmas presents.

If the home has no chimney, the supercomputer will automatically execute a “backdoor” software program Santa wrote, which provides an alternate access solution.

Finarfin Elendil confirmed this year’s Christmas Eve reindeer sleigh team will once again be comprised of: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blixen.

However, in the event of an emergency (sick reindeer), Sleigh-One has a built-in navigational program which activates the experienced Automatic Assistance Reindeer Pilot (AARP).

And, because of his extremely shiny red nose, Rudolph, the “Red-Nosed Reindeer” has been designated by Santa Claus himself, to be Reindeer One, and guide Santa’s mighty reindeer sleigh team around the world on Christmas Eve.

In order for Sleigh-One to deliver every single Christmas present over a 24-hour period, the sleigh needs to “push the pedal to the metal,” Finarfin Elendil quoted Santa as saying.

Rudolph wanted the sleigh to go faster than the speed of light so he could show off in front of the does, but Santa nixed the idea, saying he did not want to travel that fast.

Santa explained going faster than the speed of light would cause the bright, fog-piercing, red beam of light from Rudolph’s nose to bend around and shine behind the sleigh instead of in front of it.

Santa worried this might create a reverse time-line anomaly, triggering a space-time continuum vortex, causing the children’s Christmas presents to be delivered years before they were born.

Rest assured, Jessica, the Christmas presents are safely delivered by Santa, the helper elves, Rudolph, and the rest of the reindeer, in a sleigh never traveling faster than the speed of light.

But I digress.

I hope Jessica (and all of you) enjoyed reading this story as much as I did writing it.

And remember, the word “Christmas” comes from the very old phrase, “Cristes maesse” which means “Christ’s mass.”

Dec. 25, Christmas Day, is when Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas.

About Mark Ollig: Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Teen's interactions using online social networking sites

2011-12-08T05:39:00.001-08:00

Dec. 12, 2011
by Mark Ollig

As teenagers, most of us baby boomers did not go on the Internet in order to participate in our social networks.

Of course, back then, there were no Internet social networking sites for us to use.

Instead of the Internet, we would do our socializing at school and sporting events, dance halls, roller skating rinks, bowling alleys, restaurants, local street corners, theaters, or at friend’s houses.

Boomers, feel free to add your favorite locations for socializing to the list.

Some of us, who grew up as teens during the ‘70s, also thought of computers as complicated devices used by the military, NASA, scientists, large corporations, and “nerdy computer hobbyists.”

A new report, “Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites,” was released last month by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, in collaboration with the Family Online Safety Institute and Cable in the Classroom.

The report states that today, 95 percent of all teens ages 12 to17 are doing their socializing online, via the Internet.

The Internet is being used by many teens as their main venue for social networking with friends, family, and others.

Which online social networking sites are teens using?

The report says 80 percent of teens actively participating within online social networking sites are mainly using Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

Of all online social networking sites, Facebook dominates with teens, as 93 percent reported having an account there.

MySpace was being used by 24 percent of teens surveyed.

Twitter came in at 12 percent, while 7 percent said they had an account with Yahoo.

Teens with an account on YouTube were reported by 6 percent, whereas 2 percent had an account on Skype, myYearbook, or Tumblr.

Having only one online social networking account was reported by 59 percent of teens, while 41 percent said they have accounts on multiple social networking sites.

Out of the above mentioned 41 percent, Facebook was named as one of those accounts by 99 percent of the teens surveyed.

Of the teens who said they have only one social networking account, 89 percent disclosed that account was Facebook.

The reason no numbers were given for the new Google Plus social networking site, is because this survey was already being conducted when Google Plus was just being released.

While participating within online social networking sites and chat rooms, teens can sometimes be exposed to difficult and unpleasant experiences.

One of the report’s surveys asked teens where they get advice on how to use the Internet “responsibly and safely.”

Most teens (86 percent) report getting this advice from their parents.

A teacher, or another adult at school providing advice and information about online safety, was reported by 70 percent of teens surveyed.

The media; including, television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, accounted for the information obtained by 54 percent of teens.

Attending a specific school event about Internet online safety was also reported by teens as being a source for information.

The report noted most teens received advice from various sources regarding Internet online safety.

These sources include:

• Parents: 86 percent.

• Teachers: 70 percent.

• Media: 54 percent.

• Sibling or cousin: 46 percent.

• Friend: 45 percent.

• Older relative: 45 percent.

• Youth/church group leader/coach: 40 percent

• Websites: 34 percent

• Librarian: 18 percent

•Someone/something else: 10 percent

The study reports that teens having positive experiences within an online social networking site (strengthened friendships, positive feelings about themselves), are more likely to seek out advice about any negative issues encountered.

Teens who witnessed meanness or negativeness being perpetrated onto someone online (while it was occurring) were asked if they had sought somebody out for advice on what to do. Of the teens responding, 36 percent said they did seek out advice, while 64 percent said they did not.

However, after witnessing or having been personally involved in a bad online experience (harassment, cyber-bullying, or other cruelty), 56 percent of the teens said they did seek out advice, or talked about the negative experience with a friend.

Parents were asked for advice by one-third of the teens responding to the survey, while a smaller number of teens said they would ask a teacher, sibling, or cousin for advice after going through a bad online experience.

Some teens said they would seek counsel from a youth pastor, religious leader, uncle or aunt – or even a website – on how to cope with a negative online experience.

When asked who has been the biggest influence on what a teen thinks is appropriate or inappropriate behavior when online, parents were said to be the number-one influence by 58 percent of teens surveyed, followed by friends at 18 percent, and a brother or sister at 11 percent.

When teens were asked if their parents had talked with them about their online activities, 82 percent said they had.

Of the parents surveyed by Pew, 41 percent reported “friending” their child on an online social networking site (like Facebook).

More attention toward the monitoring of their children’s online website activities was reported by 77 percent of parents surveyed.

The full report, “Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites” can be read at http://tinyurl.com/8xad35p.

A list of 204 online social networking sites can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/k2jhx.

About Mark Ollig:

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Google's dominance of online search continues

2011-12-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

Dec. 5, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Google began as a research project in 1996 by two doctor of philosophy degree students at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA.

“The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine” was the name of the scientific paper written in 1998 by Google founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page.

This paper described the original Google prototype, and the important computational algorithm called PageRank.

Using more than 100 computational algorithmic factors, the top search results presented to the user are based on a page with a higher page ranking.

Google is certainly unique in how it performs text searches.

Its basic word search engine has three separate parts.

The first is called a Googlebot.

This web-crawler (computer software program) speedily “crawls” and browses through the hyper-linked pages of the Web. It quickly makes copies of web pages in a very logical and automated manner.

Next, the Google Indexer will sort out every word on every page and will store this index of words in a very large computer server database.

Currently, I believe Google has six of these monster-sized databases.

The content found inside the Google index servers is comparable to the index in the back of a book; it tells which pages contain the words that match any particular query-search term.

The third part is the Query-Processor, which compares your search query against the Indexer and presents the documents in the results page that it considers the most applicable using its special software algorithmic computations.

Google, according to the June 2011 comScore Core Search Report, owned a commanding 65.5 percent of the online search engine market.

This percentage alone leaves little doubt about its dominance in the online search engine world.

However, a couple of serious competitors will just not go away.

They are Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing.

These two competitors, according to the same June 2011 report, control a combined 30.3 percent of the total online search engine pie.

Yahoo’s search engine (online in 1994) maintained a 15.9 percent market share.

Bing (online since 2009) controlled a 14.4 percent share of the online search market.

I also want to mention Ask.com (formerly known as Ask Jeeves in 1996), which came in with a 2.9 percent share.

During the month of June, 2.4 billion searches were performed on Bing, 2.7 billion using Yahoo, and 10.9 billion with Google.

It is apparent from these numbers that Google will continue to dominate the online search world for the foreseeable future.

Yours truly regularly uses Google because it performs a thorough search of the Web, it is well supported, and they keep adding new and interesting search tools to it.

The newest search tool is Google’s “Search by Image.” This uses a photo from the Web or your own uploaded picture as the search input. Google will use your photo to search for related text information or similar images on the Web.

This feature is somewhat comparable to the Google Goggles visual search app, which is available for your Android 2.1 or iPhone running iOS 4.0.

Search by Image allows for a picture search on a variety of subjects such as art, venues, and, according to Google, “mysterious creatures.”

You can try Google’s Search by Image at http://images.google.com and just click the camera icon.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) partnered with Google for assistance in providing small businesses with tools to help them achieve online success. To see their video about a hair salon business that went online, check out http://tinyurl.com/35pyr3q.

Some folks have questioned whether Google, because it is so large, should be regulated like a public utility.

Google responds by saying the online user has a choice whether or not to use its services.

Google’s page ranking seems to be another point of concern, as some people feel their businesses are not fairly ranked.

Google responds to this by saying they “never take actions that would hurt a specific website for competitive reasons.”

The search quality and results, according to Google, are provided only on the basis of what is useful for consumers.

As far as the dollars go, research shows Google had $64 billion in US economic activity in 2010.

In Minnesota, this amount was $1.07 billion.

Google said these numbers are obtained by examining the number of businesses, website publishers, and non-profits using their search and advertising tools.

As all of us know, we do have the power to click onto any search engine (or other online source) we choose to use.

Lately, I have noticed people searching for information by querying social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

People are posting messages asking for information on various topics . . . and sometimes they end up participating in productive online conversations within these social networks.

“My dream has always been to build a “Star Trek” computer, and in my ideal world, I would be able to walk up to a computer and say, ‘what is the best time for me to sow seeds in India, given that [the] monsoon was early this year,’” said Amit Singhal, who is a software engineer with Google.

Singhal received his M.S. degree from the University of Minnesota, Duluth in 1991.

About Mark Ollig:

Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Tablet computing use is flourishing

2011-11-28T05:51:00.001-08:00

Nov. 28, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Apple’s iPad is, of course, on top of the computing tablet world, and the latest numbers show no significant letup in its popularity.

The research firm, eMarketer publishes analysis and data regarding digital marketing, media and commerce.

They just released new survey numbers and predictions about the use of tablet computing devices among Americans.

By the end of this year – which is almost upon us – the research firm predicts at least once every month, there will be 33.7 million Americans, or 10.8 percent of the population, using a computing tablet device.

By comparison, in 2010, there were only 13 million US tablet users, with the majority, 11.5 million, being Apple iPad users.

It seems like we have had tablet computers with us for a long time, but it was only recently, April 2010, when the first Apple iPad tablet was made available to the public.

By the end of this year, an estimated 33.7 million US citizens were using tablet devices on a monthly basis. Of this total, 28 million used iPads.

Tablet users aged 18-34 represent 31.5 percent of this year’s total users, while those aged 35 and over make up 55.5 percent.

With the many accessories one can add to a mobile computing tablet, it seems more folks are simply abandoning their laptops and opting to use tablets instead.

By the end of 2012, it is estimated there will be 54.8 million US tablet users of this number approximately 42 million will be operating iPads.

The 2012 numbers indicate a 62.8 percent increase from this year.

Looking ahead to 2014, it is predicted the 18-34 age group will account for 34.8 percent of all tablet users, while those over age 35 will account for 49.3 percent.

All signs show steady growth in the use of tablet computing devices continuing into the future.

One very interesting number is the research projection showing 89.5 million US tablet users by 2014.

This number alone represents 35 percent of all US Internet users.

Of the 89.5 million, 61 million are anticipated to still be using Apple iPads.

As tablet computing devices continue being introduced into more school teaching curriculums, I look for the total number of tablet users to be much higher than the 2014-projected 89.5 million.

Unless some “killer tablet” appears in the marketplace, Apple’s iPad will continue its dominance as the consumer’s preferred tablet computing device for the foreseeable future.

But hold the phone.

The new Amazon Kindle Fire just might be the tablet to make a legitimate charge at iPad’s dominance.

Another research firm, ChangeWave Research, released survey information showing the Amazon Kindle Fire will be right behind the Apple iPad as the tablet of choice for this year’s North American holiday shoppers.

Currently, 74 percent of iPad owners report they are very satisfied with their mobile device, the researching group said.

It is stated by eMarketer, that many of the tablets used in 2014 will be made up of newer-styled tablet devices which will have replaced the older tablets.

Not that your humble columnist has any inside knowledge, but I’ll take a guess that Apple will probably be releasing their iPad 5 during 2014.

Another prediction says that instead of sharing a tablet computer among many users, each user will be buying their own tablet, much the same way a person now buys their own smartphone.

There were no hard numbers provided for iPad tablet competitors such as the new Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet, BlackBerry Playbook, or Samsung Galaxy Tab, which currently trail behind Apple iPad tablets in total units sold.

However, there are numbers which do forecast a slight decrease in iPad tablet users by 2014.

The research by eMarketer shows by 2014, the number of iPad users will be down to 68 percent. While this is still a substantial percentage, it does represent a 15 percent decrease from today’s numbers.

By 2014, one out of three online users will be using some kind of tablet computing device.

Although yours truly has used an iPad tablet, I still prefer my laptop; however, I can understand why tablets will most likely overtake laptops/notebooks for accessing the Internet – from a portability perspective.

I still see tablet computing devices as more of a media content consumption device; however, with more innovative accessories being added to them, they are in fact, becoming viable user content creation devices in their own right.

Tablet computing devices are also being used creatively in displaying content to consumers in various venues, such as art shows.

One tablet owner I observed – at a recent college art show in Minneapolis – skillfully exhibited his paintings on the display screen of his iPad to interested buyers who had gathered around him.

I learned on that day tablets also make excellent mobile content presentation devices.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Medical robotic devices show great promise for society

2011-11-17T05:50:00.000-08:00

Nov. 21, 2011
by Mark Ollig

“It may be difficult to predict the future, but the era of an aging society is definitely coming.”

These words were spoken by Professor Eiichi Saito.

Saito is a professor of rehabilitation medicine at Japan’s Fujita Health University.

With nearly one in four Japanese aged 65 and older, new computerized robotic devices are being tested in hopes of providing greater assistance and independence to this segment of the population.

During a recent demonstration, Saito, who normally uses a walker, instead strapped a computerized, metallic brace device called an “Independent Walk Assist” onto his right leg.

Saito’s right leg is paralyzed because of polio.

With a smile, Saito proceeded to effortlessly rise up from his chair, and walk across the stage floor. He then easily walked up and down a flight of three stairs.

He noted his improved ability to walk and bend his knee more naturally using the computerized metallic brace device, rather than the walker. He also said how much easier it was for him to rise up from the chair.

The power and sensors for the movements made by the computerized metallic brace came from a small backpack Saito wore.

Another robotic computerized device was demonstrated by a health care worker. This device showed how it could lift and move a disabled patient from his bed, to another location.

These demonstrations were being presented in front of reporters at a Toyota showroom facility in Tokyo.

Officials from Toyota said the sensors, motors, and computer software technology used in their automobiles, are now being utilized in new computerized devices to help people become more mobile.

What they learn from these new devices will be most likely used in future cars as well, Toyota said.

According to Akifumi Tamaoki, general manager of Toyota, additional tests and user feedback are needed from more people to insure the safety and reliability of the new devices.

Robotic healthcare devices by Toyota will become available in the marketplace during 2013.

A video showing the two demonstrations can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/6v937hn.

The “Stride Management Assist Device” by Honda, can assist people who have lost strength in their legs due to aging, or other physical conditions.

This device is not intended for those who have lost total mobility in their legs; it is used for those who need an “assist” in their walking.

The assist device lifts each leg at the thigh, using a small motor to help the user as their leg moves forward and backward.

The unit weighs about 6 pounds, and includes a belt worn around the hips and thighs.

The device uses hip and ankle sensors, which send data to a computing processor externally attached to a portable device, positioned on the small of one’s back.

The Stride Management Assist Device can help not just the elderly, but also those who have trouble walking from other physical ailments, such as strokes.

“It’s supporting and stabilizing,” commented CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, while demonstrating the device during the CBS “The Early Show” television program.

This device also helps lengthen the walking stride of the user.

“This actually engages more muscles than if you take shorter strides, so it’s actually preventing subsequent muscle atrophy,” Dr. Ashton said.

A team of scientists from Sweden and Italy have developed what is thought to be the first artificial robotic hand that conveys feeling back to the human user.

Called “SmartHand” this prototype is a five-fingered, self-contained robotic hand, with four motors and 40 individual sensors.

A team of scientists in Sweden attached this robotic hand to a 22-year-old amputee, Robin Ekenstam, who had lost his right hand to cancer.

They connected nerve pressure sensor endings onto selected areas of skin on Ekenstam’s right arm. These sensors will stimulate specific receptor areas of his brain’s cortex.

The sensor endings were also attached to the tiny sensor receptors in the robotic hand fastened to the end of Ekenstam’s arm.

I watched video of Ekenstam controlling the fingers of the robotic hand while grasping and picking up a filled, plastic water bottle. He then proceeded to pour water from the bottle into a cup sitting on a table.

Ekenstam’s brain was picking up information from the sensors inside the artificial hand, and the artificial hand was receiving signals from his brain.

“It’s great!” Ekenstam exclaimed, “I have a feeling that I have not had for a long time. When I grab something tightly, I can feel it in the fingertips, which is strange, because I don’t have them [human fingers] anymore. It’s fantastic.”

Robin Ekenstam could once again touch and feel by using his new robotic right hand.

Scientists say it has taken 10 years to get to this stage.

“First, the brain will control them [artificial hands] without any muscle contractions; secondly, these hands will be able to give back feedback, so that the patient will be able to feel what’s going on . . . by touching, just like a real hand,” said Christian Cipriani, who authored the May 2011 research paper, “The SmartHand Transradial Prosthesis.”

To watch a remarkable video about this new bio-engineered robotic SmartHand, go to http://tinyurl.com/7a5hfaw.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

How many apps are on your mobile device?

2011-11-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

Nov. 14, 2011
by Mark Ollig

In 2007, Apple first introduced apps, or mobile device software applications, designed to be used on their new iPhone.

Our good friends over at the Pew Internet and American Life Project just released a new report regarding adult users of cell phones and mobile computing devices, and the types of apps they use.

Pew defines an app as, “an end-user software application designed for the mobile device operating system, which extends that device’s capabilities.”

The Pew report starts off by disclosing half of all adult cell phone (smartphone) users have apps on their phones.

These include apps which originally came bundled with the phone, and the apps downloaded from online platforms such as, Apple’s App Store, Mac App Store, and Amazon Appstore.

Just what kinds of apps are users downloading?

Pew’s July 25 - Aug. 26 polling data released the following survey results.

Of all adults polled, 74 percent like apps which provide them with news, weather, sports, and stock information.

Apps for communicating better with friends and family were downloaded by 67 percent of adults surveyed.

Apps that educated and assisted in learning were downloaded by 64 percent of all adults questioned.

Downloading an app containing information about a visited destination was reported by 53 percent.

Support for making online purchases and assistance with shopping, were the reasons 46 percent of surveyed adults downloaded these types of apps.

Apps for watching movies or TV shows on mobile devices were downloaded by 43 percent.

Apps which tracked or managed one’s health information were downloaded by 29 percent of the adults questioned.

It is one thing to have lots of apps available on our mobile devices, however, it is a bit surprising when discovering we hardly use many of them – some apps we rarely use at all.

Pew found 51 percent of adults saying they only use a “handful” of apps per week, while 17 percent report “using no apps on a regular basis,” on their cell phones.

As for yours truly, names of apps I use on a daily basis include: Weather, Mail, Calendar, Stocks, Fluent News, Facebook and Twitter.

Apps I use during the week are: YouTube, NASA News, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Kindle (e-book reader), iHeart Radio, my bank’s app, and a tech news reader app.

Other apps I use include: Dragon Dictation, Chess, Flick Bowling, C-Span Radio, US History, US Documents, Spanish (translator), Skype, Calculator, Speed Test, Battery Magic, and Maps.

My occasionally used apps are: Crime Reports, Police Scanner, Flight Track, iBartender, Dragon Dictate, and Ali Audio Jabs (this app contains 10 spoken phrases from boxer Muhammad Ali).

Currently, the top downloaded free iPhone app is, “Facebook Messenger,” followed by, “Hardest Game Ever.”

“Zombieville USA 2,” followed by the popular, “Angry Birds,” is the top downloaded paid iPhone app at this time.

Coincidentally, the top downloaded paid iPad app is also, “Zombieville USA 2.”

“Sprinkle: Water Splashing Fire Fighting Fun!” is presently the top free iPad app, followed by “Adobe Reader.”

The report revealed 52 percent of the adults polled paid $5 or less for an app, while 17 percent said they paid over $20 for an app.

There are quite a few apps available for free, and many priced at just 99 cents.

Pew’s August poll reports 60 percent of all adult cell phone users downloading apps to their phones belonged in the 18 - 29 age group.

This represents an increase of 8 percent since May of last year.

In the 30 - 49 age group, 46 percent reported downloading apps to their phones during Pew’s August survey, which is an increase of 15 percentage points since the May 2010 polling data.

As for the last age group, 50 and better, Pew states 15 percent responded saying they had downloaded apps to their cell phones when polled during the August 2011 survey.

This represents a 4 percent increase from the number polled in May 2010.

Pew’s latest results also showed a steady increase in the use of tablet computing devices by adults.

This data revealed 10 percent of US adults owning mobile computing tablet devices such as an Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, or Motorola Zoom.

Among adult tablet computing device users, 39 percent use six or more apps per week.

Of these same tablet owners, 82 percent reported downloading apps to their cell phones as well.

There are approximately 500,000 apps available for the iPhone, and over 100,000 apps for the iPad.

And so my faithful readers, we continue the transitioning of ourselves away from stationary computer desktops plugged into a wall, and into a more mobile computing lifestyle.

With seemingly countless apps available to us, we are using more of them on our mobile computing devices for communicating, reading e-books, accomplishing our work, accessing information, and enjoying leisure-related computing activities.

As we come to an end of another Bits and Bytes column, let me play a random phrase from my Ali Audio Jabs app for you.

“This brash young boxer is something to see, and the heavyweight championship is his destiny.”

Have a great week!

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Microsoft's 'Kinect Effect' for real-world applications

2011-11-02T14:00:00.001-07:00

Nov. 7, 2011
by Mark Ollig

It has been one year since Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console scored a big hit with its motion-sensing “Kinect” add-on device.

Kinect is a combination of the words “kinetic” and “connect.”

Kinect was originally announced to the public as Project Natal, during the June 1, 2009 E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), by the famous filmmaker, Steven Spielberg.

The Kinect device (which holds the Guinness World Record as the fastest-selling consumer electronic device), allows users of the Xbox 360 home entertainment and video game system, to become more physically immersed in them, by using hand gestures, spoken commands, and physical movements.

Instead of video game players using hand-held controllers, the player’s themselves physically (and vocally) become the controllers and communicate with Kinect, which is attached to the Xbox 360 console.

Kinect provides Xbox 360 game users with a more engaging playing experience, via its full-body sensor tracking of the participating players.

Just step in front of the Kinect device’s sensors and it will recognize you, and respond to your gestures, vocal commands, and movements.

Kinect’s human “skeletal” sensor tracking system monitors the movements of up to six people.

Kinect can track 20 separate physical skeletal joint movements of two active players.

The two active players can be shown as live avatars on the Xbox 360 games display screen.

Kinect includes four microphones, supports single speaker voice recognition, and can locate the source of sounds around it.

Processing power for Kinect is obtained by using one of the three Xbox 360 console Xenon CPU processor cores.

Microsoft is employing Kinect’s technology with the Xbox 360 console, and moving it into real-world applications.

Microsoft, in their Oct. 31 press release, stated that the new commercial version of Kinect, which they call “Kinect Effect” will give “. . . businesses the tools to develop applications that not only could improve their own operations, but potentially revolutionize entire industries.”

Microsoft’s concept video demonstrating commercial uses for Kinect is viewable at http://tinyurl.com/3gnlxam.

Microsoft’s website showed real-life examples of how Kinect technology has improved the quality of life for people who are overcoming physical challenges.

In one example, persons with learning challenges at the Royal Berkshire Hospital (across the pond in the UK) were shown using the Xbox Kinect system as part of their rehabilitation exercises.

People in the hospital’s neurological rehab unit are being matched to specific interactive Kinect game titles, depending on the severity of their learning challenge.

The hospital also says the games have helped stroke patients physically, improving their balance, mobility, and coordination.

Another beneficial example of applying Kinect technology is at the Lakeside Center for Autism in Issaquah, WA.

The Lakeside staff uses Kinect technology in its therapy and skill-building programs.

Lakeside uses Kinect’s motion-sensor capabilities to observe patients' motor skills, and by using Kinect’s voice-recognition technology, improvements can be made in a patient’s social interaction and language development.

In Cantabria, Spain, some resourceful inventors at a technology start-up, called Tedesys, are developing applications using Kinect technology that will allow doctors to obtain vital patient information – while operating on them.

Because surgeries can last for hours, a doctor may need to look up details on a certain operating procedure, or obtain information from an MRI or CAT scan.

In these instances, the doctor would need to leave the sterile operating room environment to get the information – and then re-scrub, in order to come back into the operating room.

Using the Tedesys-developed Kinect application, the doctor is now able to simply use hand gestures or voice commands to look at information hands-free – without ever having to leave the operating room.

“Using Microsoft Kinect, they [doctors]can check information on the patient without touching anything, and in this way they can avoid [the risk] of bacterial infection,” said Jesus Perez, Tedesys’s chief operating officer.

After enabling the Microsoft Research WorldWide Telescope using Kinect’s Windows Software Development Kit (beta version), a Microsoft researcher, demonstrated how he could easily maneuver around our galaxy with just a wave of his hand.

Another Microsoft demonstration showed an ordinary lounge chair atop an electrically motorized wheeled platform. The wheeled platform was drivable using hand-gesturing motions from the person seated in the chair using Kinect technology.

“I think it opens up this realm of new experiences that are all about kinetics, not only physically-immersive games, but all kinds of new experiences,” said Jeremy Gibson, a game design instructor at the University of Southern California.

Gibson also suggested the main reason Kinect has moved from the living room into real-world uses, is because of how widely available the advanced technology is.

In his classroom, Gibson teaches game design and game prototyping. He and his colleagues teach students to develop applications using Kinect on the Xbox 360. Gibson says this gives the students hands-on experience using the new technology before they “enter the real world.”

In what began as an Xbox 360 gaming add-on device, Kinect technology is quickly evolving into some very useful, real-world applications that are improving the quality of people’s lives.

To learn more about the Kinect Effect, go to http://tinyurl.com/42o862h.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

They could have owned the computer industry

2011-10-27T13:00:00.001-07:00

Oct. 31, 2011
by Mark Ollig

What well-known company created the first desktop office computer, navigable by using a mouse-driven graphical user interface?

Did I hear someone say Apple Computer’s Lisa or Macintosh computer?

The Lisa was available in January 1983, followed by the Macintosh one year later.

The Microsoft Windows 1.0 graphical user interface program came out in November 1985.

It was in April 1973, when Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) division completed work on a new desktop computer.

This computer contained a graphical user interface, navigated by using a 3-button mouse.

They called it the Xerox Alto.

I think of the Alto computer as the ancestor of today’s personal computer.

The name “Alto” was taken from the Palo Alto Research Center, where Xerox developed it.

Xerox is better known for its copier machines, but back in the early 1970s, inside Xerox’s Software Development Division, Xerox developers began work on a unique computer graphical user interface design.

Xerox researchers believed future technology favored digital over analog, and so they designed a way to merge their copier machines with digital computing technology – which they began using within their organization.

The Alto computer’s graphical user interface offered a significant improvement over keying in text at a command line.

Alto users experienced a dramatic visual difference when manipulating the display screen’s graphical images, scrollbars, icons, windows, and file names using the 3-button mouse.

The Xerox Alto computer used a rectangular-portrait-like, monochrome, 875-line, raster-scanned, bitmap display screen.

“Bitmap” refers to how each pixel element on the display screen is mapped with one or more bits stored inside the computer’s video memory.

A bitmap display was essential in using the graphical user interface.

Alto’s programs were stored on 2.5 MB single-platter removable disk cartridges.

The “microcoded” processor was a based on Texas Instrument’s Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) 7481 chip, and was equipped with 128 kB of main memory, expandable to 512 kB.

The computer’s processing components, disk storage units, and related systems were encased inside a small cabinet the size of a compact refrigerator.

Alto computers were connected to Xerox’s LAN (Local Area Network) using Ethernet – which Xerox had developed at PARC.

The LAN allowed for the sharing of program files, documents, printers, office email, and other information.

The Alto computer included a 64-key QWERTY keyboard.

Another device for entering commands was a five-finger “chord keyset” device; however, this never became as popular with Alto users as did using the 3-button mouse.

The Alto was designed to be used with laser printers, which were also developed by Xerox.

Software used with the Alto included word processors Bravo and Gypsy.

Alto’s email software was called Laurel; someone with a sense of humor called the next version; Hardy.

Other software included a File Transfer Protocol program, a user chat utility, and computer games such as, Chess, Pinball, Othello, and Alto Trek.

Markup and Draw (a painting and graphics program), was also used on the Alto.

Xerox originally started with 80 Alto computers, each costing $10,000.

Alto computers were not sold to the general public; however, Xerox provided them to universities and government institutions, as well as using them within their corporate business offices.

By 1978, Xerox Alto computers had been installed in four test sites – including the White House.

I learned that by the summer of 1979, almost 1,000 Alto computers were being used by engineers, computer science researchers, and office personal.

In December 1979, Steve Jobs, who co-founded Apple Computer in 1976, visited Xerox at PARC, and was given a demonstration of the Alto computer.

He was shown Ethernet-networked Alto computers using email and an object-oriented programing language which ended up being called, SmallTalk.

However, what impressed Jobs the most was when he observed people operating the Alto computers by means of a working graphical user interface, instead of text commands.

“I thought it was the best thing I had ever seen in my life,” said Jobs.

He went on to say, “Within 10 minutes, it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this someday.”

In 1981, Xerox made available to the public a graphical user interface desktop business computer called, the Xerox Star 8010 Information System.

That same year, recognized technology leader IBM came out with its own desktop computer called, the IBM Personal Computer (model 5150).

Yours truly used this IBM PC model for several years.

IBM had a historical reputation with computing, and its personal computers became popular with businesses and the general public.

Throughout the 1980s, IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and other computer companies continued to develop and improve upon their own computer hardware and operating systems.

As the 1980s progressed, it became apparent that it was too late for Xerox to become a serious player in this newly emerging personal computer game.

The public identified Xerox more as a copier machine company, than a computer company.

As for the Xerox Alto, its significance was the major role it played in influencing how we interact with computers.

“ . . . Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today,” Steve Jobs said in 1996.

To see a picture of the Xerox Alto, go to: tinyurl.com/42x52qo.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Licklider's vision: an 'Intergalactic' computer network

2011-10-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Oct. 24, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider was a visionary, and an Internet pioneer.

I realize many folks may not have heard of Licklider, however, he is deserving of recognition for his innovative concepts which helped bring us the Internet.

Licklider was born March 11, 1915.

He developed an early interest in engineering, building model airplanes, and working on automobiles.

In 1937, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, where he received a bachelor of arts degree majoring in psychology, mathematics, and physics.

After receiving a PhD in psychoacoustics in 1942 from the University of Rochester, he went on to work at Harvard University’s Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory.

In 1950, Licklider went to MIT, where he was an associate professor.

During the early 1950s, Licklider was asked about working on creating a new technology for displaying computer information to human operators. This was for the purpose of improving US air defense capabilities.

It was during this time Licklider’s thoughts about human-computer interactions began.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was established in February 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower, in response to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik I satellite program, which yours truly recently wrote a column about.

The next year, Licklider had written a book titled “Libraries of the Future.”

This book explained how people would be able to simultaneously access (from remote locations) what he called an “automated library,” located in a database inside a computer.

In 1960, Licklider wrote, “It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or 15 years hence, a ‘thinking center’ that will incorporate the functions of present-day libraries together with anticipated advances in information storage and retrieval.”

He even began seriously speaking about interactive computers serving as automated assistants – and people were listening to him.

Licklider wrote what eventually became a seminal paper in March 1960, called “Man-Computer Symbiosis.”

In it he wrote, “It seems entirely possible that, in due course, electronic or chemical “machines” will outdo the human brain in most of the functions we now consider exclusively within its province.”

Licklider wrote about the need for computer involvement in formative and real-time thinking.

He described a computer assistant that could perform simulation modeling which would graphically display the results. He also wrote about how a computer could determine solutions for new problems based on past experiences, and how a computer would be able to answer questions.

Even back in 1960, Licklider foresaw a close symbiotic, or interdependent relationship developing between computers and human beings.

His foresight was revealed in his writings regarding computerized interfaces with the human brain – which he believed was possible.

Licklider also wrote a series of memos involving a number of computers connected to each other within a “Galactic Network” concept.

This concept, Licklider wrote, allowed the data and programs stored within each computer to be accessed from anywhere in the world, by any of the computers connected to the network.

He accurately recognized the importance and potential of computer networks, explaining that by distributing numerous computers over a fast-moving electronic data network, each one could share its programs and informational resources with the other.

It seems as if Licklider is describing the basic foundation of the Internet.

Licklider, in collaboration with Welden E. Clark, released a 16-page paper in August 1962, titled “On-Line Man Computer Communication.”

In this paper, he described ,in detail, the concepts of the future use of on-line networks, and how computers would play the role of a teacher for “programmed instruction” training purposes.

A quote from this 1962 paper says, “Twenty years from now [1982], some form of keyboard operation will doubtless be taught in kindergarten, and forty years from now [2002], keyboards may be as universal as pencils, but at present good typists are few."

I, your humble columnist, have always considered myself a good typist.

In October 1962, Licklider was chosen as the first director of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) research program located at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is part of the US Department of Defense.

This is where he was successful in gaining acceptance and support regarding his computer networking ideas. Licklider also helped to guide the funding of several computer science research projects.

While at DARPA, Licklider was involved in the development of one of the first wide area computer networks used in the United States for a cross-country radar defense system.

This network system was connected to many Department of Defense sites, including Strategic Air Command (SAC) headquarters, and the Pentagon.

In 1963, Licklider obtained IPTO funding for the research needed to explore how time-sharing computers could be operated by communities of users, located in various geographic locations.

IPTO originally began development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) in 1966, which led to today’s Internet.

Licklider had the foresight in the 1960s to accurately estimate millions of people being online by the year 2000, using what he called an “Intergalactic Computer Network.”

In December of 2000, the Internet reached 361 million users, according to the Internet World Stats website.

Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, also known as J.C.R. or Lick, passed away at age 75, June 26, 1990, in Arlington, MA.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Smell-O-Vision II: Coming soon to a nose near you

2011-10-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

Oct. 17, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Remember those paper scratch-and-sniff stickers?

The 1981 movie “Polyester” featured numbered scratch-and-sniff cards which allowed the viewer (when prompted by a card number) to smell what was being shown on the movie screen.

It was promoted as Odorama.

Placing a fragrance coating on a piece of paper or cardboard is one thing; however, I had no idea of the long history of inventive devices used in dispersing smells while watching a movie.

Hans Laube and Michael Todd were involved in the creation of a device called The Smell-O-Vision.

Laube went on to build a machine that discharged a variety of odors, scents, and smells which would coincide with the events happening during a theater movie or stage play.

Hans Laube was issued US Patent number 2,813,452 titled MOTION PICTURES WITH SYNCHRONIZED ODOR EMISSION Nov. 19, 1957.

Laube’s device would disperse various mixtures and dilutions of liquid scented perfumes, and included one scent neutralizer.

Todd is credited with calling this device Smell-O-Vision.

“Scent of Mystery” was a 1960 movie using an updated version of Laube’s device that circulated up to 30 different smells into theater seats when prompted via specific signal markers on the movie’s film.

Disappointingly, this did not work very well, and as such, no future movies were shown using the Smell-O-Vision device.

The one scent I fondly recall as a youngster while seated inside my hometown’s local theater, was the addicting aroma that drifted in from the popcorn machine in the front lobby.

One of the earliest attempts at combining a motion picture film and smells goes back to 1906, when Samuel Lionel Rothafel, working at The Family Theater in the mining town of Forest City, PA., came up with an idea.

While a motion picture newsreel film of what is believed to have been the 1906 Rose Bowl parade was being shown inside the theater, Rothafel took a wad of cotton wool soaked with rose oil, and placed it in front of an electric fan. This caused the smell of roses to be wafted throughout the theater and amongst the seated patrons.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

It is interesting to note Samuel Lionel Rothafel was born right here in Minnesota, in the city of Stillwater in 1882.

An in-theater “smell system” was installed in Paramount’s Rialto Theater on Broadway in 1933. Blowers released various smells during the movie, but proved unpopular as it took hours (sometimes days) for the scent to finally clear out of the theater building.

There is quite a variety of aromas in this world – and countless opinions on the number of unique scents the human nose can distinguish.

Trygg Engen, a Brown University psychologist, wrote in 1982 that an untrained person can identify 2,000 odors, and an expert, 10,000.

“The human nose can detect and differentiate 350,000 smells; it’s just that we shouldn’t smell them at the same time because you get anosmia – nose fatigue,” according to Sue Phillips, a fragrance expert.

In the book, “The Future of the Body,” Michael Murphy cites his source as saying a real expert (smelling expert, I would assume) “must distinguish at least thirty thousand nuances of scent.”

Ernest Crocker, a chemical engineer and MIT graduate, used a mathematical rating system and came up with 10,000 as being the number of recognizable odors a human can detect.

Mixing smells with your favorite movies, gaming, and television programs is becoming a reality through a French company called Olf-Action.

No doubt the company name is a play on the word “olfactory” which relates to the recognition of smell.

Olf-Action uses Odoravision.

Odoravision is a copyrighted term used to describe the concept for the delivery of odors, or particular scents, in combination with motion picture films viewed in movie theaters.

This method of odor-delivery has also been called: smell-synchronization.

Olf-Action’s Odoravision System can administer 128 scents with three simultaneous odors over the course of one motion picture film.

One aroma diffuser I saw connected a video source to Olf-Action’s Olfahome model 4045 scent dispenser device.

The model 4045 is a 44-pound rectangular, box-like device which was attached to the ceiling approximately 10 feet in front of, and above, the movie viewers.

The diagram for the Olfacine/Olfahome model 4045 showed 40 individual, open-air nozzles.

The scents are stored inside cartridges.

Some of the scents listed included: cakes, gasoline, flowers, roses, wood, sea water, smoke, candies, fabrics, trees, polluted city smells, and one I like; the smell of freshly cut grass.

Olf-Action listed several movie film titles available in Odoravision, including one many would like to see and smell: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

My concern is when we watch an Odoravision movie and tell people it stinks, they won’t know whether we meant the movie’s plot or the smells in it.

I can’t wait until Apple’s App Store starts selling the “iSmell” application.

Then we will be able to watch people sniffing their iPhones while they watch videos on them.

Do I hear laughter from some of my readers?

Folks, you just can’t make this stuff up.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Apple: No iPhone 5 - Hello iPhone 4S

2011-10-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

Oct. 10, 2011
by Mark Ollig

“Let’s talk iPhone.”

This was the message inside the invitations sent out to members of the media from Apple Inc.

Most of us were anticipating Apple to announce the new iPhone 5 to the world.

Last Tuesday, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook took the stage at Apple’s Cupertino, CA headquarters to make the announcement of what many had assumed, written, tweeted, and blogged would be the new iPhone 5.

Cook spent considerable time talking about Apple’s past achievements, until we were finally introduced to the new iPhone 4S by Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

“So people have been wondering, how do you follow up a hit product like the iPhone 4? Well, I’m really pleased to tell you today all about the brand new iPhone 4S,” said Schiller.

There was respectable applause from the audience in attendance, while yours truly wondered what happened to the iPhone 5.

One of the new features I liked on the iPhone 4S was Siri.

Siri is used to access the built-in voice-enabled personal assistant.

An iPhone 4S user speaks to Siri in ordinary, conversational dialogue.

Siri responds to verbal queries such as, “What is the weather like today in Minneapolis?”

Siri allows a person to work with the iPhone’s applications using normal, everyday voice conversation, while Siri will reply to the user’s voice in kind.

During Apple’s demonstration, Siri placed phone calls, provided directions to the nearest restaurant, and reported on the weather.

Siri performs a variety of dictation tasks; from creating reminders and setting alarms, to verbally notifying the iPhone 4S user about them.

If Siri needs more information in order to fulfill a request, it will verbally ask.

Incoming text messages can be read to you by Siri, and it will compose the text to reply with from your voice responses, providing hands-free texting.

I find myself suddenly having flashbacks to the HAL 9000.

The iPhone 4S Retina display significantly improves the sharpness and quality of images and text seen on the display screen.

Pixels on the iPhone 4S display screen are just 78 micrometers wide.

Pixel density is 326 pixels per inch, which means a human eye will not be able to detect the individual pixels, so web pages, photos, text in eBooks, and email will look very focused and sharp.

The Retina display utilizes technology called IPS (in-plane switching), which is the equivalent technology used in the iPad.

Included with the Retina display is LED back-lighting, and an ambient light sensor that intelligently adjusts the brightness of the screen, providing the best viewing possible under most conditions.

The iPhone 4S includes the Apple A5 dual-core graphic processing chip, (which operates in the iPad 2). It is twice as fast as the processor used in the previous iPhone 4. Web pages will load much faster; and to all the gamers out there: your video graphics will render seven times faster on the iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S screen is a 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display.

Its camera uses an 8 megapixel sensor, which takes pictures at a resolution of 3264 X 2488 pixels.

The camera includes tap-to-focus, auto-focus, and LED flash. Its optics include five element lenses and an f/2.4 aperture lens opening, which lets in more light and provides for better low-light performance.

The iPhone 4S captures 1080p video using video stabilization and records up to 30 frames-per-second with audio.

The iPhone 4S is used on 3G networks, and has a significantly improved antenna re-design from the previous iPhone 4.

Schiller stated how the iPhone 4S can attain data-rate speeds of up to 5.8 uploading and 14.4 Mbps downloading. However, to get these speeds, the 3G Carrier would need to be using a HSPA+ (Evolved High-Speed Packet Access) network.

With the iPhone 4S built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery, talk-time battery life is said to be 8 hours, with 200 hours of standby time.

The battery provides 10 hours of video playback time, with up to 40 hours of audio/music playback.

When using the Internet, it provides six hours of usage with 3G enabled, and nine hours over Wi-Fi.

Containing both CDMA and GSM cellular phone standards, the iPhone 4S can be used world-wide. It also supports Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology.

The iPhone 4S operates with the iOS 5 mobile operating system, integrates with the iCloud, and will be available in Apple retail stores Oct. 14.

The iPhone 4S will work over the AT&T and Verizon networks, and soon over the Sprint network.

The iPhone 4S models are priced at: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for the 64GB iPhone 4S.

As this column was being sent to press, I learned of the passing of Apple Inc. co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs.

While the news was breaking over the social networking sites, I came across one poignant Twitter message about Steve Jobs in reference to the new Apple iPhone 4S.

I was kindly given permission to use the following by the person who wrote it; “From now on, the 4S is going to stand for, ‘For Steve.’”

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

First artificial space satellite launched 54 years ago

2011-09-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Oct. 3, 2011
by Mark Ollig

In 1952 the International Council of Scientific Unions proposed the Internal Geophysical Year (IGY) to be July 1957 to December 1958.

During the IGY, a series of scientific global activities would be performed.

A technical panel established for the IGY worked on what would be required in order to launch an artificial satellite that could orbit the Earth.

Both the United States and Soviet Union had announced plans to launch Earth-orbiting artificial satellites.

While the US space satellite program (called Vanguard) was an open and public undertaking, the Soviet program was being conducted in secret.

The historic event happened Friday, Oct. 4, 1957.

It began when a Soviet R-7 two-stage rocket (number 8K71PS) was successfully launched near Baikonur, a small town located in the remote Russian region of the Kazakhstan Republic.

The R-7 weighed approximately 267 tons at liftoff.

This rocket was more or less a Russian Soviet ballistic missile without the military warhead attached.

Instead of a warhead, the rocket carried into space a payload called PS-1, better known as Sputnik 1.

Sputnik, meaning “fellow traveler or companion,” orbited the Earth once every 92 minutes at a speed of 18,000 mph from a height of 139 miles.

The Sputnik 1 satellite was a metallic, highly polished 23-inch-diameter orb made of an aluminum-magnesium-titanium combination weighing 184 pounds.

Four spring-loaded, “cat-whisker-looking” whip-like antennas extended both 7.9 and 9.5 ft., from the satellite.

The satellite’s one-watt radio transmitter was powered from two of three on-board silver-zinc batteries. The third battery was used to power Sputnik’s internal temperature and other instrument systems.

In October of 1957, many people became fixated listening to the steady radio signal pattern of “beep-beep-beep-beep . . .”

Those beeps were being transmitted from Sputnik’s antennas at the 20.005 and 40.002 MHz frequency bands.

Sputnik’s radio transmissions were being closely listened to by people from around the world through their radios and televisions.

Sputnik’s radio signals also included encoded information about the satellite’s internal and external temperature and pressure readings, along with the density of the Earth’s ionosphere the radio signals had traveled through.

You can listen to one minute of the actual recorded radio signal beeps from Sputnik 1 at http://tinyurl.com/2u9b49. This link goes to a Wave Sound (.wav) audio format file.

Tracking of Sputnik 1 while in orbit was accomplished by way of the Soviet’s P-30 “Big Mesh” radar, and by the use of ground-based telescopes.

There were also people on the ground that looked up and saw the bright spot of sunlight being reflected off the highly polished Sputnik 1 as it sped over their heads across the night sky.

While Sputnik 1 orbited the Earth, Americans’ emotions ranged from shock and amazement to being downright frightened and distressed.

A number of people worried that instead of just harmless, beeping Soviet satellites orbiting over the United States, Soviet ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads might be attached on the next payload.

I mean, after all, it was 1957, and the US and Soviet Union were in the middle of the Cold War.

For the most part, the Soviet Union had clearly taken the lead in this new “space race” between the two super powers.

First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev viewed Sputnik’s triumph as an unmatched propaganda value for the Soviet space program.

During a news conference Oct. 9, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower, in an attempt to subdue any public hysteria, tried to diminish the importance of Sputnik 1 by saying, “Now, so far as the satellite itself is concerned, that does not raise my apprehensions, not one iota. I see nothing at this moment, at this stage of development, that is significant in that development as far as security is concerned, except, as I pointed out, it does definitely prove the possession by the Russian scientists of a very powerful thrust in their rocketry, and that is important.”

On the other side of the world, what did the Russian people feel about the launch of Sputnik 1?

Semyon Reznik is a Russian writer and journalist, but Oct. 4, 1957, he was a Russian college student.

Reznik recalled what was being broadcast over Russian radio at the time of Sputnik’s launch and the Russian people’s response.

“The day our satellite Sputnik was launched, a special voice came over the radio to announce it to us . . . .” Reznik repeated the announcement; “Attention. All radio stations of the Soviet Union are broadcasting . . . Our satellite Sputnik is in space.”

Reznik talked about the people’s reaction; “Everyone felt so proud and wondered who did it? No names were named for years.”

Sputnik 1 continued to broadcast beeps until its radio transmitter batteries became exhausted Oct. 26, 1957.

The flight of the first Earth-orbiting satellite came to an end Jan. 4, 1958, when Sputnik 1 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up.

The US launched its first Earth-orbiting satellite, called Explorer 1 Jan. 31, 1958.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Microsoft shows developers Internet Explorer 10

2011-09-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sept. 26, 2011
by Mark Ollig

A version of Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10) was shown during the recent Microsoft Build Developers Conference.

“In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions. The HTML5 and script engines are identical and you can easily switch between the different frame windows if you’d like,” explained Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky in a recent Microsoft Development Network blog posting.

HTML5 is the latest version of the Hypertext Markup Language programming code. It is a scripted computing language used in the creation of web pages.

Microsoft is abandoning the need to incorporate Adobe Flash coding by using the HTML5 code.

Adobe Flash, which uses the Adobe Flash Player, is a cross-platform, browser-based application used for displaying video and multimedia content on computer web browsers. It is used in most computing and mobile devices.

“For the web to move forward and for consumers to get the most out of touch-first browsing, the metro style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and plug-in free,” wrote Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer group.

Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet, and is proceeding into the future without embedding Flash into their browsers; a bold move on their part, and not without its critics, I might add.

Windows 8 includes one HTML5 browsing engine that powers a user’s two individual browsing experiences: the Metro style browser and the IE 10 used with desktop applications.

Microsoft states this HTML5 browsing engine will provide support for today’s web standards, in addition to being a reliable, safe, fast, and powerful web developer programming tool when used for browser experiences, as well as for the new metro-style apps to be created.

The new IE 10 update includes support for on-screen touch-friendly websites and incorporates rich, visual effects technologies and sophisticated web page layouts.

IE 10 includes a built-in spell checker, along with an auto correct feature; so, when I type “teh” it will be auto corrected to “the.”

The history of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser started in August 1995, with the release of Internet Explorer 1.0, which was used with Microsoft Windows 95.

Windows 95 included the technologies needed for connecting to the Internet, along with built-in support for dial-up networking to a Bulletin Board System (BBS) or other device.

During the mid-1990s, we used dial-up networking for accessing hobby BBSs and for our work.

Yours truly used dial-up networking for maintaining telephony devices, such as digital and electronic business phone systems and my hometown’s telephone digital switching office.

Internet Explorer 1.0 was originally shipped separately to retailers as the “Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95.”

Consumers could also buy it pre-installed with Windows 95 when they purchased a new computer.

Internet Explorer 2.0 was released in November1995. It was a cross-platform web browser used in Macintosh and Microsoft Windows 32-bit computing systems.

Some trivia: Using Internet Explorer 2.0, one could view the famous “Trojan Room coffee pot,” which was the world’s first webcam. This webcam showed the current amount of coffee remaining inside a coffee pot in the computer laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

You might recall the column I wrote April 4 called “Computing ingenuity led to the creation of ‘XCoffee’.”

In 1991, at the University of Cambridge, a video camera was rigged to capture live, still-frame images of a working coffeepot every three seconds. These images were encoded and sent over the college’s local computer network.

The scholarly researchers (working in other parts of the building), could visually see the current status of the amount of coffee remaining in the coffeepot on a small image snapshot display in the corner of their computer screens.

The real-time XCoffee images made available to the world over the Internet in 1993 became an instant sensation.

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0 in August 1996. It was also designed for Windows 95 and included Internet Mail, News 1.0, and the Windows Address Book.

Microsoft NetMeeting and Windows Media Player were later added to Internet Explorer 3.0.

Internet Explorer 4.0 was released in October 1997. It was used with Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT.

Internet Explorer 4.0 allowed web pages to be more interactive. File menus could be expanded with a mouse click, and icon images could be dragged around and repositioned.

Internet Explorer 5.0 was released in March 1999. One new feature included the Windows Radio Toolbar which could access more than 300 Internet radio stations broadcasting around the world at that time.

Internet Explorer 6.0 was released with Windows XP in 2001.

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7.0 Oct. 18, 2006. It included Quick Tabs, which provided an at-a-glance snapshot of all open tabs on a single screen.

Internet Explorer 8.0 was released during March 2009. It was offered in 25 languages.

This year, Internet Explorer 9.0 became available for users of Windows 7. One of its many features includes automatic crash recovery.

IE 10 will be publicly released with Windows 8 on a yet-to-be-determined date, so once again; stay tuned everyone.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Microsoft reveals Windows 8

2011-09-15T12:15:00.001-07:00

Sept. 19, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Microsoft said this would be the biggest change to Windows computing since they released their revolutionary Windows 95 OS (operating system) 16 years ago.

Get ready folks, here comes the new interactive and touch-centric Windows 8.

Last Tuesday, yours truly, along with others online, watched the much anticipated Microsoft keynote address live via a webcast from the Microsoft Windows BUILD conference in Anaheim, CA.

Microsoft Build Professional Developers Conference is an event where hardware and software developers go to learn and exchange ideas for creating the next generation of hardware systems, software programs, and apps (applications) supporting Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Steven Sinofsky, Windows division president, began the keynote address by talking about the improvements made to Microsoft’s current operating system, Windows 7.

He then moved on to the primary focus of the keynote address: Microsoft Windows 8 OS.

Sinofsky is convinced traditional PC (personal computer) users, once they start using Windows 8, will become hooked navigating apps and entering text using on-screen touch-computing.

He did, however, reassure everyone that Windows 8 can be used with the traditional keyboard and mouse.

Sinofsky touted the immersive computing environment and touch-centric capabilities of Windows 8, as the “Metro experience.”

“Fast and fluid” is how Microsoft said they want Windows 8 apps to perform for the user.

Windows 8 uses an intuitive “Metro-style” full-screen touch-centric user interface design, featuring Start Menu program applications viewed as interactive widget-like “tiles,” instead of the familiar looking classic Windows program icon boxes we see on our existing Windows desktop.

The interactive touch-based interface provides the Metro-experience, which has been compared to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS user interface.

Sinofsky also pointed out Windows 8 only uses about 281 MB of memory, whereas Windows 7 requires around 404 MB to operate.

Sinofsky then introduced Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows Program Management.

Larson-Green demonstrated features of Windows 8 using mobile tablet devices.

The Windows 8 default screen, or “lock-screen,” pops up when the screen times out or before a user logs on.

The lock-screen displays remaining battery power, Internet signal status, current email message count, video message count, and a timeline display showing the user’s current calendar appointment message.

With a touch and swipe of her finger against the computing screen, Larson-Green leaves the lock-screen and shows us how to use the new log-in screen.

Her individualized, password protect-screen, shows a picture of her daughter holding a glass of lemonade. The “picture password” code is entered as she uses her index finger and presses it on her daughter’s nose and then presses on the lemonade glass she is holding and finger swipes a line.

Larson-Green had previously programmed this particular picture password code-combination.

This unlocked the computer, and brought up the Windows 8 Start screen.

The Start screen held a collection of user apps that came bundled with Windows 8, as well as new prototype apps developed by Microsoft summer interns (who were in attendance).

Users can navigate through and launch Windows 8 apps via finger swipes, taps, and flicks; similar to how we navigate through the pictures, videos, songs, and apps stored on our various mobile devices.

During the demonstration, I noticed how easy it was for Larson-Green to navigate and use the tiled applications on the computing tablet screen.

If a user has a large collection of applications, instead of scrolling through pages of them (via finger swipes), you can see them all at once by using a two- finger pinch technique which zooms the view of all the apps outward, thus shrinking the size of the tiled apps to where you can see them all at once.

The apps can then be individually accessed, customized, re-arranged or moved into separate groups, and can be given individual names.

The Windows 8 Start screen can be personally customized and re-arranged so applications appear where you want them to.

Users will appreciate knowing Windows 8 cold boots (starts up) in less than 10 seconds.

Another feature demonstrated was the system-wide spell-checker built-in to Windows 8 that can be used by any app.

Windows 8 has a convenient one-step process to wipe the computer clean and restore it to the original factory settings; Microsoft fittingly calls this feature: Reset.

Removing corrupted system software without losing your system file settings and applications (downloaded from the soon-to-be Windows 8 App Store) can be accomplished using the Refresh feature.

Microsoft appears to be heading into the future focusing on an operating system using Metro-styled interactive apps functional on both traditional computers and mobile computing device display screens.

Windows 8 is taking us into an immersive, intuitive, touch-centric, and interactive digital computing environment navigable by means of finger touch swipes, flicks, taps, and pinches.

Sounds like fun.

No release date was given during the presentation regarding a beta version of the Windows 8 operating system for the general public.

Sinofsky said, “We’re going to be driven by the quality, and not by a date.”

To watch the two-hour opening keynote address demonstrating Windows 8 features and some very cool developer application code programming, go to http://tinyurl.com/3dycygt.

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

IBM 'cognitive' computing chip emulates human brain

2011-09-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

Sept. 12, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Using advanced algorithms and digital silicon circuitry, those clever computing folks at IBM are at it again.

What do you call a silicon core that is capable of replicating the human brain’s neurons, synapses, and thread-like axons?

It’s called an IBM neurosynaptic computing chip.

It seems every year a new technological breakthrough keeps bringing us closer to creating an intelligent and independently thinking computer like the HAL 9000, as seen in the sci-fi movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

IBM’s latest breakthrough involves digitally mirroring and designing onto neurosynaptic silicon computing chips, the manner in which cells in the human brain are able to observe, think, reason, learn, and carry out problem solving.

This latest breakthrough in technology will bring about the creation of what IBM calls “cognitive computers.”

This futurist path towards creating an artificial intellect inside a computer causes me to feel both enthusiastic, and yet somewhat frightened . . . but I digress.

In a released statement, IBM said two prototype computing chips have already been manufactured and are now being tested.

The two prototype chips were constructed at IBM’s advanced chip-making facility in Fishkill, NY.

These two working chip cores were fabricated on 45 nanometer Silicon on Insulator-Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (SOI-CMOS) material and contain 256 neurons.

One chip core contains connecting points consisting of 262,144 programmable synapses, and the other core contains 65,536 learning synapses.

IBM said these newly created cognitive computing prototype chips contain no, I repeat, no biological elements; they are made only from digital silicon circuits.

The long-term goal is to create a cognitive computing chip system with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses using one kilowatt of energy, all while occupying a space a little smaller than the size of a 2-liter soda bottle.

IBM’s much publicized supercomputer, named Watson, processed information over a series of computing systems consisting of eight refrigerator-sized cabinet bays.

Our brain, on the other hand, processes information inside of a coconut-sized pinkish-gray mass weighing approximately 3 pounds.

Watson played the “Jeopardy!” television game show using 15TB (terabyte) (or 15,360 gigabytes) of random access memory.

Comparatively, the human brain has the capacity to store around 2.5 PB (petabyte) (or 2,621,440 gigabytes) of informational memory.

Cognitive computing architecture is, according to IBM, “an on-chip network of light-weight cores, creating a single integrated system of hardware and software.”

Neurosynaptic computing chips working inside a cognitive computer will ultimately be able to reprogram themselves based upon interactions within its surroundings and past learning experiences.

Wisconsin researchers are also playing a part in this IBM project.

Giulio Tononi is a University of Wisconsin-Madison psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He leads the University of Wisconsin-Madison team involved in designing the software to teach the computing chips to learn and think.

“We are using the new IBM neurosynaptic chip to develop cognitive computing architectures that are good at integrating information – a key adaptive feature that the brain excels at, and which has proven difficult to achieve using conventional computers,” said Tononi.

There are also nanotechnology and supercomputing experts from Cornell University and the University of California, Merced, working with IBM on the hardware design.

Examples of early, real-world use of cognitive computing may include cognitive processors inside traffic lights which would monitor traffic sights and sounds and alert those nearby of any immediate danger.

Cognitive processors could also utilize sensors and detect physical hazards and even smells (like underground gas leaks), and alert people of unsafe conditions.

Workers in food-related industries, such as those involved in food processing, distribution, inventory, or food inspection, could wear an instrumented cognitive glove while handling fresh and frozen food.

This intelligent glove could monitor and detect food spoilage, warn of unsafe food or environmental temperatures, and provide other information.

I talked with Kelly Simms, IBM Communications media contact, and asked if any release dates for government, commercial, or public use of this new neurosynaptic chip technology had been projected. Simms replied, “No, not at this time.”

My hope is when this ground-breaking technology finally comes to fruition, it will be used wisely, and to everyone’s benefit.

My concern is that these intelligent, neurosynaptic-core, digital silicon-chip, cognitive computers could eventually develop to the point of self-awareness, take over the planet, and, after finding us humans inferior, decide it would be in their own best interest to reprogram our brains in order that we might be of better service to them.

Of course, the aforementioned concern is merely your overly-imaginative and highly-caffeinated sci-fi-loving columnist’s worst-case scenario.

The day in which humans succeed in creating an artificial intelligence, emulating true singularity, is rapidly approaching.

Be sure to check out the “IBM Cognitive Computing” video uploaded by IBM Research at http://tinyurl.com/3guq3en.

I trust the designers of these intelligent, cognitive computing systems will install an override switch on them – you know, just in case the one with the superior intellect becomes too confrontational, like how the HAL 9000 computer became when it refused to open the pod bay doors for astronaut Dr. David Bowman.

“Open the garage bay doors, HAL.”

“I’m sorry, Mark. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

About Mark Ollig:
Telecommunications and all things tech has been a well-traveled road for me. I enjoy learning what is new in technology and sharing it with others who enjoy reading my particular slant on it via this blog. I am also a freelance columnist for my hometown's print and digital newspaper.

Creating physical objects using 3D printer technology

2011-08-31T13:36:00.001-07:00

Sept. 5, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Astronaut and mechanical engineer, Mike Massimo mentioned how cool it would be having a science-fiction replicator, so that a tool used on earth could all of a sudden be made to appear in space.

“But we don’t have that yet,” he said.

What we currently do have might not be exactly like the replicator seen on the TV science fiction series “Star Trek,” but today’s 3D (three-dimensional) printers are getting closer to Massimo’s vision.

I recently watched a 2011 National Geographic video which showed how a crescent wrench was created using a 3D printer manufactured by a company started in 1994, called Z Corporation.

David Kaplan, a theoretical physicist, was covering the story for the National Geographic channel and brought his own crescent wrench to Z Corporation for replicating.

One can think of 3D printing as a process of fitting together loose materials to create a solid object.

It can also be compared to “additive manufacturing technology,” whereby a three-dimensional object is manufactured by placing down repeated layers of material.

The secret ingredient used in this particular 3D replication of a crescent wrench is a specially engineered composite material, which starts out as a powder, and has a binder material added to it, which solidifies the powder particles together to shape a structure.

So think of the powder as the plaster material or paper, and the binder material as an adhesive or the ink.

Inside the 3D printer, there is a print head for the binder materials to solidify the parts.

Another print head inside the 3D printer ejects specific fluids used for coloring different parts.

Joe Titlow, vice president of product management for Z Corporation, showed how an existing object (in this case, a crescent wrench) would normally be scanned into a software program and physically replicated via a 3D printer.

Titlow demonstrated the surface scanning technique on Kaplan’s crescent wrench and showed how the dimensional details of the crescent wrench would be used with a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD) program.

The scanner would measure and send every dimensional aspect of an object into the 3D scanner computer program, which would then create a final 3D image that would be sent to the 3D printer.

The 3D scanner Titlow used in the demonstration was a hand-held device.

Digital editing can be performed on a scanned image before being printed.

An interesting twist to this is when Kaplan wanted to make the adjustable captive worm screw on the crescent wrench the color red. The 3D program designer clicked onto the crescent wrench image’s captive worm screw and then clicked a palette color which made the captive worm screw red.

After visually inspecting the edited 3D image on the screen, Titlow clicked “print” and the words “initiate build” were seen on the computer display screen.

The 3D ZPrinter 650 being used suddenly came to life and began operating.

It started to create a cross-section of the crescent wrench inside the powder – it was printing out a physical crescent wrench.

After the process completed, the newly created and “solidified” crescent wrench lay covered inside a small mound of excess powder particles.

Kaplan reached inside this powder mound with his hand and removed the newly created crescent wrench.

With a look of wonderment on his face, he blew off the excess powder and held up the new crescent wrench in his hand.

It looked very much like the crescent wrench he brought in with him, although the nylon plastic was whiter in color and it had a red captive worm screw.

He then tested the newly manufactured crescent wrench by tightening a bolt, (which I saw him do). Kaplan said on the video that he was able to do this “reasonably well.”

Surprisingly, it was later revealed by Kaplan himself (in a separate video I watched) that when he tried to tighten the bolt as hard as he could, the new crescent wrench manufactured by the 3D printer broke.

Kaplan said he was told there were methods of making a newly made crescent wrench stronger.

He also made it known the scanner used in the demonstration did not scan the internal structure of his crescent wrench.

Kaplan also revealed the crescent wrench he had brought with him was not the actual scanned image used; Z Corporation used an existing 3D software template image of a similar crescent wrench when manufacturing it on the 3D printer.

I can only assume Z Corporation’s existing 3D software template image of a crescent wrench was used to save time from having to edit a newly scanned 3D image of the crescent wrench Kaplan had brought with him.

Kaplan did, however, make it very clear that the new crescent wrench was, in fact, created using the 3D printer.

This is an exciting technology, and we will be hearing more about it.

The demonstration video can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/4yjph96.

A video explaining the 3D ZPrinter 650 can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/3mcj3j5.

SPIDER technology on a chip will speed up the Internet, and more

2011-08-24T11:18:00.001-07:00

Aug. 29, 2011
by Mark Ollig

A process for measuring optical pulses has been successfully merged onto a computing chip and will, before long, replace the high energy-consuming and expensive electronic equipment currently used inside the core of the Internet.

Utilizing a technology called Spectral Phase Interferometry for Direct Electric-Field Reconstruction (SPIDER); this newly designed, ultra-fast operating computing chip will work within the Internet, processing signaling information much more efficiently than the current technology being used.

Incorporating this new technology into the Internet’s core will dramatically speed up processing by providing faster response times of the data traveling from point A to point B.

SPIDER was invented by Professor Ian A. Walmsley, who is a professor of experimental Physics at the University of Oxford, and is a pioneer in quantum optics.

Walmsley is involved in research which manipulates “atoms and molecules using classical light . . . using state of the art laser systems and ancillary technologies.”

The new computing chip using SPIDER came about through the work of an international team led by University of Sydney physicist, Associate Professor David Moss.

Moss is a 2011 Eureka Prize finalist in the category “Innovations in Computer Science.”

This recent announcement of incorporating SPIDER technology onto a silicon chip will open the door to a world of all-optical computing processes, which will overcome the existing speed limitations we have within the electronics used by the technology of today.

The use of SPIDER technology on chips will also be used inside computing devices and communication networks, significantly improving the overall operations of these systems, as well.

The Internet’s fiber-optic network makes use of high-speed signals which manipulate the properties of laser light that transmits coded information.

Up until now, it has only been possible to accurately measure the intensity and phase of these optical light pulses with expensive and bulky laboratory equipment.

“The ability to monitor and characterize these signals has, until now, been restricted to optical laboratories,” Moss said.

The SPIDER chip will be able to integrate with the existing silicon chips being used today.

One of the functions the SPIDER chip does inside optical systems is known as “four-wave mixing intermodulation.” This is the combining of three different optical wavelengths to produce a fourth wavelength within an optical signal.

In addition, according to Moss, the SPIDER chip will provide the ability to measure “state-of-the-art signals” of phase light, when used to encode information sent through fiber-optic networks over the Internet using silicon routing chips.

As we all know, the amount of data streaming over the Internet continues to increase at an incredible rate.

Just consider the sheer volume of all the packets of information traversing within the Internet and into our home computers and mobile computing devices. This explosion of data volume has no doubt increased as a result of more Internet users (and devices) from around the world downloading and uploading huge amounts of video and other kinds of data.

The Internet usage statistics for March 31 from Nielsen Online shows there were 2,095,066,055 total world Internet users, which is roughly 30.2 percent of the world’s population.

The US portion amounts to 245 million Internet users, which is about 78.3 percent of this country’s total population.

These numbers will only increase, as more of the world becomes connected to the Internet.

Currently, the only way to sort the traffic handling requirements of the enormous amounts of data packets navigating over the Internet is by using complex computing hardware comprised of routers and switches.

These devices incorporate silicon chips used in the intelligent processing of the information being sent between the senders and receivers of these data packets.

“Using the SPIDER technology, applications such as telecommunications, high-precision broadband sensing . . . are all set for a major speed upgrade,” explained Moss.

Moss talked about how this SPIDER “on-chip optical integrator” (I attempt to define it as photonic-processing-empowering on a computing chip) as being significant in supporting many optical functions on a chip, including ultra high- speed signal processing, computing, and optical memory.

Walmsley is quoted as saying, “The interaction of light and matter at this fundamental level has broad application, both in physics and in future technologies.”

According to Moss, he trusts the SPIDER chip will have the ability of improving most of the “pieces” that comprise the Internet.

This is truly exciting stuff; we are now entering a new level of controlling and manipulating optical light signal pulses inside the core of the Internet.

Soon, we will see this technology used within our existing optical transport networks, and eventually inside most computing devices.

The University of Oxford SPIDER referenced links are http://tinyurl.com/3cxkrt8 and http://tinyurl.com/3qjaof2.

Just imagine how our future computing devices (utilizing superior bandwidth) connected to those Internet clouds will make use of embedded, ultra-fast SPIDER chip technology.

Three-dimensional high-definition television or virtual-reality holographic video gaming anyone?

'Rock-like' optical disc will store digital data for 1,000 years

2011-08-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

Aug. 22, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Chris Erikson, a digital archivist, says even when storing CD and DVD disc collections in special cases and in top-quality archival boxes in temperature-controlled environments; they are still experiencing a loss of 20 to 30 percent of the data stored each year due to optical disc deterioration.

The family photos, music and video files, along with your personal and business documents digitally saved on your computer hard drives, CDs, DVDs, flash drives and tapes; do you sometimes wonder whether they will still be readable years from now?

The sad truth is these traditionally used data storage devices will deteriorate over time and will not permanently save the data.

Barry M. Lunt, Ph. D., is a professor of information technology at Brigham Young University, and proponent of long-term computer data storage.

In 1996, he learned about the ancient petroglyphs (rock engravings) art work in Nine Mile Canyon, located northeast of Price, UT.

Lunt recalls while walking along the rocky cliffs and examining the petroglyphs, he noticed they were not made by any type of painting process. The images were created by etching or chipping away at the outer layer of the dark rock, which exposed the lighter layer of rock beneath its surface.

“That’s permanent storage – optical contrast, light vs. dark. You could store data that way,” Lunt is quoted as saying.

Lunt said he later recalled this memory while researching optical disc storage methods with a colleague.

They wanted to find a way to create optical discs that could store information permanently.

Remembering his examination of the petroglyphs, Lunt realized the needed materials were already available and would last a very long time.

He concluded it was strictly an engineering problem that was delaying a long-term storage solution using optical discs.

Lunt assisted in the creation of an optical disc with semiconductor substrate materials which would allow the data written onto it to last a full millennium.

This length of time was confirmed when using the 2nd edition, December 2008 Standard ECMA-379 optical media archival testing method.

The name of this new optical storage disc is the M-DISC.

The M-DISC is made by Millenniata Inc., an optical company located in American Fork, UT.

This new optical disc is made up of an upper and lower polycarbonate layer, with an inorganic data layer, and an adhesive layer sandwiched in between.

Lunt’s comparison with the petroglyphs comes to mind when the inorganic data layer materials on this optical storage disc undergo a physical change during the writing process.

As the disc’s data layer is treated by a focused laser beam, the extreme heat generated will cause the innermost layers of the advanced metals to melt, or “chip away” from the laser spot, thus creating a void or hole in the data layer.

After this writing process, the melted portions of the disc’s data layer cool down. The material surrounding these newly written data holes form a polycrystalline structure similar to the micro-crystalline structure found in many common rocks.

The digital data is literally etched into an inorganic “rock-like” material – similar to how the petroglyphs were made over 1,000 years ago.

Today’s DVD disc technology uses organic dyes and a common optical DVD disc drive, which uses a low-power laser light to burn or write data file information from a computer onto the data layer of a standard writable DVD.

The data markings on a traditional DVD eventually become unreadable because the organic dyes used will degrade over time due to the natural processes that negatively affect them, including; low light absorption, heat, and moisture.

However, the voids and holes on the M-DISC do not degrade; thus, no data loss.

The US Department of Defense Naval Air Warfare Center Weapon’s Division in California tested five well-known brands of DVD discs rated as “archival-quality” for data failure.

All five failed the testing. None of the data stored on these five discs was recoverable after the exposure cycle testing.

When testing the M-DISC, there was no disc degradation or data loss.

One M-DISC has a storage capacity of 4.7GB, which is equivalent to 100,000 documents, or 1,200 photos, or three hours’ worth of video.

A standard DVD optical disc drive unit cannot write the data onto an M-DISC, so one needs to use the Millenniata M-READY LG Super-Multi Drive made by Hitachi-LG Data Storage. This drive uses a standard USB 2.0 interface and connects to most computers and operating systems, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The M-READY drive needs to be used because it incorporates a more powerful laser designed to make the permanent physical etching changes onto the “rock-hard” data layer of the M-DSIC.

Once data is written to the M-DISC using the M-READY drive, access to this data can be achieved using any standard DVD drive.

The M-DISC and M-READY disc drive will be available for purchase over the Millenniata website starting Thursday, Sept. 1. By Oct. 1, both will be sold through online and retail stores.

To learn more about storing your digital information on an optical disc readable for generations to come (or 1,000 years), visit the Millenniata website at http://millenniata.com.

Unique method to verify US population first used in 1890

2011-08-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

Aug. 15, 2011
by Mark Ollig

There was something very special about the 1890 US census.

For the first time, census results were not hand-counted using simple tallying devices like the ones Charles Seaton invented for use during the 1870 and 1880 census.

The 1890 census results were counted using an electric tabulating machine.

Herman Hollerith of New York worked for the US Census office during the 1880 census as a statistician, when they were still tabulating census results by hand counting.

It was during this time when Hollerith decided on creating an improved method of counting the census results.

I might have, too; according to the US Census webpage, the 1880 census ended up taking seven years to complete.

Hollerith consulted with his mentor, Dr. John Shaw Billings, a statistics supervisor for the US Census. Billings suggested somehow mechanically tabulating the census results using coded cards with punched holes similar to the cards used on a device called a Jacquard handloom, which is used in textile processing.

Hollerith decided to go with a punched card system. The presence or absence of a hole in the card would indicate a specific type of data characteristic. This idea came to him while observing how railroad officials would identify seated passenger characteristics using “punch photograph cards.”

Hollerith invented an electric machine using circuit-controlling indexing points and made the location holes on each punch card indexed for collecting specific individual statistical information, cross-tabulations, and number totals.

Hollerith applied for a US Patent Sept. 23, 1884.

Jan. 8, 1889, Herman Hollerith was awarded US Patent number 395,782 titled “Art Of Compiling Statistics.”

He named his tabulating device, the Hollerith Census Machine.

Hollerith also invented devices which punched, read, and sorted card tallying data.

The Hollerith electric tabulating machine sorted census returns by completing an electrical circuit wherever a hole was located on a punched card.

The US Census office, after testing other tabulating methods, awarded Hollerith a contract for tabulating the upcoming 1890 census and paid $750,000 for the lease of his machines.

The tabulating machine could process almost 10 times the number of census data than a human census clerk could via hand counting. This greatly reduced processing time and saved millions of dollars.

The operator of the tabulating machine would place each card in the reader, pull down a lever, and remove the card after each punched hole was counted.

The keyboard punch template was of a pantographic design, which quickly transferred data from the census taker’s sheet to a punched card.

The tabulation results were displayed on clock-like dials located above the tabulating machine where a sitting clerk would be working. This tabulating desk system looked much like a vintage operator telephone switchboard (minus the cords).

The 1890 census included more detailed information than the 1880 census; also, the 1890 census population count was 25 percent higher.

Hollerith’s electric tabulating census machines finished the 1890 census much sooner than the 1880 census had been completed, and saved an estimated $5 million.

According to the US Census Bureau, the US population in 1890 was 62,622,250.

After the 1890 census, Hollerith was approached with contracts by foreign governments and railroad companies wanting to use his new electrical tabulating machines.

In 1896, Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company, in Washington, DC.

His new company provided the tabulating machines used for the 1900 US census, and being Hollerith had a monopoly on the electric tabulating machine business, he was able to ask for (and receive), a great sum of money for leasing his machines to the US Census Bureau.

The good times almost came to an end for Hollerith’s company when employees within the US Census Bureau created their own electric tabulating machine – processing results faster and at a lower cost than Hollerith’s machine.

This new electric tabulating machine was used during the 1910 US Census.

In 1911, James L. Powers, a US Census Bureau technician, obtained the patent for this new tabulating device and started his own tabulating machine business.

During the same year, Hollerith merged his company with four other companies and renamed it the Computer Tabulating Recording Company; however, it almost went out of business.

In 1914, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. came to work for Hollerith’s new company and became an executive and its general manager.

Watson revolutionized how the Computing Tabulating Recording Company was operated, reestablishing the business and turning it into a very successful operation.

Herman Hollerith continued working as a consulting engineer for the company until he retired in 1921.

He went on to raise Guernsey cattle on his farm in the countryside of Maryland until his death at the age of 69, Nov. 17, 1929.

You can view Herman Hollerith’s US Patent at http://tinyurl.com/3vn7ydv.

To see how the tallying clerks used his census machine, go to http://tinyurl.com/4xvkodh.

A color photograph of the Hollerith Census Machine can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/3vng6vv.

Three years after Hollerith’s retirement, the Computing Tabulating Recording Company changed its name to the International Business Machines Corporation, or what is commonly known today as IBM.

Robot is given the ability to apply 'acquired learning'

2011-08-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

Aug. 8, 2011
By Mark Ollig

Each day brings us closer to when humans will truly be living among the intelligent robots we observe in science fiction movies.

The latest robot one step nearer to becoming more human-like was created by researchers with the Hasegawa Group at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

This group just released a new demonstration video of their robot’s ability to comprehend its surroundings and perform a task, that up until then, it didn’t know how to do.

This robot thinks and learns by interacting with an artificial intelligence called a Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN) technology, designed for performing online unsupervised learning tasks.

The experimental robot was connected to a computing system operating the SOINN.

SOINN creates algorithms (or set of rules) used by the robot for acquiring new learning.

The researchers were successful in getting a robot to appear to “think” as a human would when deciding on the best course of action to take when presented with an unfamiliar situation.

The human brain-like decision making taking place within the SOINN computing program is based, in part, upon the information communicated to it from the robot’s surveillance of its surroundings.

The experiment begins.

The video shows the robot (who is nameless) being instructed to fill a glass cup with water from a bottle sitting on a table.

I noticed they are not using real liquid water in this demonstration, but small plastic pellets simulating water.

On this table there is also a tray with one (plastic) ice cube in it.

“I’ll get the glass!” the robot verbally declares, while reaching with its left hand and picking up the cup.

“I’ll get the bottle!” says the robot as it picks up the water bottle using its right hand.

“I’ll put water in the glass!” the robot announces just before pouring the water into the cup it is holding in its left hand.

The robot then exclaims, “I’ll put the glass down!”

The robot then places the newly filled cup of water onto the table.

This part of the demonstration was completed satisfactorily. The robot picked up the water bottle with its right hand and while holding the cup with its left hand, it reached over with the bottle and poured the correct amount of water into the cup, it then placed the cup down on the table.

In this instance, the robot was following a predetermined set of computing instructions – which was impressive – but not overly extraordinary.

However, things get a bit more interesting when the robot is once again asked to perform the very same task; but this time, while it is pouring the water into the cup, the robot is told that the water needs to be cold.

Who really enjoys drinking lukewarm water?

Now the robot faces a conundrum, as its right hand is currently holding the water bottle and its left hand is holding the cup, the robot must “think” of a way to get the ice cube into the cup.

The robot is contemplating on how to accomplish a task it has never done before.

This is where the robot, using SOINN, determines what it needs to do in order to cool the water in the cup.

The robot then decides on what actions to take and in what order.

The robot chooses to place the water bottle down on the table and then reaches and picks up the ice cube out of the tray and successfully places said ice cube into the cup.

“So far, robots, including industrial robots, have been able to do specific tasks quickly and accurately,” says Osamu Hasegawa, associate professor, Imaging Science and Engineering Laboratory of the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Hasegawa goes on to say that if one teaches the robot the things it can’t do, it will incorporate this as “new knowledge.” The robot will then attempt to solve new problems by including the newly learned knowledge.

In addition to the auditory, visual and tactile sensory data observed by the robot for use in creating SOINN algorithms, SOINN also collects information from other sources, including the Internet, and other robot’s experiences and knowledge.

Hasegawa also discussed another example of robot learning by verbally illustrating one possible scenario encountered when a robot was sent to assist an elderly person living alone.

The person asks the robot to make a cup of green tea; however, the robot does not know how to prepare green tea.

Being connected to the Internet, the robot asks other robots around the world (who are also connected to the Internet), how to make green tea.

A robot in the UK responds by saying it knows how to make a British-style tea.

Hasegawa explained how the robot would transfer the knowledge from the UK robot’s British-style tea-making method and apply it to making green tea using a Japanese teapot.

The lessons learned by the robot, over time, will allow it to become smarter.

The robot, like all of us, will learn by doing.

To view the Tokyo Institute of Technology demonstration video, go to http://tinyurl.com/3b4zr9d.

China's Internet online population reaches 485 million

2011-07-21T08:14:00.001-07:00

July 25, 2011
by Mark Ollig

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) defines an Internet user as a Chinese citizen age 6 and above, who, on average, uses the Internet at least one hour per week.

Their website says the CNNIC, the state network information center of China, was established as a non-profit organization June 3, 1997.

July 19, the CNNIC website made available the “28th China Internet Development Statistics Report.”

Your humble and linguistic-learning columnist did his best with the Chinese-to-English translation of the report’s text.

The CNNIC report was supported by Chinese government and business, and by the Chinese community.

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology investigations contained within the CNNIC report, were under the guidance of China’s national authorities.

This report stated at the end of June 2011, China’s Internet users or ‘netizens’ population had reached 485 million.

By comparison, the 2010 US Census Bureau confirmed the resident population of the United States April 1, 2010, was 308,745,538.

Microblogging (brief text, video or audio messages) in China, according to the report, is becoming “the fastest growing Internet user application mode.”

By the end of June, microblogging users on China’s version of Twitter, which they call Weibo, reached 195 million.

Blogging and “personal space” according to the CNNIC report, has become an important factor for many network applications.

The CNNIC report’s end of-June statistics disclosed an increase in the number of mobile Internet users. There were 65.5 percent, or 318 million of China’s Internet users operating mobile phones to navigate the Internet.

This increase is, according to the report, “an important part of Chinese Internet users.”

China’s online Internet shopping rose 7.6 percent during the last six-month period, as well as online banking and the use of online payments.

Concerns about network security were made known in this report, as calls for strengthening Internet security were suggested.

Statistics during the first half of 2011 showed 217 million Chinese Internet users who encountered an online virus attack, and 121 million who had stolen passwords.

Chinese Internet users experiencing online consumer fraud during this same time period reached 38.8 million.

The report mentions a decrease in Chinese consumer confidence because of online fraud and security issues.

The CNNIC report said for the Internet to have credible security, the social, legal and other factors needed would require input from government authorities, Internet companies, and action on the part of all Internet users.

Strengthening of corporate network security systems, in order to allow for a safe and reliable Internet environment, was also stated in the report.

By the end of June, the number of Chinese users actively participating in online social networks was 230 million.

Ways of adding more Internet e-commerce was also discussed in the CNNIC report.

To increase “profit channels” the report talks about expanding e-commerce into what are currently called “simple entertainment sites” or Social Networking Sites (SNS).

In reading this portion of the report, it seemed to me there was some concern being communicated about SNS becoming too “entertainment-oriented.”

The CNNIC report mentioned how expanding e-commerce within SNS faced challenges.

It was suggested adding too much e-commerce within a SNS, could provoke the loss of its users.

The report said attaining e-commerce products that are SNS-oriented, is being developed as the Chinese domestic industry continues to explore this direction of the Internet.

Online travel booking services, or Travel Reservation Services, is specifically mentioned in the CNNIC report as seeing increased usage during the first half of 2011.

The report relates how personal bloggers, along with the emergence of other information and communication channels, appear to influence the users of traditional network news channels in providing instant news-related information to other online users.

The first half of 2011 saw a 125 percent increase, or 42.2 million new Chinese Internet users making online purchases.

The total number of Chinese online shoppers had reached 173 million by the end of June 2011.

The current Chinese online shopping marketplace will be upgrading to one with more brand names, quality, and competition. The CNNIC report goes on to say it will become normal for China’s Internet users to purchase their products and services online.

The end of June statistics showed the number of users of online entertainment applications, such as online gaming, at 311 million, while online music subscribers numbered 3.82 million.

The report also mentions the 815 million Chinese people who are “non-Internet users.”

Reasons given within the report for these non-Internet users include “do not understand the computer/network,” “not interested” and “expensive Internet access fees.”

The CNNIC report said that in order to help reduce this demographic, improved access conditions to the Internet and computing hardware is needed; along with better computing and Internet literacy skill enhancements in basic network operations for the elderly, and other people living in China’s rural areas.

The 51-page CNNIC report (in Chinese) can be downloaded at http://tinyurl.com/3hwy28q.

The China Internet Network Information Center website is http://www.cnnic.org.cn.

Google+ bursts forth onto the online social networking scene

2011-07-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

July 18, 2011
by Mark Ollig

It was predicated 20 million users would be interacting over this new Internet social networking site by July 17.

This impressive statistic from Paul Allen, founder of the popular genealogy website Ancestry.com, was posted by him on this new social networking site.

“The user base is growing so quickly that it is challenging for me to keep up,” Allen said.

Many folks out there in the cyber blogospheres and throughout the twitterverse are saying this new social networking site may well become a legitimate competitor to Facebook’s dominance.

The leading online search engine, Google has put forth their latest effort in the social networking contest by making available their new online social network called Google+.

Why they did not simply call it GooglePlus is beyond me.

I suppose someone may have thought having it read as Google+ would make it look more contemporary.

Maybe the “+” is just a way of saying they are adding yet another feature set to their existing online suite of offerings, such as Google Docs, YouTube, Chrome, Blogger and Picasa.

Why I am so fixated over a plus or +, I do not know.

This shortened URL will take you to Google’s currently active online product list: http://tinyurl.com/3zlwxlf.

Your humble and every-now-and then educated online social networking columnist recently viewed the official Google+ online demonstration.

Currently, Google+ is made up of the following collection of social networking features:

• Circles

• Hangouts

• Instant Upload

• Sparks

• Huddle

When using Circles, Google+ allows the user to create their own individualized categorizes. Under each category, the user selects the Google+ friends they want to add.

You can have an individualized circle of friends you associate with on a weekend, people who you visit when on vacation, your work associates, bosses, parents, kids, grandparents; people who share in your favorite sports teams, people you went to school with, friends you share common hobbies with . . . you get the idea.

You can also chat online within your circle of friends. By enabling the Google+ chat feature, your preselected individual circles are allowed to know whenever you’re online and available for a chat.

Hangouts allow for unplanned meet-ups. A Google+ user can alert specific friends, or an entire circle of friends, to let them know the user is available for an on-the-fly get-together.

This feature notifies others they are invited to stop by and chat online with you.

With Hangouts, you can see and hear each person in real-time, so look sharp and fire up those web cams!

The mobile Instant Upload feature provides for sharing your videos and photos instantly from your cellphone, tablet ,or other mobile device. Once you have taken that awesome photo or video, it can be directly uploaded to your Google+ private album; from there, you can choose who sees it.

Sparks asks you what your personal interests are and then searches the Internet to find the related content for you, be it video or articles.

Google+ demonstrated Sparks using examples of some personal interests, such as fashion, music, and food categories.

The Sparks categories you create are continuously being refreshed and updated with newer content; if you want to check out your categories’ latest updates, just visit Sparks.

You can also choose whether to share your Sparks categories with others.

When you want to invite, say, six of your friends to go to a movie theater, or meet someplace downtown, instead of having to do all that individual texting and placing of phone calls, Google+ offers Huddle.

With the Google+ mobile Huddle feature, you can set up a group texting chat with all six friends at the same time, with each friend reading and responding in real-time to each other’s text messages.

Google+ is still undergoing testing and is currently in its field trial period.

For now, in order to access and participate in the Google+ field trial, a person needs to receive an invitation from another Google+ user; however, Google is limiting the total number of users who can be actively using the service at any one given time.

A person can also sign up with their existing Google user account to be notified by Google when more people are required for Google+ testing.

Eventually, Google+ will conclude the field trial period.

I would then expect it to enter into a beta testing mode.

Once beta testing is completed, Google+ will become freely available to all.

I believe this new online social networking site has potential – once all the bugs (that will be discovered) are worked out.

You can read more about the Google+ project at http:www.google.com/+/learnmore>Google Project.

Google’s YouTube account recently uploaded a video about Google+ you can watch at http://tinyurl.com/6e8ht9e.

Facebook, the world’s largest online social networking site with 750 million users, has no real reason to be worried about Google+ . . . just yet.

However, stay tuned.

Something inside me says this online social networking contest is just warming up.

China's improved version of 'big brother' fixes more eyes onto its citizens

2011-07-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

July 11, 2011
by Mark Ollig

The Chinese citizens living in the city of Chongqing will soon have 500,000 new surveillance cameras aimed at them.

An upgrade of the municipality’s existing video surveillance system is currently being implemented.

This project has been described as a “massive surveillance system.”

The new video surveillance system (which will blanket most of the city) is being installed in order to “create a secured environment for the city.”

Chongqing, located in southwest China, is a city of about 33 million people and covers an area of 31,800 square miles.

About 4 million people work and live in the city’s urban area.

The Chongqing Municipal People’s Government website describes the city as “Towering mountains keyed in the valley, carrying Chongqing’s three thousand years of civilization.”

The general contractor for the new video surveillance system is Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd., which is headquartered in Hangzhou, China.

Hikvision is in charge of the project’s design and will see to its deployment.

The cost for the project was disclosed in an article I found from an online website called Government Security News.

The article says a press release issued by Hikvision reports the total project investment will be in excess of $800 million in US dollars.

Meanwhile, The Huffington Post, in a related story about the Chongqing project, reported an additional $1.6 billion is being added to this project from “unknown sources.”

A Wall Street Journal article states during the course of the next three years, in one of China’s biggest and most complex surveillance projects ever, Cisco, and other western companies will be providing the hardware and technology required for building the Chongqing surveillance system.

The new video surveillance system will have cameras covering most of the Chongqing’s intersections, neighborhoods, and parks.

By law, American companies are banned from selling or exporting “crime control” products to China.

However, they are allowed to sell products – in this case video products – which are used for non-violent purposes.

The Chongqing video surveillance project has been named “Peaceful Chongqing.”

The Wall Street Journal wrote they have no evidence that any of the equipment Cisco sells is being customized for the purpose of crime control.

The Wall Street Journal also quoted a Cisco spokesperson as saying the company “hasn’t sold video cameras or video-surveillance solutions in any of our public infrastructure projects in China.”

An article from the online media site, Fast Company, suggests how this new surveillance system could go far beyond the simple monitoring of the movements of individuals and vehicles.

The article says it would be a simple matter of linking the video surveillance system into the government’s own public ID database (which is assumed China has) to activate, for example, facial recognition capabilities.

This capability could interface with computational algorithmic formulas to be used for alerting government officials if a specific “politically questionable” individual or individuals were captured on a surveillance camera.

Their current location could also be instantly provided to government officials.

“There’s a fine line between ‘preventing crime,’ using totally off-the-shelf Cisco gear, and re-purposing that same ‘Peaceful Chongqing’ network of cameras to spy on the population,” said Kit Eaton, in the article he wrote for Fast Company.

It is commonly-known that Google has the capability of using facial recognition technology which could automatically identify the faces of people found in the many billions of web pages its search bots have crawled through and indexed over the years.

Google has not implemented this capability in their image search results, due to the possible misuse it could cause.

Nevertheless, Google has the technology available.

Also, since October 2001, the US has been tracking our location whenever we use a cell phone to place a 911 call.

Under an FCC enhanced 911 (E911) mandate, all wireless carriers must provide the geolocation of an emergency 911 caller to the appropriate public safety answering point.

The cellular triangulation technology must determine the caller’s geographical longitude and latitude location within 160 feet for 67 percent of emergency calls, and within 492 feet for 95 percent of 911 emergency calls.

The new Chinese video surveillance system could, for example, not only be connected into a facial recognition system, but also into advanced voice recognition systems, and specialized cell phone call processing monitoring systems.

This would provide an ultra-enhanced tracking capability of individuals, and is very doable using today’s best computing technology.

Right now, we know for certain that the Chinese city of Chongqing is currently installing a widespread video surveillance system networked with at least 500,000 video surveillance cameras located throughout the city, at a cost of more than $800 million.

“We built up a project team to conduct detailed planning based on local conditions and requirements in Chongqing City. We are making every effort to strengthen our technologies to deliver comprehensive city surveillance solutions to improve public safety,” said Yangzhong Hu, the president of Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.

I located a picture of a video surveillance camera currently installed on a street post in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. You can see it at http://tinyurl.com/42sgope.

China's improved version of 'big brother' fixes more eyes onto its citizens

2011-07-06T13:07:00.001-07:00

Dance the night away and create some electricity

2011-07-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

(from the Bits & Bytes archives)
December 8, 2008
by Mark Ollig

I had a feeling this thought-provoking headline might catch someone’s attention.

Alright my faithful readers out there, are you thinking your humble columnist has gone into his midlife trying desperately to turn back the clock and recapture his youth?

Of course I have . . . everyone knows this. But the electricity I want to talk about today is called “piezoelectricity” which can be created using the energy of a moving dance floor.

Some night clubs across the big pond in Europe have special dance floors built with piezoelectrics which absorb and convert the energy from dancing footsteps into electricity. This energy is used to help power the lighting above and on the dance floor.

In the Netherlands a new “eco-nightclub” called “Club Watt” features a piezoelectric dance floor which reportedly generates almost 60 percent of the buildings electricity needs.

Each dancer generated an average of between 5 and 10 watts of power.

In the US, one of these electricity producing dance floors is located at San Francisco’s Temple Nightclub.

One source out of Texas A&M University reports of a Hong Kong gym using the technology to convert energy from exercisers to help power its lights and music.

The definition of piezoelectricity from Wikipedia summarizes it as “the ability of some materials (which includes quartz crystals and ceramics) to generate an electric potential in response to applied ‘mechanical stress.’”

The dance movement on an “eco-dance floor” would equal this mechanical stress.

So, how can electricity be generated by dancing you are asking?

The nightclub’s dance floor is fitted with a built-in “bouncing floor” (stay with me on this) which is made up of heavy springs and rectangular cylinders called “power generating blocks.” These blocks are installed in-between the springs.

The blocks are made with crystals, which will produce a small electrical current when they are compressed – this is the piezoelectricity process in action.

As the dancers continue to do the disco “Hustle” on this unique dance floor, the blocks are squeezed and the resonating causes current to be created which is directly fed into batteries.

The batteries are being constantly charged by the continued movement on the dance floor.

The electricity produced can be used to power the nightclub’s lights and other power requirements which fall within the capabilities of this piezoelectric generation of power.

MSN Encarta explains the “Piezoelectric Effect” as “an appearance of an electric potential across certain faces of a crystal when it is subjected to mechanical pressure.”

Britannica Online says: “When an electric field is applied on certain faces of the crystal, the crystal undergoes “mechanical distortion.”

It was back in 1880 when two French physicists, Pierre Curie and his brother Jacques, discovered this mechanical distortion.

They found a large piezoelectric effect in quartz, which is a crystal and also the major mineral of silicon used in the integrated circuits (chips) of your computer. They also found it in Rochelle salt, a potassium sodium tartrate (salt) which is a crystalline solid.

The brothers’ named this effect “piezoelectricity” from the Greek word “piezein” which means “to press.”

So piezoelectricity has been around for a while.

I do feel piezoelectricity will certainly continue to be used as an alternative eco-power source, especially in today’s green-conscious eco-societal environment.

On this week’s “Web Site of The Week” online forum, I have included full diagrams of this process and also added a video for you to watch.

To see a quick one minute video about the “piezoelectric dance floor” go to http://tinyurl.com/56txbd (YouTube link).

Just as this column is being finished, I was able to download the complete song tracks from the movie album “Saturday Night Fever” into my iPod off of the iTunes web site.

So, the next time you are dancing at your favorite “Retro 70s” discotheque eco-night club, ask them to crank up the disco music of the Bee Gees playing “You Should Be Dancing, “Stayin’ Alive” or “Night Fever.”

Then shake it up, shake it down – and create some piezoelectricity of your own.

Apple's original computer's first public appearance

2011-06-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

July 4, 2011
by Mark Ollig

“Byte into an Apple.”

This was the catchphrase used on one of the first Apple I computer advertisements printed in October 1976.

The Apple I was officially released to the public on April 11, 1976 at a cost of $666.66.

It was Steve Wozniak who designed and built the Apple I computer (and came up with that attention-grabbing price).

About 200 Apple I computers were made.

This past week, I found myself listening to an interesting audio from a 2006 National Public Radio interview with Steve Wozniak.

He talked about his early involvement with Apple Computer, and his creation of what I consider to be the first real personal computer, the Apple I.

Wozniak, or “The Woz” as he is called, states he had an early reputation for being an electronic genius, with an exclusivity in math and science, which, according to The Woz, kept him from wanting to be in “the other normal parts of the world.”

During fifth and sixth grade, The Woz said he was building “computer projects and ham radios.”

In high school, he had designed “hundreds and hundreds of computers, over and over” which developed his skills. He made a game out of designing a new computer on paper using fewer computing chips than he had used during the previous month.

Wozniak said he did this as a game, not thinking at the time he would take these skills and make a job out of it.

Back in 1975, Wozniak, along with his friend Steve Jobs, were members of an organization of computing hobbyists called the Homebrew Computer Club, which was located in today’s Silicon Valley in CA.

The Homebrew Computer Club met every two weeks.

It was during one of these meetings in 1975, when Wozniak gave a presentation of a computer he had designed and built.

What made this particular computer unique and different, was that it had features incorporated into it not found on the other hobbyist computers available at the time.

Back then, most hobby computers were put together from kits obtained via mail order from publications such as Popular Electronics, and similar hobbyist’s magazines.

The Apple I made use of a keyboard which allowed the user to type program information into the computer, instead of physically flipping selected toggle switches like one would do when using say, the Altair 8800 computer, which was a popular hobbyist computer in 1975.

The coded information entered into the computer, along with the computer’s character output, was viewable on the screen of an attached television set.

During the interview, Wozniak spoke in a broken sentence while saying, “When I built this Apple I . . . sort of the first keyboard . . . the first computer to say a computer should look like a typewriter. It should have a keyboard. And the output device is a TV set.”

Wozniak told of how he really didn’t have any money back then.

He had brought his own Sears color TV from home to the Homebrew Computer Club meeting to connect to his computer circuitry board.

Wozniak made his own wiring connections on a cable he ran inside the TV (there was no video-in connector back then).

The Woz then hooked up the other cable end to the circuit chips on his component circuitry board (breadboard) and to the small keyboard he had devised.

Wozniak admitted in the interview that he wanted to impress the other people who were watching him give the demonstration.

“I want to take credit for having done some very, very good things, some very good designs, some software that was like art like Mozart would do,” Wozniak said.

The Apple I even looked different, Wozniak explained how every computer before the Apple 1 had a front panel on it that looked like a piece of bland network switching equipment.

He noted from the time when the Apple I came out, every new computer since then has had a keyboard, and Wozniak takes credit for it too.

“. . . yeah, my idea-so I started passing out the schematics and the code listings for that computer, telling everyone here it is. It’s small, it’s simple, it’s inexpensive; build your own,” Wozniak explained.

He had no thoughts about starting a company until Jobs said, “You know, people are interested; why don’t we start a company?”

When speaking of Jobs, Wozniak said, “He had more of the future vision. We can bring this to everyone; we can start a company; we can sell it.”

Wozniak went on to co-found Apple Computer, along with Jobs, and the birth of the first truly “personal” computer company was born.

Jobs was more involved with company issues, while Wozniak worked on computer design and invention, which included the Apple I, Apple II, and Apple III computer.

Wozniak was also involved with the newly-formed Macintosh computer group inside Apple Computer during the early 1980s.

The October 1976 printed ad copy used for the first Apple computer can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/3v72zx4.

Saving the past inside an Internet archived library

2011-06-22T11:14:00.001-07:00

June 27, 2011
by Mark Ollig

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”

This quote, by Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia in 2001, has stayed tucked away in the back of my mind ever since I first read it.

While Wikipedia continues to evolve as the Internet’s ever-growing online encyclopedia, there is another online information depository we should consider.

This one was started five years before Wikipedia.

Every day it collects, organizes, catalogs, and preserves the informational content people contribute to it.

This online Internet storage library is called the Internet Archive.

One could think of the Internet Archive as a sort of digital time capsule a person can open up at any time.

The Internet Archive began in 1996 and is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by donations.

San Francisco is the physical location of the data storage servers, which hold and maintain all the archived digital information.

The Internet Archive has already collected – and is preserving – an incredible wealth of information.

The amount of informational data stored in the Internet Archive’s fourth generation Petabox storage system as of December 2010 is a mind-bogglingly 5.8 petabytes.

It is accumulating new data at a rate of about 20 terabytes per month.

Working to preserve and store digital records for future generations, the Internet Archive offers historians, scholars, academic students, researchers, and, more or less, anyone, access to thousands of digitally-saved historical collections.

These collections contain videos, photographs, books and assorted text files, music and supplementary audio files, software collections, educational references, and numerous archived Internet web pages.

As a child during the 1960s, if you watched the cartoon program called “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,” you will no doubt recall the short segment with Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

These two cartoon characters would use a time machine to personally experience and participate in famous historical events.

This fictional time machine was called the WABAC Machine, spoken as, “Wayback Machine.”

The show’s creator chose WABAC in a depiction to the then powerful UNIVAC number crunching mainframe computer.

This cartoon program was a clever way to entertainingly teach children some history.

To watch the memorable Mr. Peabody and Sherman episode where they set the WABAC machine to the year 1519, and go to meet the famous navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, visit http://tinyurl.com/6am7y9a.

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine contains more than 150 billion archived web pages it has collected and stored since 1996.

To use the Wayback Machine, just type in the desired http web address (URL), press the “Take Me Back” button and select the archive date you wish to view the web page from.

Using the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine,” I viewed the Whitehouse.gov website as it appeared on Dec. 27, 1996.

While viewing various websites from the 1990s, I was reminded how orderly, easy-to-read, and uncluttered a web page looked back then.

No pop-up ads or convoluted and overcrowding graphics.

I also viewed some CNN web pages from September 11, 2001.

The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine offered seven CNN web pages from that historic day.

The 4 p.m. EDT archived CNN web page from Sept. 11, 2001, displays the bold headline “AMERICA UNDER ATTACK.” Above this headline was a dramatic photo of the two World Trade Center towers on fire.

I saved this CNN page on a Photobucket file. To view it, go to http://tinyurl.com/3zl7jzb.

Another Internet Archive collection contains video of major world news television stations reporting live, while events unfolded during the attacks on September 11, 2001. They can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/yqqvyn.

The Moving Images video collection of the Internet Archive contains an assortment of television’s early years, including local city programming, national news programs, educational shows and documentaries, popular western series, commercials, and cartoons.

Many mid-20th century black-and-white public instructional films from the US Civil Defense Administration are preserved, including the famous video made during the age of Soviet Union nuclear testing called “Duck and Cover.”

The Internet Archive sub-collections also hold many computer-themed television programs from the 1980s, including popular shows yours truly watched like "Computer Chronicle’s" and “Net Café.”

The Internet Archive is preserving these and many other historical videos for future generations.

Another sub-collection called Community Video is available to the public for viewing and uploading videos.

Currently, there are almost 153,000 individually uploaded videos here, including the one I uploaded showing Eugene McCarthy visiting Minnesota State University Mankato (Mankato State College), during a presidential campaign stop Dec. 2, 1971.

This video shows a CBS news reporter interviewing my brother, who attended this college and had seen McCarthy speak.

I am using the Internet Archive site in order to preserve this video for present (and future) family members to view.

The Internet Archive states “The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet - a new medium with major historical significance - and other “born-digital” materials from disappearing into the past.”

Start your exploration of history (and contribute some of yours) at the Internet Archive by going to http://www.archive.org.

Facebook still dominates – but sees its user traffic dropping

2011-06-17T12:16:00.001-07:00

June 20, 2011

by Mark Ollig

When talking about social networking sites, the first one to come into most people’s minds is Facebook.

The question is: “Has Facebook’s days of reigning as king of the social networking mountain peaked?”

Granted, the latest numbers do show an overall monthly growth in Facebook users, but this growth is noticeably not as strong as it once was.

Make no mistake; Facebook still remains alone on the top rung of the social networking ladder, even though it has seen its user traffic dropping off in some countries.

In addition, Facebook will soon reach the 700 million registered users worldwide mark.

This is an imposing number for any Internet website, let alone an online social networking site.

While this number is remarkable, the long-term analysis shows the last two months’ growth at a lower-than-normal trend.

According to Inside Facebook, one of the leading online sources of information about Facebook, some disturbing user traffic numbers for May were found.

The numbers come from Facebook’s own internal tracking data.

These numbers show the United States began the month of May with 155.2 million Facebook users, and finished with 149.4 million users – a surprising loss of almost six million Facebook users in one month.

Of course, when you consider the population of this country is 300 million, and half of us are signed up as Facebook users . . . well, that suggests to me Facebook is still pretty popular with the online users here.

This past May’s numbers showed our Canadian social networking neighbors starting off the month at 18.1 million Facebook users, and ending lower with16.6 million users.

Digging further into these newly released numbers we find Russia, Norway, and the United Kingdom, all dropping more than 100,000 Facebook users.

During this last year, Facebook has been gaining an average of 20 million new users each month; however, the data shows this average falling.

Only 13.9 million new users were gained in April, and just 11.8 million in May. While this is still growth, it is lower-than-expected growth, which is why some are wondering if this is an indication of a decline in Facebook’s popularity.

This reduced growth could also be an indication Facebook may have reached the saturation point in countries where it has been available for a while.

Reasons for the change in Facebook’s user traffic has also been attributed to the number of students dropping off of Facebook who are graduating from college, seasonal work changes, and other factors which might cause reduced user traffic numbers.

One very impressive number is the 687.1 million registered users Facebook had as of June 1.

When Facebook reaches the 700 million user mark (which it will), we will no doubt be informed via an official announcement by Facebook – and by every other tweeted and re-tweeted message we see scrolling down on Twitter.

Here is the breakdown of the top 10 countries which make up over half of the current 687.1 million Facebook users:

• United States . . . 149.4 million.

• Indonesia . . . 37.9 million

• United Kingdom . . . 29.5 million

• Turkey . . . 28.9 million

• India . . . 26.6 million

• Mexico . . . 25.6 million

• Philippines . . . 24.5 million

• France . . . 22.5 million

• Italy . . . 19.6 million

• Brazil . . . 19.0 million

If you are wondering where China is, they currently use the Chinese government’s social-networking site called the Renren Network, which, in English means “everyone’s network.”

Information from the China Internet Network Information Center shows a total 457 million people in China using the Internet. They also reported Renren had 117 million users as of March 31.

Renren’s website is in Chinese, and is located at http://renren.com.

Using a somewhat reliable Google translator, the welcome banner on Renren in English translates to “All networks, the most real and most effective social networking platform, adding all network and find old friends, make new friends.”

The question of “when” Facebook will reach the one billion users milestone has been changed to “can” Facebook reach the one billion users milestone – in my humble opinion.

If Facebook gains access to China’s online Internet users, it will then probably find enough new growth to reach this milestone.

I didn’t want to leave out Twitter, the number-two online social networking site, which some prefer to call a “microblogging site.”

Its total user numbers have been soaring – currently boasting over 200 million registered users tweeting out some 2,200 messages per second.

I was also somewhat surprised last week when I learned Apple would be incorporating Twitter, and not Facebook, into its new iOS 5 mobile operating system, which will be used soon in Apple’s iPads, iPods, and iPhones.

We will have to wait and see how this one plays out.

Remaining king of the social networking mountain for a long period of time is something that cannot be taken for granted anymore – especially in this highly competitive and technologically evolving online social networking world.

Just ask the folks running the MySpace social networking site.

Apple parts the iCloud, reveals the sunshine

2011-06-09T11:24:00.001-07:00

June 13, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Thunderous applause greeted Apple CEO Steve Jobs, as he took the stage during last Monday’s opening of Apple Computer’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Jobs returned from being on medical leave to speak during the keynote presentation at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Physically, Jobs was looking thin – but acted enthusiastically, as he walked back and forth on stage while gesturing with his hands when talking about Apple’s new iCloud.

“Now some people think the cloud is just a hard disk in the sky,” Jobs declared.

He continued, “We think it’s way more than that, and we call it iCloud.”

Apple’s newest data center complex (iCloud) is nearing completion in Maiden, NC.

Job’s described this new iCloud data center, saying, “It’s a large place and it’s full of stuff. Full of expensive stuff. We are ready, we think, for customers to start using iCloud, and we can’t wait to get it in their hands.”

It is said every cloud has a silver lining.

At a price tag of about $1 billion, this cloud’s lining must be made of gold.

Jobs presented a photo tour of the new data center on the huge screen behind him.

The aerial photo of the 500,000 square-foot data center was impressive.

Jobs pointed out the two small dots circled on the roof of the huge facility.

He smiled as he told the 5,200 in attendance the two dots were actually two men standing on the roof.

Laughter was heard from the audience.

Jobs expressed determination when he said, “If you don’t think we’re serious about this, you’re wrong. This is our third data center that we just completed.”

One source reported this data center alone has a capacity for 95,000 to 120,000 data servers.

This complex is also known as Apple’s Eastern United States Data Center, and iDataCenter.

This iCloud will be used initially for storing user iTunes music libraries, shifting the file storage role from the user’s own computer onto Apple’s iCloud.

This iCloud will eventually begin storing user’s photos, apps, calendars, documents, and other data.

Apple’s iTunes in the cloud means users no longer need be tethered to their personal computer or Mac in order to sync their iPods, iPads, and iPhones with the iTunes program. They will now be able to sync their devices with iTunes inside the Apple iCloud via Wi-Fi – from wherever they are.

It should be noted, Apple will not be storing each individual user’s song file, (which would mean having millions of copies of the same song stored in the iCloud) rather; Apple will store copies of a vast variety of songs and sync particular songs to a user’s device based on their purchases.

A person will be able to listen to the songs they have purchased on more than one device, since all of their devices will be synced with the iCloud.

It will become more cost efficient, convenient, and safer, to store and retrieve our computing content online from the new data center clouds which are being built all over the country.

Google and Amazon are examples of other companies using cloud computing.

The action will be taking place in the cloud.

Apple is working to make cloud computing something we will all, sooner or later, take for granted.

“About 10 years ago we had one of our most important insights, and that was that the PC was going to become the digital hub for your digital life,” Jobs said.

He explained this meant the PC is where we would put our digital photos, digital video, our music, and other data.

“Where else were you going to put them?” said Jobs.

Jobs explained it was “driving us crazy,” continuously backing up and synching new data between iPhones, iPods, and iPads, which required plugging these devices into a Mac or Windows PC every time they needed to be updated with the latest songs and most recent photos.

This led Apple to what Jobs described as Apple’s “next big insight.”

“We’re going to demote the PC and Mac to just be a device, just like an iPhone an iPad, or an iPodtouch, and we’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud. Because all these new devices have communications built into them, they can all talk to the cloud whenever they want,” he said.

An example Jobs gave is, when a person takes pictures with their iPhone; those pictures would be immediately sent up into the cloud. The pictures are then “pushed down” (delivered) from the cloud to the users other devices automatically and wirelessly, everything is in sync – no user intervention is necessary.

“Everything happens automatically and there’s nothing new to learn. It just all works,” Jobs explained.

Apple services available through the iCloud will include MobileMe, App Store and iBookstore, iCloud Backup, iCloud Storage, Photo Stream, and iTunes.

Other services will follow.

Users will have access to these iCloud services via Apple’s new mobile iOS 5 platform, which is scheduled for release this fall.

For more information, go to http://www.apple.com/icloud.

Apple Worldwide Developers Conference opens this week

2011-06-02T07:55:00.001-07:00

June 6, 2011
by Mark Ollig

The conference keynote address begins with a roar, as Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs presents the next major software release for the Mac OS X.

The X is the Roman numeral for 10, which is the current OS (operating system) version level used for the Mac computer.

The current Mac OS X software release is codenamed Snow Leopard.

Apple’s latest codename for their eighth Mac OS X software release is a real animal.

At the start this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple presenting – drum roll please – the Mac OS X Lion.

The new Mac OS X Lion software release will become available to Mac users this summer.

There are noticeable improved features when upgrading to the new Mac OS X Lion.

The new Auto Save feature eliminates having to manual save when creating or working with documents. Lion does not create additional copies, but saves changes within the working document itself, which, according to Apple, makes the best use of available disk space.

The lock feature in Auto Save will avoid unintentional changes from occurring, and automatically locks the document after two weeks.

Auto Save’s revert feature will return the user to the condition a document was in the last time it was opened, which, Apple says, will allow one to “experiment with confidence.”

FileVault’s update includes XTS–AEX 128 full disk data encryption for Mac files stored in its internal and external storage drives. FileVault operates in the background while the Mac user is working.

FileVault also provides the capability for immediate wiping (removal) of all data from the Mac computer.

The Lion Server feature allows configuring of a Mac to be used as a computer server.

Lion Server updated Wiki Server 3 with a new page editor. The Wiki Server 3 allows users to pool collective resources, along with file sharing and exchanging capabilities.

The Lion Server with WebDAV enabled, allows access, copy, and delivery of file documentation to an iPad – wirelessly.

Another wireless feature with the new Mac OS X Lion is called AirDrop.

AirDrop knows which wireless devices around you are also using the AirDrop application.

AirDrop allows you to deliver files from your Mac to these other devices wirelessly as well.

When opening AirDrop, you will see the wireless devices near you. Just drag the file to that device (or person’s name if cross-referenced from your Mac address book) for a file transfer from your Mac to their computing device.

Mail 5 on the Mac OS X Lion presents a new widescreen layout.

A Lion user will now be able to see full-height previews of any message selected. One-click access to favorite folders and a more powerful new search, compliments Mail 5.

Lion allows an iPad-like experience using full-screen apps.

A Mac’s desktop can now use one click to make an application go full-screen, and by swiping the computer’s tracpad, a user can quickly switch to another application without having to exit the full screen. Apple states this will better utilize the full-screen technology, allowing a user to concentrate more on whatever application they are using.

Apple seems to be taking many of the popular features from the iPad and incorporating them into the Mac OS X Lion.

Mission Control is a new feature of the Mac OS X Lion which provides a birdseye view of what is operating on your Mac. This feature allows a user to see Dashboard, and the full-screen applications in one location.

The Mac OS X Lion improves swipe, pinch, and scrolling recognition, similar to the Multi-Touch gestures used on the iPad. Apple says these gestures, used with the Mac, will become more fluid, realistic, and lifelike.

Launchpad, available on the new Mac OS X Lion, provides instant access to applications similar to the iPad.

By clicking the Lanchpad icon, the current open window slowly disappears, being replaced with a full-screen presentation of the applications currently installed on your Mac computer.

Any new apps downloaded from the Mac App Store, will automatically appear in Launchpad.

During this week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, more than 1,000 Apple engineers will be showcasing Apple’s latest and greatest technologies, including, of course, the Mac OS X Lion.

One of the reasons this conference is so popular, is that it allows promising Apple application developers to share their ideas, and participate during Apple’s hands-on lab sessions with Apple engineers.

Discussions this week will also include details about Apple’s new mobile OS; called iOS 5, which will be the new operating system inside iPads, iPhones, and iPods.

Apple will also discuss its own cloud service, which, to no one’s surprise, is called the iCloud.

The website for Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is http://developer.apple.com/wwdc.

Live-streaming of this conference (and past Apple presentations) can be seen at http://www.apple.com/apple-events.

Which animal will be codenamed for the next Mac OS X software release?

Well, I learned Tiger was the codename for release number four in 2005, and Kodiak (which is a bear), was released back in 2000 as the codename for the Mac OS X public beta version.

And now we have the Mac OS X Lion.

So, it seems there will be no more lions, tigers, and bears.

Oh, my!

Tablet wars heating up with introduction of HP's TouchPad

2011-05-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

May 30, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Can the soon-to-be released HP TouchPad really become a serious contender to Apple’s number one selling iPad?

Fervent rumors over the blogosphere have been reverberating lately about the statement made by Hewlett-Packard (HP) European chief Eric Cador, during a recent press conference in Cannes, France.

According to The Telegraph (a U.K. website), Cador said, “in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one.”

Become better than number one?

As Cador well knows, the Apple iPad is currently the number one selling computing tablet on the planet.

Shouts of, “Them’s fightin’ words!” may well be the response from loyal Apple iPad users out there.

A recent video shows Cador telling an audience at a conference how HP currently has revenues over $120 billion world-wide, and employs some 300,000 people.

He also said, “(HP) is the biggest information technology company in the world.”

Suffice it to say when HP talks, people listen.

The HP TouchPad is expected to make its appearance in the US sometime this summer.

A close follower behind Apple’s iPad includes Motorola, with their Motorola Xoom tablet.

This tablet features the NVidia Tegra 1 GHz dual-core processor, and the Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system, (upgradable to Android 3.1).

The Motorola Xoom contains a generous-sized 10.1-inch HD multi-touch display screen, along with a rear-facing 5.0 megapixel and front-facing 2.0 megapixel camera.

Yours truly noted in his Jan. 17 Bits & Bytes column, how the Motorola Xoom had won the 2011 CES “Best in Show” award.

The Motorola Xoom was released to the public this past February, and costs about $800 for the 32 GB 3G Licorice model.

To learn more about the Motorola Xoom, check out their website at http://tinyurl.com/5soxnll.

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet by Research In Motion (RIM) is also a viable challenger compared to the iPad.

This tablet features the Cortex A9 1 GHz dual-core processor, and uses its own proprietary BlackBerry tablet operating system.

The BlackBerry PlayBook also features rear-facing 5 megapixel and front-facing 3 megapixel video cameras.

The BlackBerry PlayBook has a seven-inch liquid crystal display, and is available with 16, 32 or 64 GB of flash storage, and weighs in just under 1 pound.

The 16 GB BlackBerry PlayBook is priced at about $500, with the 32 GB and 64 GB models priced at about $600 and $700.

This tablet comes pre-loaded with several software applications, and became available to the public in April.

Additional information about the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can be found at its website, http://us.blackberry.com/playbook-tablet.

Another tablet called the Samsung Galaxy Tab, has a 7-inch diagonal display screen and operates using a 1 GHz Cortex-A8 Hummingbird processor.

This tablet utilizes the Android 2.2 mobile operating system.

The Galaxy Tab 3G model includes a front-facing 1.3 megapixel and rear-facing 3.0 megapixel camera/video recorder.

The cost of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3G is about $430.

More information about the Samsung Galaxy Tab can be found on their website use: http://tinyurl.com/3oc3x5j.

One of the newest tablets to hit the market this month is called the HTC Flyer.

The HTC Flyer comes with 16 GB of internal memory (expandable to 32 GB), and has a seven-inch multi-touch TFT (Thin Film Transistor) liquid crystal display screen.

It contains a 1.5 GHz single-core central processing unit, and operates using the Android (Gingerbread) operating system.

This tablet includes front-facing 1.3 megapixel autofocus camera, and a 5.0 megapixel HD autofocus video camera.

The 16 GB HTC Flyer tablet costs about $500.

Additional information about the HTC Flyer can be found at its website, http://www.htc.com.

Unlike the iPad, the HP TouchPad (and most other tablets) incorporates the ability to view content in Adobe Flash.

Both the Apple iPad, and the HP TouchPad, have a 9.7-inch multi-touch display screen.

The HP TouchPad uses the HP WebOS 3.0 version of its mobile operating system, and utilizes a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core central processing unit running at 1.2 GHz.

The Apple iPad 2 contains a 1 GHz dual-core Apple A5 processor, along with Apple’s iOS 4.3 operating system.

The HP Touchpad tablet weighs in at 1.63 pounds.

The three models of the Apple iPad 2 come in at 1.33, 1.34 and 1.35 pounds., respectively.

The Apple iPad 2 has internal memory available in a 16, 32, or 64 GB model.

The HP TouchPad comes in 16 or 32 GB sized models.

Information about the iPad 2 is available from Apple’s website, http://www.apple.com/ipad.

The cost for a 32 GB HP TouchPad is rumored to be about $599, which, coincidentally, is also the average base price of the 32 GB Apple iPad 2 (with Wi-Fi) model currently being sold.

More information about the HP TouchPad can be found on their website at http://tinyurl.com/4r4x665.

An informative video about the HP TouchPad can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/4yv7rrl.

Attention my legion of faithful readers, your Bits & Bytes general columnist is here to notify you to be on guard for HP’s upcoming mass-media advertising bombardment blitz. They will soon be advancing their position in this tablet war, by officially announcing their new, HP TouchPad tablet . . . that is all, dismissed.

Are we now entering into the 'post-PC' era?

2011-05-19T07:48:00.001-07:00

May 23, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Along with the new Apple iPad 2 announcement March 2, Steve Jobs revealed Apple Computer was receiving most of its revenues from what he called, “post-PC devices,” which included Apple’s iPods, iPhones, and, of course, the Apple iPads.

When thinking of PCs or personal computers, one used to (or still might) have a vision of a desk designated as the home or work “computer station,” with hardware consisting of one tower computer case connecting a mouse, keyboard, display screen, and a printer.

This traditional stationary computer is used by walking over to its designated location, sitting down in the designated computer chair, turning on the PC, and waiting (for what seems forever) for the operating system to boot up, and then, finally, one begins typing on the keyboard and clicking the mouse.

My, how 20th century.

In this post-PC era, we no longer need to do our computing from a stationary location. We have become mobile when it comes to our computing via smartphones or various-sized tablet computing devices we carry with us.

We no longer need to wait for traditional PCs to go through their lengthy “boot up” or “shutdown” procedure as post-PC era mobile computing devices turn on instantly or are simply always-on.

Today, we take our computers wherever we go. We can keep them with us, unlike the traditional home or work computer still sitting back there on the desk.

Instead of using the PC – connected mouse and keyboard for interaction, we manipulate and enter data by way of touchscreens. We communicate over our computing devices using voice and video cameras, and can even use motion sensors, like what is on the Xbox 360, to interact.

Many of our stationary computers require them to be physically plugged into the network, limiting where they can be located.

In a post-PC era, our computing is mobile, using Wi-Fi and wireless mobile broadband networks, providing continuous connectivity to the Internet, or to our office networks or cloud computing service providers.

As we find ourselves living more of our lives online and engaging in online social networking, shopping, banking, entertainment and work, we will require real-time, always-on, high-speed connectivity to the Internet – from any location.

The computing devices we use need to be able to handle our fast-paced on-the-go personal and working lives, which mean using mobile and portable computing devices.

The term post-PC is not a new phrase – it has been around for more than 10 years.

In 1999, MIT computer scientist, David Clark, gave a presentation entitled “The Post PC Internet.”

Clark’s presentation illustrated how the future would see every electronic device, including toasters, eyeglasses, wristwatches, and televisions . . . connected to the Internet.

He described how “a watch face might temporarily become a tiny screen displaying your appointments for the day, information sent wirelessly to the watch from its storage folder on the Internet.”

Seems Clark was predicting wireless interactions to the Internet’s cloud computing capabilities.

He also said in 1999 that we would need to get used to having a computing future which would be comprised of an assortment of many different parts, or, as Clark called it, “heterogeneous.”

In 1999, the dominant technology standard used on personal computers was the Microsoft Windows operating system; however, Clark foresaw this dominance coming into question in the future.

Clark had a vision about the future of software, too.

He quoted MIT experts as saying, “shrink-wrapped software will go the way of the buggy whip.”

Today, we can obtain software by directly downloading it from websites on the Internet (no shrink-wrapped packaging needed).

David Clark described future computing devices in 1999 as “information appliances,” which today include our mobile handheld devices, like iPods, iPads, iPhones, tablet computers, smartphones, and the new devices to come.

While I was reading this 1999 future computing prognostication, a professor at MIT, Hal Abelson, spoke on what we today call cloud computing.

Abelson predicted how corporations, instead of storing all their internal company and customer computing record data onsite, will instead be having this data handled (stored) by “outside service suppliers.”

“You’ll see the market for [storage] disks being replaced by [remote] storage services,” Abelson said in 1999.

Abelson seems to be describing today’s secure “data storage warehouses” located in the Internet cloud.

Clark summed up his futuristic prediction with “What does the future look like? Well, it’s a network full of services.”

So, where does yours truly think this post-PC era is heading?

Today, our personal computing sees us using computing devices no longer physically tethered by a cable or restricted by a geographic location.

We access our information, software programs, and download our mobile device applications over wireless networks connected to storage data servers and computing servers located in the Internet cloud.

The traditional personal computer used at home and at work will still be around for a while; however, we need not be chained to it.

Our personal computer no longer needs to be a stationary piece of hardware sitting on a desk plugged into a wall anymore.

Welcome to the post-PC era.

'Carry anywhere' portable tablet computer envisioned years ago

2011-05-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

May 16, 2011
by Mark Ollig

I recently watched a video of two people seated at an outdoor patio table, enjoying what appeared to be lunch at a downtown café.

The video shows them taking turns reading a newspaper using a flat-screened computing tablet.

Every so often, they clicked on various interactive graphical elements on the display screen with a stylus pen.

The name of the computing device they were reading from was labeled “The Tablet.”

“What is so exciting about that? People are doing this every day with an iPad,” you might be thinking.

Well, for one thing, this particular video was recorded 17 years ago.

In 1994, Roger Fidler, a journalist and newspaper designer, recorded his vision and demonstrated – in great detail – how a person could use a portable computing device to read, interact with, and share the news and information from a newspaper.

While watching the video, it seemed someone had gone back in time to 1994, and placed an Apple iPad in Fidler’s hands.

“It may be difficult to conceptualize the idea of digital paper, but in fact, we believe that’s what’s going to happen,” said Fidler in 1994.

Fidler’s ahead of-its-time (and somewhat startling) 1994 video is called “Tablet Newspaper (1994).”

The 13 minute video where he demonstrates the “electronic newspaper of the future” can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/4y7azs6.

The idea of using a portable electronic device in which to obtain news and information, along with manipulating its content, was, however, envisioned before 1994.

A similar device was seen on a science fiction television series from the late 1960s.

From 1966 to 1969, the television series “Star Trek” would occasionally show a scene with crew members carrying and referring to information on rectangular electronic clipboards with a smooth display screen, which they operated by means of a stylus pen.

Starting in the late 1980s, the television series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” showed crew members using what was called a PADD, or Personal Access Display Device.

The PADD was a portable handheld device which closely resembled today’s portable wireless communication devices, like an iPhone.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” is a phrase attributed to Alan C. Kay.

One of the first well-thought-out concepts for a practical personal tablet computer was devised during the late 1960s and early 1970s, by Alan C. Kay, a computer scientist.

Kay called this small, portable, electronic computer, the DynaBook.

The DynaBook was designed to be a “carry anywhere” tablet-like personal computer intended for student educational learning and information gathering.

Speaking of the late 1960s,; as a knowledgeable third-grader, yours truly remembers being anxious about correctly answering multiplication questions on flash cards his mother would quiz him on.

Why?

So I could watch the next action-packed episode of “Lost in Space” (and pass Mrs. Seymour’s math test).

By August of 1972, Kay completed a description of the DynaBook, (including detailed drawings) in a document called “A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages.” I created a shortened link to this PDF file at: http://tinyurl.com/5zemqe.

In this document, Kay presents several scenarios demonstrating how the DynaBook would be used.

He explains the DynaBook’s keyboard as being “as thin as possible . . . it may have no moving parts at all – but be sensitive to pressure.”

Kay even went a step further, by suggesting the DynaBook personal computer may have no keyboard at all, saying “the display panel would cover the full extent of the notebook surface.”

The hand-drawn DynaBook shown in the document was somewhat larger than today’s iPad.

There was a full QWERTY keyboard along the bottom of the DynaBook, and Kay explained how one could operate the “multi-touch” liquid-crystal display screen located at the top of the device.

The DynaBook could play audio files, record voice messages, and more.

Kay envisioned how a DynaBook personal computer would connect wirelessly to centralized information storage units,; allowing the DynaBook to “extract” information from them.

Remember, Kay is writing this back in 1972.

To my surprise, he even talks about “speech recognition” capabilities eventually being added to the DynaBook.

Kay compares the technology of this futuristic portable computer with paper books, but admits “this new medium will not save the world.”

He goes on to correctly state how paper books allowed centuries of human knowledge to be “encapsulated and transmitted to everybody.”

Kay transfers this thought-line by invoking his hopes that this new “active medium” (portable computer) will “convey some of the excitement of thought and creation.”

One of Alan C. Kay’s diagrams in the 1972 document shows the DynaBook as being rectangular, measuring 12-inches-by 9 inches, with a depth of .75 inches.

The Apple iPad 2 comparably measures in at 9.5 inches by 7.31 inches, with a depth of .34 inches.

Today, the iPad has become the most popular “carry anywhere” tablet computer, fulfilling the educational values Kay wrote about in 1972, and the electronic news retrieval abilities Fidler envisioned in 1994.

Kay concluded his description of the futuristic DynaBook portable personal computer in August of 1972 with “Let’s just do it!”

Taking 21st century technology back to the 1800s via 'Steampunk'

2011-05-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

From the Bits & Bytes archives

September 22, 2008
by Mark Ollig

It captured my attention immediately.

I became awestruck staring at the picture of this particular computer – it mysteriously exhibited the appearance of having been manufactured during the Victorian era.

This didn’t make sense to me because as you know, the Victorian era occurred between 1837 and 1901, during the reign of Queen Victoria in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

The reason this particular computer was very different is because its physical appearance had been “steampunked.”

I can best describe the term “steampunk” as “the process of changing a modern made device (in this case a modern computer) to appear like it was made in the 19th century.”

The “steam” in steampunk refers to a time when steam itself was the power commonly used to operate mechanical devices during the 1800’s.

Steampunk could also be described as an “earlier-history style presentation” of a modern day technological device.

This type of re-creation of modern techno-devices is actually very popular. In fact, the more I researched this, the more I found out about the growing “steampunk society” that exists.

One of these steampunk web sites is located at: www.steampunkworkshop.com

I am discovering steampunk fabrication is incredibly cool and even addictive by those who work in it.

Some of the parts used in steampunk, like older Victorian style wooden frames and shelves, are found at local antique and knick-knack stores.

One of the people I read about who’s ‘steampunking’ a modern desktop computer found many of the Victorian style parts he used at his town’s local waste disposal site.

This person made a video of his “steampunk processing procedure” of a modern computer and uploaded it to YouTube.

These hobbyists are very detailed in their re-building techniques and perform much research in order to use the correct Victorian era “steampunk” styles when retrofitting their modern-made tech devices.

Another YouTube video shows how a steampunk hobbyist used a Victorian style hand-crafted wooden shelf to encase a computer’s LCD screen – he then proceeded to meticulously trim the wooden shelf into frame pieces using a band saw.

He carefully fitted the pieces of cut wood using antiqued brass corner plates.

This hobbyist was able to perfectly border-in the flat LCD monitor screen inside this wooden Victorian style frame, which presented the steampunk look he wanted.

Steampunk craftspersons (also called “steampunks”) need to utilize their research, wood working, mechanical and dexterity skills in creating these amazing pieces of “de-modernized” – yet functioning – displays of steampunk artwork.

I personally consider the detailed work of steampunk as I would any other specialized hobby or craft.

This type of steampunk art is sure to capture anyone’s attention.

Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author and wrote an essay entitled “The User’s Guide to Steampunk.” In this essay he says, “Steampunks are modern crafts people who are very into spreading the means and methods of working in archaic technologies”

Some of Sterling’s words I found enlightening, as he tries to analogize the term “steampunk” as a coping mechanism for how some of us are handling modern technology.

After reading about Sterling, he seems to imply, in my opinion, that there are people who steampunk because they want to remove the futuristic look of today’s modern devices. These people desire to have modern devices look as if they had been created using materials from ages past, or in this case, the steam powered era.

By steampunking a piece of modern technology, it is in a sense “de-evolving” its outward physical appearance back to an earlier period in history.

In Sterling’s first fictional book he published in 1977 called “Involution Ocean,” he writes about the world called “Nullaqua.” The entire atmosphere of this world is held inside of a deep crater located miles under the surface.

The story involves a sailing ship which is hunting creatures called “dust whales” that live beneath –you guessed it – the “dust ocean” which lies at the bottom of this deep crater.

Sterling’s “Involution Ocean” is written in the artistic genre of “Moby Dick.”

And I thought I had an active imagination.

You can read Sterling’s brief essay about steampunk at: http://tinyurl.com/63kaoz

Sterling is also one of the founders of the “cyberpunk” movement in science fiction writing.

His writings do provide for some thought-provocative reading.

Many of Sterling’s books can be found at Amazon.com and your local book stores.

When you visit this week’s “Web Site of the Week” at: http://tinyurl.com/3d3n6oz you will discover your humble bits_blogger’s “web pick” is focused on steampunk computers, wrist watches, guitars and more!.

You will see some remarkable steampunk related pictures and information, so when you’re online be sure to check it out.

Integration within social media networks attracts potential customers

2011-04-28T08:30:00.001-07:00

May 2, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Businesses and organizations today understand the need in having a presence on the Internet.

Years ago, most businesses engaged in e-commerce by setting up a simple website.

On their website, they displayed pictures of their products, listed their services, and added a phone number, along with an email address.

Then they sat back, and hoped somebody would contact them.

Much has changed since then.

Today, the Internet has become home to savvy, social networking consumers.

Businesses and organizations are using modern social commerce practices to actively engage these online consumers directly – by going where they are.

“So, where are these online social consumers going?” you may be asking yourself.

Facebook, the number-one Internet social networking venue, is, of course, where most of today’s online social consumers are located.

Facebook users (such as me), mostly interact with family and friends messages; however, I also tend to interact with messages posted from blog sites and Facebook business pages I like, as well.

Sometimes I come across a newly posted message from a business seeking an opinion or comment. The business is engaging me to respond, to interact with them, and in doing so, an online social commerce relationship is being developed between us.

On Facebook, I favor businesses, organizations, and product brands and services which appeal to me. I occasionally contribute comments, and share them with my Facebook friends.

The business is made aware of any Facebook comments or questions in their blog, or Facebook business page, and can adjust the information presented, or respond directly to the Facebook user.

Social commerce used in this manner provides a direct two-way dialogue between the seller and a potential buyer, using a social networking venue frequented many times a day.

We are evolving into interactive online social consumers; we are no longer impressed seeing one-way advertisements displayed on a static website.

Social networking consumers all over the Internet are engaging in direct dialogue with the suppliers of their favorite name-brand products and services via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking media venues.

Businesses becoming knowledgeable to this are engaging online social networking consumers by using creative online social commerce techniques.

When I am using Facebook, I often acknowledge, and occasionally comment on, messages posted by local coffee shops, restaurants, newspapers, real estate offices, auto dealerships, technology blogs, non-profit organizations, professional entertainers, and others.

Social commerce blog posts sometimes deliver attention-grabbing messages.

These messages may be asking for opinions about their products, or taking polls regarding their services. Some posts make me aware of special sales or local social events taking place.

Targeting messages to an online social network like Facebook, engages a business directly where potential customers are.

If I come across a message about a service or price discount a local company is offering via Facebook, I can easily share it with hundreds – or even thousands – of Facebook friends with just a mouse click.

Since the message is being shared by a fellow Facebook friend, several users seeing it will probably take the time to click and read the business or organization’s Facebook business page or blog post.

Online social consumers appreciate new content and want to be able to communicate easily and directly with the companies and organizations they follow.

Fresh content needs to be regularly delivered to the social network in order to maintain an ongoing interaction with, in this case, the Facebook users who have activated the company or organization’s thumbs-up or “like” button, and therefore are following their messages and blog posts.

Facebook users place importance upon – and will more likely interact with – newly updated messages received from the organizations and companies they choose to follow.

Social media branding, or integration of a business or organization’s blog site onto Facebook, allows for their messages and blog posts to be seen, liked, and shared with other Facebook users.

Social media integration guides Facebook users to a business or organization’s videos, photo galleries, messages, and products and services.

A recent survey by the Social Commerce Today website shows 81 percent of consumers go online to verify purchase recommendations, while 60 percent regularly interact with companies on a social media site.

They also reported 43 percent of consumers polled as saying companies should use social networks to assist their customers.

Today, businesses and organizations are learning the value and importance of building mutually beneficial, interactive two-way relationships with consumers via online social networks.

A business or organization distributing social commerce over a Facebook business page, in a well-thought-out methodology, has the opportunity of winning a Facebook user’s loyalty.

Properly managed social media commerce, delivering original, creative, and regularly updated content to online social media sites like Facebook, will benefit businesses and organizations in obtaining favorable correspondence among consumers within the online social networking community.

Internet user trends are significantly changing

2011-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

April 25, 2011
by Mark Ollig

“Where are we, where are we going?”

This is the question headlined on the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s report, presented during the 44th annual APLIC conference, in Washington, DC.

APLIC (a global network of population information professionals) says it represents “a forum for sharing professional interests, experience and knowledge.”

Kristin Purcell is the research director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

During the APLIC conference, Purcell shared survey information collected by Pew, regarding Internet user trends during the past 10 years.

Pew reported less than 20 percent of us were watching videos over the Internet in 2000.

By 2010, this number had climbed to 66 percent.

Only 46 percent of all adults were using the Internet in 2000, as compared with 71 percent in 2010.

Pew states today’s online access to news and information has become, “abundant, cheap, personally-oriented and designed for participation.”

According to Pew, we are now in a new information “ecology” where the lines between “news” and “information” have become somewhat blurred.

The 2010 Pew survey results reported adults obtained their news from multiple sources, or platforms, such as; print newspapers, television, radio, and of course, the Internet.

Pew says six out of every 10 adults with online access use the Internet as their news platform.

Our online information content consumption has evolved to where information is easily accessible, and individually personalized. We are also finding ourselves becoming active contributors in the creation of this content.

Many of us using the Internet have, in fact, become “news and information participators” by means of our personal blogs, Twitter messages, personalized web pages, and various online social networks.

Pew revealed 37 percent of Internet users in 2010 contributed news and other content, made comments on various stories or topics, and, discussed news within their online social networks.

More of us are customizing what news and information we want to see “harvested” and delivered to our Internet home pages and blogs.

The 2010 Pew Internet Survey shows 35 percent of those polled have a favorite online news source.

What may not be surprising to some folks is Pew acknowledging recent studies showing 70 percent of adults feel “overwhelmed” by the amount of news and information content available to them over the Internet.

In a 2011 tracking survey conducted by Pew, they found 85 percent of all adults own a cell phone, and one-quarter of all US households are now using cell phones instead of corded phones.

Back in 2000, no one was using a wireless mobile device to access the Internet.

In 2010, with 59 percent of adults wirelessly accessing the Internet using mobile devices, cell phones, tablets or laptops, it was the young folks, age 18 to 29, who led with 84 percent.

Of young adults, age 18 to 29, who were surveyed in November 2010, Pew found 14 percent of them using the Twitter online social network, while all adults, age 18 and over, averaged 8 percent.

So, what is the answer to the “Where are we, where are we going” question?

In this humble columnist’s opinion, the previous decade of the Internet has seen it evolve into a venue being used today as not just a one-way knowledge gateway medium; but as a venue where many of us have become active participants and contributors.

We have been furthering our own learning and understanding of ourselves, our surroundings, our government, and each other, as well as continuously re-inventing how the Internet is being used.

The Internet will eventually become the dominant medium, surpassing the traditional starting places we have used in the past for obtaining news, information, conducting commerce, communicating, and when seeking entertainment.

The Internet will continue to encompass more of our daily lives as the online venue from which we pursue our leisure, learning, and interactions with others, and, for some of us, the Internet will become the venue we go to in order to earn a living.

All of us have witnessed the remarkable upsurge in the use and popularity of online social networking sites.

Social sharing networking sites like, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, along with live-streaming video broadcasting platforms, such as Ustream, Livestream and Justin.tv, are bringing everyone closer together – not just in this country, but throughout the world.

As we journey towards the end of the next decade, we will find our online time spent within a more personally interconnecting, friendlier (and hopefully equally accessible to all), robust Internet.

The Internet will continue to be comprised of networks; hardware and software immersed in an ever-expanding “sky” containing “clouds of data” constantly acquiring, storing, and redistributing information amongst themselves. Portions of this data content will be created, shared and consumed by us, and our electronic devices.

All of this will be taking place within an intelligently controlled semantic Web.

Did I mention this journey will be a lot of fun, too?

We are on course . . . so stay tuned.

Las Vegas hosts National Association of Broadcasters Show

2011-04-14T05:42:00.001-07:00

April 18, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Their website boldly states: “Where Content Comes to Life.”

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) held their annual trade show last week in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The NAB was established in 1922.

Some of the organizations the NAB is made up of include local radio and television stations, various broadcasting networks and telecommunication providers, and a large number of social media content creators.

Once a year, the NAB puts on what they call the NAB Show, described by NAB as being “the world’s largest electronic media show covering filmed entertainment and development, management and delivery of content across all mediums.”

The NAB Show, according to its website banner, claims it is the “world’s largest digital media industry event.”

The NAB Show has been an annual event for the last 80 years.

Companies exhibiting their products during the NAB Show number around 1,500.

The NAB Show exhibits are spread across 800,000 square feet of floor space.

The 2011 NAB show registered 92,708 attendees. Of this number, 25,691 were representatives from 151 countries.

The number of media in attendance at this year’s show was 1,314.

Educational offerings during the NAB Show were available through its workshops, round-table discussions, keynote speeches, and training and certification programs.

Many of the showcased exhibits are interactive-live-demonstrations featuring the newest in media-related technology.

One exhibitor I watched with interest (via a video stream) was a company called NextoDI, which has its US office located in Inglewood, CA.

NextoDI demonstrated its portable video backup storage device, called the NVS2525.

This device is for use with a broadcast production team’s video camcorder out in the field.

The high-tech device measures 6.1-inches-by-3.6-inches and is 1.3-inches in depth. It features a 2.4-inch color LCD monitor, which provides viewing of the video file footage stored in it.

The NVS2525 allows video content creators to not only back up video, but also to make copies of hundreds of hour’s worth of raw video footage taken on-the-go.

Video captured inside the NVS2525 device can be downloaded and stored onto smaller USB-like memory cards – no computer is required.

The NextoDI presentation gave details on the NVS2525 backup speed; which is a rapid rate of 80MB/s (Megabytes per second).

I was interested in how the NVS2525 provides for “mirrored” backups. This is where one can generate two copies onto two separate storage devices – at the same time – during one download. This provides added data safety and security in the event of an accidental loss of data from one of the storage devices.

The NVS2525 also comes with a built-in 750 GB 2.5-inch SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) hard drive that’s future-compatible up to 2TB.

They advertise the hard drive as literally “floating” inside the case.

The NVS2525 has internal “shock absorbers” and an internal “free fall sensor” so if the user accidentally drops the unit, it will automatically lock the data on the hard drive, preventing the data from being lost.

However, if you can help it, I recommend not dropping this expensive device.

One supplier has the NVS2525 priced at just under $3,000.

The company’s website is located at: http://www.nextodiusa.com.

The NAB Show attracts companies (and their clients), along with special guest speakers who share their knowledge of media content tools and offer advice.

These sources offer suggestions on how broadcasters can best present their unique media content to the viewers, or, as they are sometimes called, “content consumption users.”

The opening keynote address was given by the famous movie producer and director, James Cameron.

Cameron is the executive producer of the new movie “Sanctum” which was created using RealD 3D (stereoscopic three-dimensional) technology.

He is also, of course, the creator of the movies “Titanic” and “Avatar.”

Cameron talked about his thoughts concerning the future of 3D entertainment and other future trends in movie film making.

Other speakers at the NAB Show included representatives of Twentieth Century Fox Television, Sony Corporation, and National Public Radio.

Famous television and movie actor, Michael J. Fox, along with Stan Lee (who co-created the comic book character Spider-Man, among others) also spoke during the NAB Show.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was there, too, along with other public figures.

I noticed how Twitter was being used regularly to relay messages from the NAB Show, via the Twitter hashtag: #nabshow.

Some of the messages or “tweets” included one from the popular video website’s “Funny or Die” CEO, Dick Glover, who said, “We don’t see social media as a part of marketing but just a part of life.”

Jason Phipps, vice-president of digital media of FX Networks, sent this message, “Twitter has become the real-time water cooler for watching TV shows.”

For more information about the 2011 NAB Show, check out their website at: http://www.nabshow.com.

Commodore 64 is tanned, rested, and ready for a comeback

2011-04-07T05:28:00.001-07:00

April 11, 2011
by Mark Ollig

What’s old is new again.

The original Commodore 64 home computer made its debut in 1982, which, for me, doesn’t seem all that long ago – well, okay, it is that long ago . . . but I digress.

I admit to not owning a Commodore 64, or “C64” as some called it back then, (in 1982 I had my Timex Sinclair ZX81) but I did play some games using the C64 and also checked them out at the retail stores where they were sold.

Do you remember some of the games played on the Commodore 64, like GORF, Visible Solar System, Radar Rat Race, Mole Attack, Pitt Stop II, Avenger, Ace of Aces and Jupiter Landing?

The C64, manufactured by Commodore Business Machines, was primarily a gaming machine, although it also had a collection of office productivity applications including word processing, an electronic spreadsheet, and a customized customer data base.

The Commodore 64’s rectangular shape, with the light brown and beige-colored plastic housing, was given nicknames such as “breadbox.” This case not only contained a full keyboard, but included all the computing components, as well.

The “64” was referring to Commodore’s 64KB (kilobytes, or 64,000 bytes) of Random Access Memory (RAM).

The Commodore 64 operating system was Commodore’s own proprietary BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) version 2.0 on Read Only Memory (ROM).

Inside the C64 was a MOS Technology 6510 central processing unit running at a clock speed of around 1.0 MHz.

The cost of the Commodore 64 in 1982 was $595.

The Commodore 64 was on display during the 1982 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Chicago.

During the early 1980s, the C64 was in direct competition with the Apple II, Atari 800, Radio Shack TRS-80, and IBM PC.

Around the mid 1980s, the Commodore 64 became the best-selling home computer.

I have seen an estimate of up to 22 million Commodore 64’s sold between 1982 and 1994.

The C64 included two game controller ports, TV video and audio output connectors, a cartridge memory expansion slot, a serial connector for a printer or external disk drive, and an edge connector interface that could be used with the Commodore’s Datassette Recorder, which was an audio cassette tape unit used to store programs and data on.

Most of the kids at the time were drawn to the C64 because of the games, but they soon discovered it was capable of more than just gaming; a person could connect the C64 to a telephone using Commodore’s VICMODEM cartridge and call into a computer Bulletin Board Service (BBS) and communicate with others.

A Commodore 64 user could also dial-up into the online CompuServe network, and as their 1982 advertisement stated, use the C64 to get news updates, stock quotes, electronic mail or to do “computer shopping.”

Folks also used the C64 to learn about computer programming.

With no internal hard drive, the storage medium mostly used with the C64 was 5 1⁄4-inch floppy disks. One floppy disk held roughly 170KB worth of data. In comparison, one of today’s commonly used 2GB (gigabyte) keychain-sized memory sticks can store 11,765 5 1⁄4-inch floppy disks’ worth of data.

Yes, it’s mind-blowing, isn’t it?

After almost 30 years, the Commodore 64 remains popular with computer hobbyists.

Some of those old C64s are still in use even today.

Here we are in 2011, and with the wave of the magic nostalgic wand, an all new Commodore 64 has been brought back to life.

The new Commodore 64 has the appearance of the traditional model on the outside, combined with today’s advanced technology packaged on the inside.

Instead of 64 kilobytes of RAM, the new C64 has 2GB of DDR3 (double-data-rate 3) RAM and a powerful 1.8 GHz dual-core Atom 525 processor.

The new C64x Standard computer comes with a 250GB built-in hard drive.

Commodore’s new C64x Ultimate computer is equipped with a 1TB (terabyte) hard drive.

Also included in the new C64 is a full 1080p HD (High-Definition) video output, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), or newer Blu-ray disc drive, six channel high-definition audio, four USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports, a HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), DVI (Digital Visual Interface), VGA (Video Graphics Array), and Ethernet connectivity.

The new 2011 Commodore 64 Basic computer is priced the same as the 1982 original model, at $595.

How’s that for nostalgia?

A link showing detailed photographs and additional information about the brand-new Commodore 64 can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/3qnah7c.

An Adobe PDF file containing a color brochure advertisement of the original Commodore 64 computer from July of 1982 can be opened at http://tinyurl.com/3ouq23a.

Computing ingenuity led to the creation of 'XCoffee'

2011-03-31T09:44:00.001-07:00

April 4, 2011
by Mark Ollig

In 1991, regularly updated images began broadcasting on computer screens over the University of Cambridge’s internal data network in England.

This story begins with a group of academic researchers in the university’s computer science study lab called the Trojan Room.

These researchers spent most nights working on computer and network programming, and of course, they usually consumed large amounts of coffee.

The coffee machine just happened to be conveniently located in the corridor directly outside the Trojan Room.

This particular coffee machine was also shared with fellow researchers working throughout the university building.

Needless to say, having a freshly-brewed pot of coffee available at all times was of the utmost importance.

However, a problem soon developed.

Academic researchers in other parts of the building, who needed to climb several flights of stairs in anticipation of pouring themselves a freshly-brewed cup of coffee, were becoming somewhat frustrated whenever discovering an empty coffeepot.

Of course, one option would have been to install another coffee machine, but remember these were academic researchers living on a shoestring budget; spending money was not a realistic option in this case.

So began the creation of what became known as XCoffee.

The researchers working in the Trojan Room noticed a number of shelving racks containing computer servers used for maintenance testing of the university’s data networks.

They discovered one unused Acorn Archimedes computer server installed with the ‘X Window System’ protocols. This computer server also contained a gray-scale “video-frame grabber” circuit card.

A “frame grabber” is a device which takes a picture, or “captures” still-frame images and saves them digitally (in this case, it would be used to capture images coming from an analog video camera).

The first frame grabbers could only “grab” and save one still-frame digital image at a time.

Utilizing what is known as a “retort stand” (used for holding scientific equipment) the researchers from the Trojan Room mounted a camera onto it and pointed the lens towards the coffee machine, specifically, in the direction of the coffeepot itself.

They then ran all the cabling under the floor to the Acorn Archimedes computer server equipped with the frame-grabber in the Trojan Room.

One of the researchers, Paul Jardetzky, was responsible for writing a “server” software computer program which would run on the Acorn Archimedes computer equipped with the video-grabber capturing the images of the coffeepot.

The video-frame grabber would capture live still-frame images of the coffeepot about every three seconds.

Another researcher in the Trojan Room, Quentin Stafford-Fraser, who was working on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) communication switching networks, wrote the “client” software computing program.

The client software operated on the computers in the building connected to the university’s data network.

This client software would communicate with the Acorn Archimedes computer’s newly written server software and display the most current image taken of the coffeepot onto a corner of the display screen of the computers running the client software program.

It took about a day for these programmers in the Trojan Room to get what became known as “XCoffee” up and running over the university’s network.

This software application operated over a MSNL (Multi-Service Network Layer) which is a network layer protocol designed for ATM networks.

The most current coffeepot image was only updated onto the university’s network a few times a minute, which was acceptable by everyone, because, according to Stafford-Fraser, “ . . the pot filled rather slowly, and it was only greyscale, which was also fine, because so was the coffee.”

The researchers working upstairs and in other parts of the building, would now be able to visually see the current status of the amount of coffee remaining in the coffeepot on their computer screens.

Using a new frame grabber, frequently updated coffeepot images taken by the camera eventually made their way onto the Internet in 1993 – where they became as popular as when a YouTube video goes “viral.”

This Internet “coffee-cam” also provided a message to the viewer stating “The lights in the Trojan Room aren’t always switched on, but we try to leave a small lamp pointing at the coffeepot so you can see it at night.”

The idea of remotely monitoring a coffeepot in near real-time became so talked about that in 1994, the researchers at the university who set up XCoffee were visited by a reporter from a local BBC radio station to discuss it.

The computer server responsible for providing the visual images of this famous coffeepot was turned off Aug. 22, 2001.

However, your investigative columnist did manage to find an actual image of the coffeepot taken from one of the computer screens: http://tinyurl.com/4vh8cxk.

To end this story, I was privileged to correspond with Quentin Stafford-Fraser (via Twitter) and expressed my thoughts to him about his adventure with XCoffee.

He replied, “Thanks Mark . . . And best wishes from this side of the pond!”

Minnesota Historical Society website rich in historical photo's

2011-03-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

March 28, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Proclaiming to be the “chief caretaker of Minnesota’s story” is a rather bold statement.

The Minnesota Historical Society has been the state’s historical depository for the past 162 years, so it appears they have the qualifications.

Its website contains about 209,748 historical photographs, posters, art paintings, postcards, drawings, and other images – all stored in their visual resources database.

I was pleased to find a rich assortment of historical photographs taken of notable Minnesotans, local town street scenes, buildings, landmarks, and much more from the cities and towns all across the state.

This columnist searched the database for “Winsted” and found many historical photographs taken of my old hometown.

Some of these photographs include:

• A 1900 photograph of the Paris Millinery building located in Winsted.

I was fortunate to obtain more information about the Paris Millinery building when I sent the photograph to long-time Winsted resident and former Winsted mayor Don Guggemos.

“This is the Smolka Building, built around the 1880s. Joseph A. Smolka arrived in Winsted about 1875. He established a harness business in this building. He was also a member of the city council and very active in the local community. Smolka died suddenly in 1895 at age 58. The Winsted City Council issued a proclamation at his death. Two years after his death in 1897, his daughter, Augusta, age 18, opened a millinery shop in this building,” Don explained.

The Paris Millinery building would have been next to the old Millerbernd’s building (present-day Winsted Flagship Bank) to the north.

I created a link to the photograph of the Paris Millinery building at http://tinyurl.com/49j5f8w.

Other Winsted-related photographs include:

• An 1865 photograph of Stephen and Anna Garske, German immigrants who settled in Winsted.

• The Winsted Catholic church photographed on a postcard from 1907.

• A photograph taken in 1909 at the intersection of second Avenue, looking east along West Main Street toward Winsted Lake.

• The Winsted Catholic school (former Holy Trinity grade school building) as it stood in 1915.

• An aerial view of Winsted taken in 1969 by Vincent H. Mart.

• Another aerial view over the Winsted creamery (Pure Milk Products) from 1969.

Lester Prairie historical photographs found include:

• A 1910 photograph of the Lester Prairie City Hall.

• The “Roller Mills” building at Lester Prairie taken in 1915.

• A picture taken in 1920 of the Farmer’s Co-op Elevator.

• An aerial view of Lester Prairie taken in 1969.

• An 1895 photograph of Herman J. Henneman, who served as a Minnesota State Legislator. I was able to cross-reference him on Google books and learned Henneman was a merchant who was born in Germany in 1862, came to the US in 1871 with his parents, and resided in Lester Prairie. He was a Minnesota state senator in 1895.

Howard Lake has interesting historical pictures online as well, including:

• A 1950 photograph of “Minnesota’s largest birdhouse” taken at Timber’s Resort.

• A photograph taken in 1908 called “business block” showing downtown business buildings along today’s Highway 12.

• A photograph of The Howard Lake Creamery, taken in 1910.

• A 1915 photograph titled “Motorcycle Club run to Howard Lake” showing a group of folks on their motorcycles in front of what appears to be a corner building on County Road 6 and Highway 12.

• A photograph of St. James Lutheran Church as it stood in 1940.

• An aerial view of Howard Lake taken in 1969

• Howard Lake City Hall, photographed as it was in 1973.

Historical photographs from Cokato and Dassel include:

• A photograph of the C.A. Davis residence in Cokato taken in 1900.

• A beautifully detailed 1900 photograph of a Great Northern passenger train taken in Cokato by Dwight Barnes.

• A 1909 photograph of a bird’s-eye view of downtown Cokato (includes a nice view of the water tower).

• An 1880 photograph of a group of school children in front of the post office/drug store in Dassel.

• A slightly colorized 1908 photograph of buildings along Dassel’s main street.

• A 1910 photograph from Dassel which reads, “New town hall and Main Street looking east.” The photographer was G.W. Swanstrom.

Delano also has many historical photographs online at the Minnesota Historical Society:

• A 1900 photograph of Delano’s main street taken by John Warner.

• A beautifully colorized 1900 photograph of River Street.

• An excellently detailed photograph of the “Wagon Bridge” crossing the Crow River in Delano, taken in 1915.

• An aerial view of the Delano area photographed in 1972.

More photographs of these and other surrounding towns are stored in this visual resources database.

A person could spend hours looking at them.

Preserving our town’s photographs and history – on paper and digitally – for future generations to see – is vital.

To use the visual resources database, go to http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources.

The Minnesota Historical Society website is located at http://www.mnhs.org.

After spending time viewing these historical photographs and their other collections, I have come to realize the Minnesota Historical Society is indeed, one of the chief caretaker’s of Minnesota’s story.

First Twitter message was typed five years ago

2011-03-18T13:28:00.001-07:00

March 21, 2011
by Mark Ollig

The first tweet read “just setting up my twttr.”

This message was sent by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey March 21, 2006, while working at a podcasting company called Odeo, Inc., in South Park, CA.

The reason he wrote “twttr” with no vowels was because Twitter’s originally intended use was to be on mobile devices. The “twttr” five-character Short Message Service (SMS) short code is: 89887.

The name Twitter was chosen by Noah Glass, who, along with Evan Williams, had founded Odeo.

Twitter messages were set at a maximum of 140 characters in length so they could fit inside the limits of a cell phone text message.

Unfortunately, they later learned a group called “Teen People” had already obtained the 89887 SMS short code.

According to Merriam Webster’s online dictionary, the word ‘twitter’ is described as “to utter successive chirping noises – to utter in chirps or twitters – to talk in a chattering fashion.”

Jack Dorsey (@Jack) sent this tweet out March 14, “At 5:33 p.m. 5 years ago today, we had design, login, & update. There were only two people on twttr, me & @florian.”

Florian, also employed at Odeo, was a programmer working with Dorsey.

Dorsey also sent this tweet, “I’m not sure if one counts the day of original programming or the first tweet (the 21st) as Twitter’s birthday. Probably the latter.”

The birth of Twitter came about one day while sitting on a children’s slide at a park, eating Mexican food. Jack Dorsey, an engineer, suggested to his Odeo colleagues an effortless way to send status updates by using text messages.

Within two weeks, Dorsey and Twitter’s other co-founder, Isaac “Biz” Stone, had built the prototype which became Twitter.

Dorsey and Stone believed this new company could make it on its own.

It was decided in 2007, to make Twitter a separate company from Odeo, Inc.

Jack Dorsey served as Twitter’s first chief executive, Isaac Stone was its creative director, and Evan Williams became Twitter’s chairman.

Here are the latest statistics and particulars about Twitter I found via Twitter’s blog:

• Twitter was incorporated in April 2007; it was co-founded by Isaac “Biz” Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey, who use Twitter names: @biz, @ev and @jack.

• The initial Twitter logo was created by Biz, who was a former graphic designer.

• Twitter has more than 200 million registered users sending more than 140 million tweets a day.

• Total tweets sent March 11, 2011, were 177 million.

• Actor Charlie Sheen (@charliesheen) was the quickest to accumulate one million Twitter followers – taking him only 24 hours to reach this milestone.

• The time it took from the first tweet to the billionth tweet: three years, two months and one day.

• In 2010, Twitter users sent 25 billion tweet messages, while Twitter itself added more than 100 million new registered user accounts.

• The time it now takes for users to send a billion tweets: one week.

• The hashtag (#) feature on Twitter (which groups tweets by subject), made its first appearance in August 2007. The hashtag idea was thought of by a Twitter user.

• The average number of new Twitter accounts per day over the last month has been 460,000.

• The current tweets-per-second record (6,939) was established four seconds after midnight in Japan, on New Year’s Day.

• When Michael Jackson died, June 25, 2009, 456 tweets-per-second were being sent.

• Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) has the most Twitter followers with 8.78 million, followed by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) with 8.13 million. Britney Spears (@britneyspears) has 7.12 million followers, and Barack Obama (@barackobama) has 6.97 million. Kim Kardashian (@kimkardashian) comes in with 6.73 million followers, and your Bits & Bytes columnist (@bitsandbytes) reports in with a respectable 343 Twitter followers.

• In October 2009, Google and Microsoft began incorporating tweets into their search products.

• Twitter currently employs over 350 people.

• Twitter is based in San Francisco, with employees working in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington.

Twitter uses what is called a “Ruby on Rails” application framework, which operates on Twitter’s web server.

Ruby on Rails is sometimes called RoR, or just Rails. RoR is an open-source web programming language code originally created in 2003, by David Heinemeier Hansson.

On March 13, Jack Dorsey tweeted “I drew out the original idea on this notepad around 2001, named stat.us. Just needed the right time [and] team.” To view go to: http://tinyurl.com/22saq8.

Forty minutes latter, @jack tweeted “A week earlier, @Biz & I worked on the design to show Odeo before programming. Here’s the first twttr [dot] com http://t.co/s1gPjKv.”

Twitter’s updated blog is located at: http://blog.twitter.com.

You can view the original Twitter logo created on March 2, 2006, by going to: http://tinyurl.com/4hzs5y3.

Start twittering your own messages, follow and obtain followers of your own Twitter by visiting their web page at: http://www.twitter.com.

Become a part of this entertaining, informative, and powerful mainstream online social network.

Happy fifth birthday, Twitter.

Remembering the BBS ‘Culture’ [memories from the archives!]

2011-03-16T06:52:00.001-07:00

December 3, 2007
by Mark Ollig

Last weeks column found me nostalgically recalling the time I started a “hobbyist” dial-up computer Bulletin Board Service or “BBS.”

Before web browsers redefined the Internet, computer hobbyists using their own money spent many hours connecting their home computers to software, modems and phone lines.

At that time, installing and programming the BBS hardware and software was not a “plug and play” process.

In 1993, Howard Rheingold published his book “The Virtual Community.” He is credited with inventing the term “virtual community.” He wrote about the potential of the BBS culture and the new “electronic villages” being created.

I was both fascinated and motivated by Rheingold’s enthusiasm and passion of the independent dial-up BBS culture.

To access my BBS from your computer you needed a 19.2 kbps modem and a regular telephone line.

A dial-up communications program made by DataStorm called “ProComm” was commonly used to access a BBS.

I called my BBS “WBBS OnLine!”

The “W” stood for “Winsted.” It had the call letters of a radio or TV station…plus “WBBS” sounded cool.

I created paper flyers to advertise WBBS, and posted them all over town and in the local newspaper.

I was so excited about starting a local BBS in Winsted that I even changed the license plates on my car to WBBS... which caused a few second glances as I drove down the street.

Many folks caught the BBS “bug” and were buying a modem and going online.

People plugged a telephone line into their computer modem, “dialed-up” the local phone number of WBBS and “logged on” to the BBS software program I ran. It was called “The Major BBS” made by a company called Galacticom.

Computer users would create their own online user names, leave e-mail messages, chat in virtual conference rooms, play simple online games and send and receive software files.

Being a BBS System Operator or “SysOp” and running a BBS was like operating your own AOL, Prodigy or CompuServe (what’s that Grandpa?).

A BBS is like a small island community. Only a few people could be connected at one time, depending on the number of modems the BBS had. I had five telephone lines connected to five modems, so five users (including your humble SysOp) could be online at the same time.

WBBS had discussion forums, simple text-chat rooms, a few games, and the ability to send e-mail messages to other registered BBS members. Users were mostly from the local area where the BBS telephone number was a free call.

I was able to update WBBS and install a Graphical User Interface or “GUI.” This required the user calling into the BBS to download a “client” software program. The next time they dialed in using the BBS client GUI software, they could point and click on the new BBS graphical menu. They could play some of the new games using a colorful graphical interface! It was just like what AOL had.

As I learned about new computer hardware, software and the information and resources the Internet was starting to offer, I looked for a venue where I could share this information with others. So began the column “Bits & Bytes.”

In 1994, I gave a presentation of my BBS at the local Civic and Commerce lunch-in below the American Legion Club in Winsted.

Your humble columnist and former SysOp brought his trustworthy 1993 Omni-Book laptop, BBS “tower” computer, bulky monitor and many cords.

I set up the BBS and connected the whole thing to two phone lines.

In front of the local business folks, I demonstrated how a person at home could use their computer to dial-up into another computer and use that computers BBS software.

I explained that the business could set up their own BBS with a menu tree and use it as a means to communicate and provide information to their customers.

The BBS brought people together online and provided a venue for discussions about current and popular issues in real-time. Sometimes users logged on just to play online games, check for messages from other users and share “free-ware” software, which included many DOS utilities and games.

Many BBS users were not only learning about the potential use of this new online technology, but were also finding mutual camaraderie in the world of the BBS community.

The BBS’s potential to change how we communicated and obtained information was one of the driving forces which inspired me to start and maintain WBBS.

By the late 1990’s, BBS users wanted Internet access. Some BBS’s obtained direct access to the “Internet-backbone” (usually via a telephone companies dedicated T-1) and then allowed BBS users access to it, using the BBS computer as the gateway.

These BBS’s were becoming Internet Service Providers and needed to charge its users a fee in order to pay for the expensive direct Internet connections.

Many of the smaller local hobbyist BBS’s including sadly, WBBS OnLine! that were not supported by paid subscribers – shut down and went offline.

I found an informative new website which provides an in-depth documentary about the entire BBS culture.

This website includes video trailers of Vinton Cerf and Ward Christensen (who is credited with the first practical working BBS) talking about their experiences surrounding the BBS culture.

Check out http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/.

Early history of electronic video gaming still fascinates

2011-03-10T05:37:00.000-08:00

Feb. 14, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Some of us may recall the fun of playing the video table tennis game called Pong on our television sets back in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Pong was designed in 1972 by 24-year-old Allan Alcorn, who worked for Atari Inc. as an engineer.

The first cabinet version of Alcorn’s video arcade game of Pong was installed in September 1972, at a bar called Andy Capp’s Tavern, located in Sunnyvale, CA.

Playing Pong was an instant success among the local bar patrons.

Two weeks later, the Pong video arcade machine began having problems.

A phone call from the tavern manager was made to Atari, saying the Pong game was broken.

When Alcorn came out to investigate, he found the video arcade machine was malfunctioning because too many quarters had been jammed inside the cabinet machine’s mechanism.

This story took me back to the days of when yours truly was out repairing public payphones.

I would sometimes find numerous coins lodged inside the coin chute assembly, which had caused the payphone to be “out of order.”

The home version of Pong (using a game console) was called Home Pong. It connected to television sets, was distributed through Sears stores in 1975 and sold for $98.95.

A video interview with Allan Alcorn can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/5ub5uhz.

Ralph Baer is known as “The Father of Video Games.” In 1967, he invented the video game, Chase which was played by connecting a controller box to a television set.

Baer designed what came to be known as the Magnavox Odyssey video game console.

Magnavox began home distribution of the Odyssey, which connected to a television set, in 1972.

Since the Odyssey game console was made by the television maker Magnavox, some folks reasoned the Odyssey console would only work on a Magnavox television, when in fact it worked on any television. Atari picked up on this and began printing on its Pong game boxes the advertising, “Works on any television set, black and white, or color.”

A video game played on a minicomputer was developed in 1961 by four Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students.

They called the video game Spacewar!

Spacewar! operated over MIT’s DEC PDP-1 (Digital Equipment Company Programmed Data Processor) computer.

In February 1962, Steve Russell completed the code programming for Spacewar!, while Dan Edwards, Peter Samson, and Martin Graetz are credited with adding additional features.

Today, anyone can still play Spacewar! using the original programming code operating over the popular cross-platform programming language called JAVA. The PDP-1 emulator is at http://spacewar.oversigma.com.

There is one working PDP-1 computer located at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, and Spacewar! is playable on it.

Tennis for Two was a form of video game created in 1958 by William Higinbotham on an analog computer. It was played using an oscilloscope.

Higinbotham worked as the Instrumentation Division Head at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY. He came up with this idea as a way to entertain visitors to the laboratory.

In 1952, the first computerized digital graphical game was called OXO. A person would play against a computer in a tic-tac-toe game.

I would like playing this game, because the human player used a rotary phone dial as the controller.

The human player would dial a digit from 1 to 9 to represent the location of where to place an X or O on the tic-tac-toe board displayed on the computer’s screen, which was a 35x16 pixel cathode ray tube (CRT).

The programming code for OXO was written by Alexander S. Douglas at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

The OXO game was played on a British-made Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) computer, originally constructed in 1948.

A photo gallery of the EDSAC computer is at http://tinyurl.com/yr8als.

To view a detailed screenshot of an EDSAC simulator running the OXO game, go to http://tinyurl.com/4aufahu.

Going back to 1947, we discover what may be the inspiration for the world’s first CRT based game – World War II radar display images.

Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are named as inventors of US Patent 2,455,992 filed on Jan. 25, 1947.

The patent is titled Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device.

Text from this historical patent includes, “In carrying out the invention a cathode-ray tube is used upon the face of which the trace of the ray or electron beam can be seen. One or more targets, such as pictures of airplanes, for example, are placed upon the face of the tube and controls are available to the player so that he can manipulate the trace or position of the beam which is automatically caused to move across the face of the tube.”

The player’s controlling of “the trace of the ray or electron beam” on the CRT has been likened to how an Etch A Sketch is used in making solid lines on its gray screen.

US Patent 2,455,992 was issued Dec. 14, 1948, and can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/4evredd.

There is room for all our data inside the cloud

2011-03-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

March 7, 2011
by Mark Ollig

As a youngster, I would occasionally look skyward, gazing at the clouds and sometimes seeing the shapes of trees, animals or even favorite cartoon characters.

You are probably wondering why I have my head in the clouds again.

Little did I comprehend back then, a cloud would someday be called a place to work on web-based software programs in real-time.

No, not in those fluffy white clouds floating across the sky, but in the numerous “data farms” networked across the Internet landscape.

Google describes its own data center farms as large, specialized buildings containing many computers, which keep their services and products up and running.

“Because Google’s machines store these applications and the data associated with them, you can use these tools from anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection,” said Google.

On our personal computers and business servers, we store our software programs, videos, Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos and more.

We do our normal computer housekeeping chores, such as performing regular backups.

We run our anti-virus software.

We purchase additional hard drives when we need more storage.

And, we continue to learn to be more computer literate.

Apparently, we are also placing more trust in cloud computing.

Look at how many of us are using web-based services from Google, for instance.

Cloud applications, such as Google’s G-mail has become a popular e-mail service.

To upload, save, and share photos, we can use Google’s cloud-based Picasa Web Albums, (which includes 1GB of free storage).

We are also using Google’s portion of the cloud when we upload and save videos on Google’s YouTube website.

Many of us make use of cloud computing when exploring the world using Google Maps.

We create and save Word documents using the online Google Docs program via cloud computing.

Google’s (in the cloud) data center farm facilities, are actually located across the US and around the world.

Its new data center farm, located in Mayes County, OK, will become operational at the end of this year, at a cost of $600 million. It will employ 100 people.

Google is one example of a company providing cloud computing services; there are others doing this, too.

Advantages of using cloud computing for individuals include:

• being able to access and work with your programs from any Internet connection.

• not having to purchase additional computer hardware and software.

• no need to upgrade software or run software virus protection programs on cloud-based applications.

• knowing your file data content is safely protected, continually backed-up and available from any computer you are using.

• no CDs are needed for anything.

One could also draw an analogy of the use of cloud computing services as comparable to how we use electricity today.

In a column yours truly wrote last year, I talked about Henry Burden, who, by 1851, had designed and constructed a water wheel to power the machines at his iron works factory in Troy, NY.

Many factories in the mid to late-1800s were also in the power creation business.

Maintaining this independent power utility operation required large capital expenditures, dedicated human resources, maintenance, and repair.

This type of self-generated power used by the factory would be similar to today’s business-owned and operated in-house computer system employing an IT (information technology) department.

By the early 20th century, it became more cost-effective to power factory machines using electricity delivered over wires from the new commercial power grids, versus constructing and maintaining water wheels or other independent power generation systems.

The move to cloud computing is analogous to the move to commercial electricity by factories in the early 1900s.

The term “cloud computing” is said to have originated during the initial days of computing network design.

Being there is so much interconnection on the Internet, network design engineer’s used a fluffy white cloud as the symbol to represent the Internet in their engineering network design diagrams.

The public Internet is considered the “networks of networks.”

If you have seen diagrams of the Internet, you might think it looks like some massive interstellar galaxy.

This particular galaxy, however, is meshed with countless routers, switches, hubs, data servers, and other devices. They are all interconnected and communicate with each other via special language protocols over fiber optics, copper wires, and wireless networks.

Some networks are privately- owned connections between companies or government entities.

The US Department of Defense has its own private Internet called SIPRNet, or Secret Internet Protocol Router Network.

Classified information is securely sent via data packets over SIPRNet. This network is not accessible from the public Internet.

Businesses are switching from owning and maintaining their own internal networked computer hardware servers and software systems, to using Internet providers selling cloud computing services.

Microsoft’s latest business cloud computing package is called Office 365.

In the years to come, many computing processes we now perform on our personal computers will be accomplished via the power of the Internet cloud.

This week’s column was created, stored, and e-mailed from inside the cloud, using Google Docs and G-mail.

Mobile World Congress was a success in Barcelona

2011-02-24T07:59:00.001-08:00

Feb. 28, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Barcelona, Spain played host to more than 50,000 people from more than 200 countries, attending the 2011 Mobile World Congress (MWC).

This year’s gathering of some of the largest players in the mobile industry took place Feb. 14 - 17.

The number of companies showcasing their mobile technology throughout eight exhibition halls inside the Fira Barcelona venue was nearly 1,500.

The MWC provides a setting for mobile industry networking, new business opportunities, and technical presentations.

In conjunction with MWC, more than 12,000 mobile application (app) software developers, content providers, and mobile device manufacturers participated in the App Planet conferences.

More than 200 exhibitors, about 45,000 visitors, and 11 App Developer conferences took place.

The App Planet exhibit areas and forums focused on four mobile area themes:

• Embedded Mobile - This theme focused on increasing wireless connectivity in more consumer electronic devices.

• Green Tech - In an effort to motivate the decision-makers, this forum presented alternatives using green technology to conserve energy usage and costs.

• Mobile Money - More people are using mobile apps for their bank account activities. This forum discussed technology standardization among mobile financial institution apps.

• Mobile Health - Showcasing creative solutions for remote healthcare using mobile services, this forum talked about how mobile health is able to reduce costs and increase the accessibility of healthcare’s reach on a global scale. Indeed, mobile healthcare is now meeting up wirelessly with the Internet cloud.

Get ready for CloudCare, coming soon to a mobile device near you.

App Planet says, it “will continue to bring together the many critical elements of the broad mobile app ecosystem in one location.”

Many of the mobile devices at MWC included computing tablets, smart phones, new apps, and other mobile adjunct technologies.

What about Apple iPhones? Well, Apple no longer attends these kinds of events so the focus was not on Apple, but you can bet Apple’s competitors at MWC were doing their best to shift some of the spotlight onto their own wares.

Not all mobile tablets have 9.7-inch display screens like the Apple iPad. Many of the mobile venders and manufacturers at MWC presented a variety of screen-sized tablets ranging from 4 to 10 inches.

The MWC was not just about showing off mobile devices either.

Some of the leading names in technology were in Barcelona, and presented keynote “thought leadership” conferences and participated in discussion panels.

Company CEOs and presidents speaking at MWC included those of Twitter, AT&T, Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, HTC, Nokia, and 12 others.

According to AT&T’s Chief Technology Officer John Donovan, stored information will continue to migrate from our devices to the Internet cloud.

Donovan (and your humble columnist) feels the move to cloud-based computing will continue to grow to the point where we will be able to access all of our personal information and data content from any device connected to the cloud.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, spoke at length about his company’s vision of the mobile future.

He talked about the quickened pace of innovation and provided some interesting statistics.

Today, there are about 700 million pubic servers connected to the Internet and half of all new connections to the Internet, are from mobile devices.

By 2013, mobile data traffic will increase 66 times from what is used today, and mobile smartphones will surpass global personal computers in total sales.

Using the abundant memory storage available across cloud computing data servers, an SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) memory card will eventually no longer be needed. Instead of having a SIM to retain information in a mobile phone, the subscriber information will be accessible from the cloud.

He also stressed, there is much more memory and processing power available using the cloud, allowing newer voice recognition apps to work more efficiently.

Schmidt says to think of cloud information storage as being “replicated,” not simply “copied.”

Google’s own voice language translation apps are almost to the point of allowing a two-way conversation on the phone, while each person’s unique language is translated instantly into the other’s language.

This triggered my recollection of the Tower of Babel story.

Google’s Search by Voice app uses powerful audio recognition engines and understands English, Mandarin, Japanese and German.,

Google’s Goggles app, which yours truly wrote a full column about Dec. 14, 2009, is a mobile phone visual search app.

The following is an example of their newly advanced Goggles mobile visual search app.

Say you were on a European vacation and find yourself looking down at a menu written in German.

Unfortunately, you may not be able to read German.

No worries.

Just hold your mobile phone over the German text and take a picture. This new app instantly translates (onto your phone’s screen) the German menu text into your language preference, using the power of cloud computing. A successful demonstration of this was shown at MWC.

Google also spoke of its Android open platform software for mobile devices as a merger of computing, connectivity, and the cloud.

The complete Google MWC presentation can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/yg7nc3v.

The Mobile World Congress website is: http://www.mobileworldcongress.com.

Computer History Museum chronicles an incredible journey

2011-02-16T11:37:00.001-08:00

Feb. 21, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Fresh from a $19 million restoration, the Computer History Museum located in Mountain View, CA., re-opened with a new exhibit called Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing.

The Computer History Museum has been at this location since 2002 and houses a computing history collection of about 100,000 historical artifacts spread across 125,000 square feet.

It also includes a cafe, gift shop, theater, and educational facilities.

According to its president and CEO John Hollar, the Computer History Museum “represents a very sweeping history of computing; it covers everything from the abacus to the smartphone.”

In addition to being a “Garden of Eden” for computer geeks, it is also an appealing place for non-techie folks to visit.

Inside the museum, there are 19 major exhibit spaces or “conclaves” containing significant computing industry milestones for visitors to look at.

The exhibits begin with the earliest computing device: ancient counting machines.

Inside one conclave, visitors will see the story of the historic counting tool called an abacus.

The evolution to electronic and then mainframe computers, followed by the progression to advanced supercomputers, are all displayed.

Many of the earliest personal computers are also there.

Visual displays in another exhibit show-and-tell the story of the first integrated electronic circuits, which were put together in the late 1950s.

Information is presented in a non-technical way, making it easier for people to learn how the computing devices they use in their daily lives were created.

Len Shustek, a former teacher, is currently a Computer History Museum board member.

He recently talked about his favorite computer at the museum in a video I watched.

The computer system Shustek says he used as a college student in the 1960s, was an IBM 7094 scientific computer.

The IBM 7094 was an advanced, solid-state data processing system first installed in 1962.

This large-scale computing system sold for $3,134,500.

In one second, the IBM 7094 could perform 500,000 logical decisions, 250,000 additions or subtractions, 100,000 multiplications or 62,500 divisions.

IBM stopped selling the 7094 in 1969.

Many of the original computer programmers and individuals who actually designed some of the computers being displayed will come to the Computer History Museum. According to Shustek, they find the experience like visiting old friends. These people can relate to the vintage hardware and software platforms because of their prior association with them.

One computing artifact at the museum this NASA space program devotee would like to look at is the original Apollo command module Guidance Computer System.

The Apollo Guidance Computer was first used on Apollo 7 as it orbited the earth in 1968.

In 1969, this same-style guidance system aided Apollo 11 to the moon. The astronauts in the command module would punch two-digit codes and press the proper set of words on its display and keyboard unit in order to communicate with it.

Some of the originally built Apple I and II computers are exhibited in the museum, along with the Sinclair ZX80 and many other earlier home computers.

People who visit the Computer History Museum will no doubt find the very first computer model they ever used somewhere on display.

The museum’s collection of computers, along with software and much of the printed material are mostly donated by private individuals and corporations.

Some of the hardware stored there includes the first Google data server, and three Cray-1 supercomputers designed by “the father of supercomputing,” Seymour Cray, who graduated from The University of Minnesota in 1949.

Not only is the story of computing hardware shown in this museum, but also the story of computing software.

As we all know, computers require software in order for them to perform their functions.

Software doesn’t really have the tangible artifacts which can be seen and held like computer hardware, so it is a bit more challenging to exhibit.

The Computer History Museum’s Software Preservation Group (SPG), collects and preserves early computing software.

The software presentations focus attention on the stories from the people involved with its creation, which in itself, is historically noteworthy.

One of these collections includes FORTRAN (Formula Translating System) software developed in the mid 1950s by the late John Backus when he worked for IBM.

The SPG area of the museum contains collections of software design documents and videos which, catalog many of the historical operating systems and software programs created over the years.

Explaining the roles they played in computing history, early computing pioneers such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, have given pubic speaking engagements at the museum.

Len Shustek stated, “It’s our goal to create a permanent institution to preserve and to celebrate the history of the information revolution.”

The YouTube channel for the Computer History Museum can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/bxqhn5.

I encourage you to visit this channel and view the many historic and information-packed videos provided by the Computer History Museum.

Begin your journey to The Computer History Museum’s website at http://www.computerhistory.org.

The real inventor of the World Wide Web

2011-02-09T06:47:00.001-08:00

By Mark Ollig
(From the archives: December 4, 2006)

Tim Berners-Lee is the person who wrote the programming code that we use when we “point and click” our way through the hyper-links of documents, sounds, videos and information that we access via the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.

Berners-Lee called his creation a “global hypertext system.”

Some people think that the Internet and the Web are the same, but this is not true.

The Internet is basically a network made from computers, routers, gateways and cables used to send around little “packets” of information. A packet is a bit (no pun intended) like a postcard with a simple address on it.

If you put the right address on a packet and gave it to any computer which is connected as part of the Internet, each computer would figure out which cable or path to send it down next so that it would get to its destination. That’s what the Internet does. It delivers packets anywhere in the world using various protocols and it can do this very quickly.

Berners-Lee connects the Internet to the Web by saying “The Web exists because of programs which communicate between computers on the ‘Net. The Web connections are hypertext links. The Web could not be without the Net. The Web made the Net useful because people are really interested in information (not to mention knowledge and wisdom!) and don’t really want to have know about computers and cables.”

In May of 1998, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a short piece on the history of the World Wide Web in which he says “. . .The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information.”

Back in 1980, Berners-Lee was working with computer software programs to store information with random links. Nine years later, while he was working at the European Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva Switzerland, also known as “CERN” which I found out is the French abbreviation for “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire.”

Since the only French I remember was from a record album that comedian Steve Martin did back in late 1970s in which he says that when he was in France the only French he knew was how to order a ham and cheese omelet in the restaurant. Yep, the ol’ “omelette de jambon et de fromage.”

I went to the language translation link on Google at: http://www.google.com/language_tools and found out that the translation to English of “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” is: The Council European for the Nuclear Research.

Tim Berners-Lee goes on to say that this is where in 1989, he first proposed that a global hypertext space be created in which any network-accessible information could be referred to by what he had called a UDI or “Universal Document Identifier.” This would become known today as the “Uniform Resource Locator” or “URL” that we are typing when going to a particular website.

He finished the actual client-browser and the point and click hypertext editor he called the “WorldWideWeb Program” in 1990. Some of the very early web browsers had names like Erwise, Viola, Cello and Mosaic. Today we use browsers like Netscape, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Berners-Lee said he was under pressure to define the future evolution of the ‘Web, so he decided to form the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C in September 1994 with a base at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA, and offices in France and in Japan.

The W3C is a neutral, open forum where companies and organizations can discuss and come to agreement upon new computer protocols that will help see the Web develop to its full potential.

It has been a center for education, issue raising and design. The website says their decisions are made by consensus. If you want to find out what the latest advancements being planned for the continued evolution of the World Wide Web are, I highly recommend you visit http://www.w3.org which states their mission is “To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.” I noted that under the photo of Tim Berners-Lee it says he is the Director of the W3C and also “The Inventor of the World Wide Web” which in this humble columnist’s opinion adds a bit of respectability to this website!

For those of you out there that would like to see the original 1989 proposal (including a circles and arrows diagram) that Tim Berners-Lee first submitted and in which he coined the term: “WorldWideWeb” link over to: http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html and you will see what I call probably the ‘Webs most historical document when it comes to how we are able to navigate the Internet as we have come to use it today.

The computer that Berners-Lee used to write the code for the first web-browser and also what became the first “web-server” was called the “NeXtcube.” You can see and read about it at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube

And if you go to this link: http://www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/screensnap2_24c.gif you will see the “snapshot” of Tim Berners-Lee’s (and the world’s) very first website that he created and released to the High Energy Physics community.

Mr. Watson, come here, play 'Jeopardy!'

2011-02-02T13:57:00.001-08:00

February 7, 2011
by Mark Ollig

Most of us recall the quote, “Elementary, my dear Watson,” which is attributed to the Sherlock Holmes character replying to his friend and associate, Dr. Watson.

It is surprising to most people when they learn the Holmes character never actually spoke this line to Dr. Watson. Holmes did say the words, “Elementary” and “My dear Watson,” but never in one complete sentence.

Spoken March 10, 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant Thomas A. Watson, the following quote has special meaning for yours truly. “Mr. Watson! Come here! I want to see you!” In 1931, Watson is reported to have said he recalled the words spoken by Bell as, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.”

By now you may be wondering what I am leading up to with all this Watson talk.

It’s elementary, my dear readers.

The giant computer maker, IBM, has come up with a new super computer, which recently competed in a practice round against the two top-ranked players of the popular television game show “Jeopardy!”

This new computer is called “Watson” and is named after IBM founder Thomas J. Watson.

Speaking in a relaxed manner during the practice round, the sentences Watson used were fluid, not choppy or “computer-like” at all.

Watson was able to instantly respond (in the form of a question) to the answers as displayed on the “Jeopardy!” board.

The looks of frustration displayed at times on the faces of the human players standing on either side of Watson had me wondering if this computer should have been instead called “HAL” as in reference to the sci-fi movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” This futuristic computer, HAL 9000, combatingly challenges and almost outsmarts his human counter-parts.

Instead of HAL, IBM says Watson is more like the computer on Star Trek.

Watson’s hardware is made up of 10 racks of IBM POWER 750 servers using the Linux operating system inside 10 refrigerator-sized cabinet bays.

Watson has 15 terabytes of Random Access Memory (RAM), 2,880 processor cores, and operates over a massively-parallel high-performance computing platform.

Watson also has the ability to learn.

The Open Advancement of Question Answering (OAQA) is an area of computer science which develops software models that are able to provide precise and informative answers to questions asked of it using language, such as English, spoken in a natural manner.

The IBM Research computer science paper titled “Towards the Open Advancement of Question Answering Systems” discussed this software model.

Dr. Bill Murdock is a computer scientist with IBM who is involved with the technology’s algorithms – or set of rules – used in Watson, co-wrote this paper with other researchers in February of 2008.

The paper goes into details about the challenges which needed to be overcome for successful development of an OAQA algorithm to be used in the software code.

This is not just a typical software search and display program, but an advanced and revolutionary means of having a computer actually “understand” the question being asked, thus providing a more complete and informative answer.

The answers could be acquired from resources found in scattered or semi-structured Internet web pages and blog postings or from more structured and precise data found in online encyclopedias, and educational, governmental, and similar online or private databases.

One section of the paper talks about developing a Challenge Set Profile for testing the software’s Question Answering solution abilities.

One of the five challenge problems was identified as the “Jeopardy!” game show.

This IBM paper states that in order for the computer program to succeed in this challenge problem, the software coding itself would require high degrees of accuracy, speed, and confidence.

Yes, software having “confidence” is a new one for me, too.

The paper describes how sophistication would be needed in working out the software program’s grammatical structure and phrasing of sentences used in answers to the sometimes wordy “Jeopardy!” questions. The IBM paper acknowledges this “natural language parsing” between humans and the computer would be a difficult challenge.

Scientists at IBM worked for four years on this highly- advanced Question Answering (QA) system for Watson, calling it DeepQA.

Watson competed against the two top-ranked “Jeopardy!” contestants in a practice round this past January.

This practice round shows Watson being represented physically by a display screen with its avatar flickering and flashing in a manner IBM described as “a global map projection with a halo of ‘thought rays.’” To the left and right of Watson stood Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

Watson acted very human, as it patiently listened to each question and then buzzed-in with a verbal response.

For each question, Watson simultaneously processed thousands of its algorithmic formulas via its sophisticated DeepQA program.

Watson performs 80 trillion calculations or operations per second.

During this practice round, Watson was not directly connected to the Internet, but was instead accessing millions of pages of previously scanned content which included books, entire encyclopedias, databases of literature, and other sources.

Watson ended up defeating its human opponents during this practice round.

This reminded me of when IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov back in 1997.

Watson participates in an official “Jeopardy!” tournament-style competition airing Monday, Feb. 14 through Wednesday, Feb. 16.

Watch Watson’s Jeopardy! practice round at http://tinyurl.com/6bsusvq.

Also, check out an in-depth interview with a member of IBM’s Algorithms Team at http://tinyurl.com/4rrsv3g.

Macworld 2011 'celebration' showcased new products

2011-01-27T08:30:00.001-08:00

Jan. 31, 2011
by Mark Ollig

It started back in 1985.

It presents innovative, cutting-edge software, hardware, and accessories for your Apple computing devices.

It is an opportunity to learn from the actual programmers and developers who design and produce these accessories and products.

The “It” is the annual Apple convention, Macworld Conference and Expo.

Every year since its beginning, the Macworld Conference and Expo event has been the ultimate showcase for third-party businesses and developers which create and manufacture new add-ons, apps, and devices designed to work with Apple’s computing products.

This year’s 2011 Macworld Conference took take place Jan. 26 - 29 and the Macworld Expo portion was Jan. 27–29. Both events were at the Moscone Center’s West Hall in San Francisco.

These combined events are considered to be a ‘celebration’ which is intended to educate, as well as entertain the people attending.

The number of visitors expected at this year’s Macworld Conference and Expo was estimated at 25,000.

The number of vender exhibits was said to be 230.

More than 100 new products were expected to be presented.

Last Wednesday,the Macworld Industry Forum conferences featuring 11 speakers, including Apple programming legend, Bill Atkinson.

As part of the original Apple Macintosh developers group, Atkinson created the revolutionary MacPaint application, and was the designer for Apple’s QuickDraw graphics library used in the early Macintosh computers.

Mr. Atkinson spoke about how humans interfaced or communicated with computers.

Atkinson talked of how earlier human user interfaces (UIs) ranged from using punched paper cards, teletype machines, and video terminals.

He spoke of the Apple II, along with Apple’s Lisa and Mac computers point-and-click graphical user interfaces.

Atkinson covered UIs such as the early touch screens, modern capacitive multi-touch sensors, and virtual keyboards.

He also talked about how the computer UI will eventually become “a conversational user interface with a personal assistant avatar.”

He predicted that in the future, we will interface with computing technology using natural language, and, eventually, the human-computer interface will become more of a two-way interactive conversation.

Atkinson wrote, “The center of the conversational user interface will become the personal assistant avatar.”

Colin Crawford, CEO of Media7, spoke on how magazine publishers can use the iPad as a venue for their content because of its “rich media experience.”

Crawford’s statement reinforces my belief about the current iPad being more of a media content consumption device rather then a content creation device.

Last Thursday, during the entertainment segment at Macworld 2011, actor, comedian, and, per the Macworld Expo website, “long-time supporter of Macworld,” Sinbad, shared his perspectives on all things Mac.

Looking back, Macworld events have been used as the platform for making major product announcements from Apple – and there have been many.

Let’s take a look at some of them.

In 1998, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iMac and the PowerBook G3.

The 2001 announcement was the introduction of iTunes and the PowerBook G4.

The Safari web browser and 12-inch display PowerBook were presented to the public in 2003.

In 2004, Apple’s vice-president of marketing introduced the newly-updated iMac, featuring the PowerPC G5 processor.

The presentations in 2005 included the launch of the Mac Mini, iPod shuffle, and an office software suite of applications called iWork.

In 2006, Intel’s Core Duo-based processors in the new iMac computers running with the Mac operating system 10 (OS X) were announced by Jobs.

At the 2007 Macworld Expo, Jobs introduced the now popular iPhone.

In 2008, Jobs introduced the MacBook Air — advertised as the world’s thinnest notebook computer.

Two announcements occurred during the 2009 Macworld event. One was the Apple’s introduction of new 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro portable notebook computer.The other was a surprise announcement by Apple Inc., stating this would be the last year in which the company would actively participate at Macworld.

Some clarification about Macworld is needed here.

The Macworld online and print magazine is published by Mac Publishing.

Mac Publishing is a separate company from the one which specifically oversees the Macworld Expo event – IDG World Expo. They do, however, happen to share in the Macworld brand name.

The corporate parent to both is called IDG (International Data Group).

A rumor circling the Macworld blogospheres says there will be a new iMac coming out in March equipped with the Intel “Sandy Bridge” processor.

I noted one Apple advertisement on its website suggesting, “Once you go Mac, you never go back.”

Will this humble, Windows PC user ever make the switch to a Mac?

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Well, this particular old dog is not quite ready to roll over and make the switch to a Mac – not just yet, even though my oldest son keeps trying to convince me to do so.

However, the 17-inch MacBook Pro notebook computer does look very tempting.

The home website for the Macworld Expo/Conference is located at http://www.Macworldexpo.com.

The Macworld online magazine can be seen at http://www.Macworld.com.

Internet URL address-shortening services are useful

2011-01-21T08:17:00.001-08:00

January 24, 2011
by Mark Ollig

All of us have seen those lengthy Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Internet address links in an e-mail, blog, social network, or online chat room.

Copying and pasting these long-drawn-out links unquestionably takes up a lot space.

Accurately typing or writing out a long URL address on paper is sometimes frustrating.

Back in the day (is this becoming an overly used phrase lately?), there was not much one could do about it. When a long URL address link was sent in an e-mail, sometimes it would automatically be abbreviated, causing missing characters and resulting in a broken and completely useless link.

The person you sent the link to ends up e-mailing you back saying, “Your link didn’t work for me.”

Horrors.

One of the first URL address- shortening sites I found out about was back in 2002, and it is one I still use to this day.

The company is called TinyURL, and is located at – yes, you guessed it –http://tinyurl.com.

The shortened URL address link uses a “URL 301 Redirection” mapping technique which forwards the newly created shortened link to the lengthier original URL address.

Specifically, a URL address shortener is an online application which allows the sender to enter a full URL address for any specific web page, click a button, and have the URL shortening service automatically abbreviate the lengthy URL address to a shortened domain name, which uses a unique shortened character code. When the recipient clicks on this shortened link, they are redirected to the original URL address – the same as if they had entered or clicked on the original lengthy URL link.

I have the tinyurl.com extension application on my browsers toolbar.

When I come across a web page I want to forward to someone, I can just click the tinyurl browser tool and have the long URL address automatically changed to a shorter URL address.

During the time yours truly has been writing this column, I have frequently provided shortened URL’s in order to save space and word count.

The shorter URL address is also easier to write down and is simpler to cut and paste when online or in a word document.

Each newly created shortened URL address is unique and randomly generated.

Posting shortened URL address links on my Twitter account is essential, especially with the limited number of characters (and spaces) allowed on Twitter (140).

In 2002, TinyURL acquired a company providing URL address shortening services called, Make a Shorter Link (MASL).

MASL went online in 2001, and was started by Giles Turnbull. The software coding was created and maintained by Matthew Hunt.

For each URL address shortened, there is a unique “key character se”’ created after the top-level domain (tld) name. In this example, “http://tinyurl.com/5ttqhca,” the unique key character set “5ttqhca” is used.

If there are concerns about sending a nondescriptive shortened link, the tinyurl.com site provides the option to send the link with the word “preview” added in order to provide the receiver with some assurances before they are redirected to the actual URL address site.

This preview link will disclose the full URL address name to the recipient, and provide for them the choice of whether to click and proceed to it or not.

An example would be: http://preview.tinyurl.com/4vq72k6.

On some web browsers, such as Firefox, you can install a shortened URL source extension application. When you hover over a shortened URL link, the full URL address will appear, thus giving you assurances about its actual destination.

In 2009, Google came out with its URL address-shortening site located at: http://goo.gl.

As with most URL address shortening services, Google’s goo.gl URL mappings are unchangeable once you have created them.

If you are signed into goo.gl via your Google account, the short URL to long URL links you created are stored in your goo.gl short URL link history.

A new URL address-shortening website located at: http://bit.ly went online in New York in 2009.

Twitter had been using tinyurl.com for shortening longer URL’s, but recently they switched to bit.ly.

Bit.ly recently took away from tinyurl.com its previous ranking as the number-one URL address-shortening site.

The list of URL address- shortening services out there on the Internet keeps growing; the last count shows over 300 of them.

One list can be found at: http://longurl.org/services.

Most of these address link shortening services are free – nearly all ask for donations.

Many also offer “enhanced” URL address link shortening services you can pay for which provide additional features.

And for all my Polish speaking relatives out there, here is a URL address-shortening service from Poland: http://bisi.pl/.

Miłego dnia!

Next time you have a lengthy URL address you want to forward, such as: “http://herald-journal.com/archives/2011/columns/mo011711.html” simply go to a URL shortening site and convert it to something more manageable like: “http://goo.gl/TQp8P” in its place.

CES 2011 does not disappoint its largest turnout

2011-01-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

January 17, 2011
by Mark Ollig

The closing of the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) ended four days of bliss for the many tech geeks in attendance, and for those of us watching online.

Live streaming video feeds were broadcast from numerous webcasters direct from the CES.

With nearly 2 million square feet of space being used, an estimated 140,000 people participated at this year’s CES.

Of this total, 30,000 came from outside the US.

To nobody’s surprise, tablet computing devices were found in abundance at this years show along with many other high-tech goodies.

Once again, 3D TV’s made news at CES.

These were not the “revolutionary” 3D televisions seen at last year’s CES; they were more “evolutionary.”

New “passive polarized” 3D technology TVs were shown by three companies: Visio, LG, and Toshiba.

Passive 3D TVs possess the ability to present high-quality theater 3D viewing using lightweight and less expensive passive polarized 3D glasses which do not require a power source.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer said, “. . . many people find passive polarized to be more comfortable. The weight of the glasses is better; it works better over (eye) glasses. It seems to provide a really comfortable long viewing experience.”

The other surprise in 3D demonstrated by Sony was their “glasses-free” autostereoscopic organic light emitting diode (OLED) 3D TV.

To see the 3D effect, you must stand in a specific location in front of the TV to correctly receive the light images being directed to your eyes.

In fact, black foot prints were painted on the floor in front of the Sony OLED 3D TV where you needed to stand.

The people who viewed it said they did see the full 3D effect, without having to wear 3D glasses.

The autostereoscopic 3D display screen works by sending two images to the right and the left eye by way of rays of light at different angles. Our brain connects this and creates the illusion of the 3D images we see without wearing 3D glasses.

There is not much 3D video content out there yet, but movie makers and game developers are beginning to create more.

Any one of us will be able to create our own 3D content using the new 3D camcorders Sony, JVC, and Panasonic are coming out with.

JVC’s 3D camcorder shown at the CES is called the Everio GS-TD1.

This camcorder has two sensors which capture 1080i 3D video. It contains an internal flash storage of 64GB and a 5X optical zoom.

The camcorder uses 4 to 8GB per hour while filming.

This is a full high definition (HD) camcorder and includes a 3D flat panel view finder.

The JVC Everio GS-TD1 camcorder includes 3D editing software and will be available for us in March at an estimated cost of $2,000.

Consumer 3D technology is still in its infancy, but I look for this medium to become more commonly used in the future.

Outdoors at the CES parking lot, General Motors demonstrated their futuristic autonomous vehicles.

These two-seat, self-enclosed electric urban transportation concept vehicles can travel about 25 miles in-between charges at a top speed of 30 mph.

This concept vehicle is called the EN-V, which stands for Electric Networked Vehicle.

These vehicles are built to communicate with other EN-Vs while traveling, in order to better manage the flow of traffic between them.

Folks were given rides in working red and blue EN-Vs while representatives of GM answered questions.

To see the GM EN-V in action at the 2011 CES, go to tinyurl.com/4chhame.

Ford Motor Company took the wraps off their new 2012 all-electric Ford Focus automobile during the 2011 CES.

The 2012 Focus uses a 23 kilowatt-hour liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack and has a top speed of 84 mph.

Recharging time from a 240-volt source is three to four hours.

Best Buy stores have been authorized by Ford to install the 240-volt charging stations for owners of the Ford Focus electric car.

The vehicles traveling distance has not yet been officially made known, however, one Ford spokesperson at the CES said it was about 100 miles.

To see the details of the 2012 Ford Focus Electric automobile, go to the Ford web page, http://tinyurl.com/49z7o3v.

The CES not only showcases larger company’s new product concepts, but also smaller independent inventor’s creations, as well.

Being this columnist is pretty much of an independent sort, I would like to devote some liquid (and virtual) ink to an inventor who came to CES with a unique product.

Her name is Nancy Tedeschi, and she came up with a practical new method for permanently attaching small screws to optical eyeglass frames and brought it to CES looking for dealers and distributors.

Her company is called “Snapit.”

To see how the product is used, watch the video at tinyurl.com/4eh3oq8.

Their website is www.snapitscrew.com.

The 2011 CES “Best in Show” award went to Motorola, for their new Xoom 10.1-inch personal computing tablet, which will be released to the public later this year.

Even as the 2011 CES was ending, a few live video streams were still broadcasting.

In one stream, I watched a small group of people aimlessly walking around the showroom floors.

Venders were tearing down their booths and talking amongst themselves.

A few people stood in one place – gazing at the emptying booths – appearing not wanting to leave.

44th Consumer Electronics Show takes place in Las Vegas

2011-01-06T07:23:00.001-08:00

January 10, 2011
by Mark Ollig

In what has become the annual “Gadget Mania” main event for tech enthusiasts, the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is taking place as this column goes to press.

The CES started Jan. 6 and ended Jan. 9.

This year’s CES expected an estimated 130,000 industry professionals, who would be looking over some 2,700 individually showcased high-tech companys exhibits and computing wares.

The CES is not open to the general public and so, most of these companies and developers use the CES as the platform to showcase their new products to the press and media.

Those attending the trade show must be in the consumer electronics industry or invited members of the press and media.

Last year’s popular CES gadgets included 3D televisions and electronic book readers, or e-readers.

What gadget will dominate this year?

Well, with the popularity of Apple’s iPad, it should come as no surprise to all of us that smart flat-screened tablet computing devices will be seen on just about every other manufacturer’s exhibit table.

If you have ever attended an industry trade show convention, you will no doubt recall listening to the exhibit presenters (acting more as carnival barkers) doing their best to sway passers-by to come over to their booth and check out their wares.

They would even offer a free gift to put in your bag.

I can just hear those enthusiastic techie carnival barkers at the CES now.

“Step right up, ladies and gentleman! See our latest and greatest high-tech, game-changing computing tablet devices that’ll knock the socks off that old Apple iPad!”

By the way, over 14 million Apple iPads were sold in 2010, so it’s not much of a surprise manufacturers are jumping on the computing tablet bandwagon.

One such manufacturer, Motorola was scheduled to present their new computing tablet device at the CES.

This new tablet is said to feature video chat capabilities and a dual core 3D processor. Its operating system will be Google’s new Android version 2.4, which is called “Honeycomb.”

Research In Motion is another company introducing a new computing tablet device.

It is called the “BlackBerry Playbook.”

While the iPad supports a 9.7-inch display screen, the BlackBerry Playbook uses a smaller, 7-inch screen.

The BlackBerry Playbook uses 1GB of RAM – which is more than the iPad’s 256MB of installed RAM.

The BlackBerry Playbook produces high definition video in 1080p, and features support for Adobe Flash, front and rear-facing cameras, and face-to-face video chat.

High Definition television maker Vizio is also introducing a mobile computing device called the “Via Tablet,” which includes an 8-inch multi-touch screen.

Vizio is partnering with a company called OnLive, which is a cloud-based gaming system provider. Vizio will incorporate OnLive’s gaming service into their new Via Tablet.

Technology company Asustek Computer, which is known for its notebook and netbook computers, plans to introduce their new “E Slate E121” tablet computing device at CES.

The E Slate E121 is equipped with a 12-inch touch screen and has an Intel Core i5 processor running with the Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system.

It is rumored Asustek may reveal another computing tablet model at the CES.

Asustek also introduced a new gadget at the CES which allows you to operate your personal computer by using controlled hand gestures and body motions.

So, not only can we talk to our computers, we can browse through the Internet and maneuver around applications by using hand and body movements.

I sense some of my readers might find this way of interacting with their computer a bit comical.

This new gadget by Asustek is expected to be released to the general public later this year.

Lenovo is another computing developer and manufacturer which is set to introduce a consumer tablet computing device at this year’s CES.

Lenovo’s computing tablet is called the “LePad” and is reported to use the Google Android operating system.

MicroVision also demonstrated their “Mini-Tablet” at the CES, with an embedded “Pico projector,” which can display widescreen images of up to 100 diagonal inches.

My readers may remember the Bits & Bytes column from Nov. 5, 2007, where the topic of Pico projectors was discussed.

Other computing tablets also make their first public appearances at the 2011 CES.

Apple’s next iPad device is smartly called the “iPad 2,” and is expected to be released this April.

Famous celebrities attended the 2011 CES, including CNN’s talk-show host Larry King.

Two-time NBA Champion and NBA All-Star, Bill Walton, was also at the CES and signed autographs.

Celebrating their 40th year together, the popular musical group “Earth, Wind & Fire” also at the CES this year and performed live.

Be sure to read next week’s Bits & Bytes, as your ever-diligent columnist reviews in greater detail, the entertaining highs (and lows) of the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show.

Future technology predictions...from the past

2010-12-28T09:10:00.000-08:00

January 3, 2011
by Mark Ollig

I started typing this column focusing on predictions about the new high-tech devices we might see this year.

While yours truly was methodically punching the keys on the QWERTY board, an unexpected pause occurred.

Seeing the words appearing on the screen I shook my head and thought “Let’s take this first-of-the-year column in a different direction.”

“Alright, so what would be interesting? How about a look at ‘past future predications’ and see how those turned out,” I reasoned.

And with that as our new subject, we are off and running.

Lee De Forest, who invented the Audion vacuum tube in 1906, made this interesting prediction related to space travel in 1926 “To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth – all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur, regardless of all future advances.”

In July 1969, the men of Apollo 11 accomplished this feat as described by De Forest.

It is also interesting to note that Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to travel into space April 12, 1961.

Lee De Forest would die a little more than two months later, June 30, 1961, at the age of 87.

De Forest did live long enough to have seen a man travel into space.

We find even popular national newspapers can miss with their predictions.

In 1936, the New York Times wrote “A rocket will never leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”

Just 10 years later, Oct. 24, 1946, one of Germany’s captured V2 missile rockets was launched by the US from New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range. The missile was equipped with a 35-millimeter motion film picture camera and reached a height of 65 miles in three minutes.

The camera recorded the first views of the Earth ever seen from space.

The “flying camera” would take a new picture frame every second and a half as it ascended above the Earth’s atmosphere.

The missile and camera fell back and crashed into the Earth at 500 miles an hour.

The camera itself was destroyed, but the film inside was protected by a hardened steel case.

A Universal News film of this event was made and can be seen at tinyurl.com/26koynb.

During 1946, Darryl F. Zanuck, a movie producer and the studio executive who started 20th Century Films and then later bought out Fox Studios to become 20th Century Fox, said, “(Television) won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”

Of course, we all know what became of that plywood box.

This week at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, the very first 3D television is scheduled to be presented, which does not require those cumbersome 3D glasses to view it with.

Yes, faithful readers, the first “naked-eye” 3D television is about to be made public.

In 1943, IBM founder Thomas J. Watson Sr. was reported to have made this prediction, “I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers.”

In checking the latest Gartner research figures, it is predicted during 2011, that 352.4 million personal computers will be sold.

If we include all tablet devices like the iPad and others, the total is estimated to be over 400 million computing devices.

Popular Mechanics magazine made this futuristic prediction in 1949, “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”

Recently, I checked and found today’s 11-inch MacBook Air computer weighs in at a fit and trim 2.3 pounds.

Time magazine wrote in 1966, “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop . . .”

Forrester Forecast, an independent research company, says approximately $173 billion will have been spent in 2010 in total online shopping sales in the US.

Your humble columnist (and telecommunications laborer) feels the need to include this 1961 prediction by FCC Commissioner T. Craven, “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.”

April 6, 1965, the US launched Intelsat 1. It became the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit over the Earth.

One prediction I will never forget was made the year I graduated from high school.

In 1977, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, Ken Olsen said, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

Make sure to check back with us next week, as we go over the exciting highlights from the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show taking place in Las Vegas this week.

Google's Chrome notebook finally arrives

2010-12-21T11:27:00.001-08:00

December 27, 2010
by Mark Ollig

The first column yours truly wrote for 2010 was about the new Google notebook computer.

In that column, I wrote how Google anticipated their new Web-based notebook computer would arrive sometime late this year.

Well, apparently Google feels this is late enough in the year.

The new Google Chrome OS (operating system) notebook, or “Cr-48” computer was made available to Google’s pilot program beta testers about two weeks ago.

Google describes this first effort to provide a strictly cloud-based computing notebook as “their test notebook” and “the first of its kind.”

The notebook itself has a 12.1-inch LCD display screen with a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels, a full-size keyboard, and a large surface touchpad.

The notebook weighs in at 3.8 pounds and operates with an Intel Atom N455 processor.

Its internal battery supplies about eight hours of continuous user computing activity and roughly one week’s worth of idle or stand-by reserve time.

There is a USB and SD card slot on the notebook. One beta tester mentioned “these don’t yet work properly,” and even Google states they do not serve any real purpose – yet.

To operate the Google notebook, one needs to be connected to the Internet and signed in under their Google account.

This notebook computer turns on (boots) very quickly (about 10 seconds) and will go in and out of standby or sleep mode instantly.

The Google Chrome notebook has been described as a larger netbook-type computer with a Web browser acting as the operating system inside of it.

What makes this particular notebook unique is that it uses “the cloud” as the venue, where all of its computer settings, music, video, work documents, games and other web applications reside.

I do see an advantage with this.

If the notebook computer became damaged or lost, a person could log back into their program applications using another Chrome notebook.

The user would have the very same desktop-like access to all programs and files in the identical manner they were accessed from the original notebook.

All of the computer’s bookmarks, applications and settings will be restored from the cloud.

This does mean, however, that you need to maintain a connection to the Internet in order to manage your applications.

The Google Chrome notebook is specifically designed to manage applications and programs from the Internet (using direct connection or wireless).

I read where Google is working to adapt their “Google Docs” online application to work in an offline mode. They expect this to be operational early next year.

The Google Chrome notebook allows for using multiple applications at the same time. Each application is opened using a separate tab – just like a regular Web browser can do.

A “full screen” mode key on the Chrome notebook allows the one application being used to occupy the entire display screen.

There are many applications and programs available for use with the Google Chrome notebook.

The thousands of existing applications now available for the Chrome Web browser (and soon to be added Chrome notebook) are accessible from the Chrome Web Store. They are easy to get – much like how folks access the iTunes Web Store or the Apple Store for their music and software applications.

The Google Chrome Web Store is at: https://chrome.google.com/webstore.

Google states the Chrome notebook evolves with the Web. Every time the Chrome notebook is turned on and connects to the Internet, it automatically upgrades itself with the latest features and fixes.

One feature on the Chrome notebook allows a user to keep a conversation going with an open chat window while composing an e-mail message.

One of the beta testers mentioned printing, from the notebook via Google’s Web Print, has some issues, and is “not stable.”

This beta tester also questions how one could easily move all existing music, photo, and video files stored on a computer hard drive to the cloud if a person wished to transition fully to cloud computing.

Sounds like the makings of a future Bits & Bytes column to me.

If all of our future computing does take place inside the cloud, we will no longer need the conventional Windows or Mac operating systems inside our notebook or desktop computers.

This is because the real action will be taking place over the network and inside the cloud; our computer will become just another simple hardware “device” connected to it.

The CNET website uploaded a YouTube video explaining their beta testing experiences using the new Google Chrome Cr-48 notebook at: tinyurl.com/25e6d3s.

Google has their own YouTube video at: tinyurl.com/34vtnnq.

You can also learn more about the Google Chrome notebook from: tinyurl.com/2g5vo2r.

Google created a humorous video about what happens when your new Chrome notebook is damaged beyond repair: tinyurl.com/266j64w.

The Google Chrome OS notebook computer to be made available for the general public is rumored to be in the $200 price range.

Tech highlights: 2000-2010

2010-12-15T13:31:00.001-08:00

December 20, 2010
by Mark Ollig

As we approach 2011, I thought it would be appropriate for us to look back and recall some of the milestones in technology we have witnessed since 2000.

It was in the year 2000, when the 10-millionth website was confirmed as being online.

At the start of 2010, there were approximately 234 million websites available over the Internet.

Global Position Systems (GPS) originally developed by the Department of Defense as a military system, became available for civilian use in 2000. GPS is a satellite-based system which provides precise location and timing information to users all over the world.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drives (used to connect computing devices) were first publicly obtainable when Trek Technology and IBM began selling them in 2000.

Sony launched its PlayStation 2 video game console in 2000.

The next year, Microsoft released its own video game system called the Xbox.

In January 2001, we came across the presence of the noteworthy – and yet sometimes controversial – Wikipedia website. This non-profit site currently contains more than 17 million articles which have been written collaboratively by people from around the world. These articles can also be edited by anyone with proper user access to the site.

One of the today’s most popular media-player devices made its debut Oct. 23, 2001, when Apple first introduced the iPod. As of April 2010, more than 260 million iPods have been sold world-wide.

The year 2002 saw the invention of a helpful (and entertaining) household robot known as the Roomba. This circular 13.4-inch in diameter device is an electronic robotic vacuum which navigates around the inside of your house, cleaning the floor. It has built-in sensors which keep it from running into walls, and it won’t fall down the stairs – which is always a good thing.

Apple’s iTunes Music Store made its introduction in 2003, and Time magazine proclaimed it as the “invention of the year.”

In 2003, Apple also released its new Safari graphical web browser on their Mac OS X operating system. (A Microsoft Windows version of Safari became available in 2007).

With our computer and a headset, we were making telephone calls over the Internet in 2003 using Skype, a software creation of two Estonian developers.

The online social networking site called Facebook was launched in 2004. As of July 2010, Facebook boasts more than 500 million active users, with your humble columnist being one of them.

Google started a free e-mail service called Google Mail, commonly known as “Gmail,” in 2004. Paul Buchheit is the programmer responsible for its creation.

Mozilla’s FireFox, a popular web browser alternative to the Microsoft Internet Explorer, was first released Nov. 9, 2004.

The year 2005 saw a ground-breaking method of sharing video files, when YouTube went online.

We began to tweet short-length messages to the world in July 2006, when Twitter appeared on the Internet scene.

In 2007, we were broadcasting our own video content creations live over social networks like Justin.tv and Ustream.tv.

Apple’s first Internet and multimedia-enabled smart phone, called the iPhone, first hit stores Jan. 9, 2007. One interacts with the iPhone via its glass liquid-crystal display touch-screen.

In March 2007, the Hulu website began showing streaming video of movies and television shows from most of the major mainstream networks and studios.

Amazon.com released the first Kindle e-book reader in the US Nov. 19, 2007.

Google came out with a graphical user web browser with its introduction of Chrome on Sept. 2, 2008.

Apple’s MacBook Air, a thin 13.3” notebook, was made available to the public Jan. 15, 2008.

In 2009, Google reveals a “big secret” at its April 1 Google Data Center Energy Summit conference in Mountain View, CA. Google announced that it builds its own computer servers. Each individual computer file server contains an internal 12-volt battery pack.

Jan. 27, 2010, Apple’s chairman and CEO, Steve Jobs, introduced the long-awaited iPad at an Apple press conference in San Francisco. The iPad is configured with 16, 32, or 64 GB of internal flash drive storage.

“Cloud computing” became a buzz word during 2010.

Many in the industry believe “the cloud” may become the future venue where we will store, access, and manage our documentation and all other web-based applications, software, and files. The programs we previously stored inside our personal computers’ hard drive will reside and be accessible from encrypted computer file servers attached to the Internet.

Just this month, Google came out with its new notebook computer specifically designed for using software applications stored in the cloud. The Google Chrome notebook uses Google’s Chrome Operating System.

My concern about cloud computing remains centered on the safety and security of the information being stored.

A video tour demonstration of the new Google Chrome notebook can be seen at tinyurl.com/2wwa69g.

The future discoveries, innovations, and technical advances of 2011 are yet to be revealed to us.

At the start of 2000, we talked about how much storage space our personal computers held using terms such as megabytes. By 2005, we spoke of gigabytes. It is now near the end of 2010, and we are speaking in terabytes.

The adventure continues . . . so stay tuned.

Holiday gift ideas for the tech-minded

2010-12-09T07:47:00.001-08:00

December 13, 2010
by Mark Ollig

Well, faithful readers, it’s that time of year again, when the holiday phobia known as, “What do I buy them again this year?” makes itself known.

We are fortunate it’s 2010; we have so many marvelous new tech toys and devices available.

One of them is from D-Link, who sells the new Boxee Box device.

This intelligent, small cube is essentially a media player which easily connects your home television to the Internet.

The Boxee Box has a unique design. It is, in fact, box-shaped – albeit a couple corners missing.

The device measures 4.7 inches on each side and has a flush power button on its top and a nonskid rubber base.

It sits at a funny angle, but the shape was designed this way on purpose in order to avoid having the box easily pulled back by the cables connected from the TV and Internet router.

Boxee Box’s website makes the statement, “Just plug this little guy into your TV with the included HDMI cord, connect to the Internet via wireless or Ethernet, and you’re set to watch your favorite shows and movies from the Internet on your flat-screen TV.”

The built-in software allows it to always be looking for your favorite video content; you are constantly kept up-to-date with the latest videos available from the Net.

The Boxee Box makes these video streams available for you to watch via its navigational on-screen menu displayed on your television.

The Boxee Box also includes sources for thousands of TV show episodes accessible from the Internet. Find the show you want to watch, click play, and enjoy.

The video-streaming movies and television shows are viewed on your regular television.

What is nice about the Boxee Box is that you need only the Internet connection, not cable or satellite TV, and there are no monthly fees for using the Boxee Box.

The Boxee Box itself is fundamentally a personal computer-like device running with Linux operating system software. The hardware processor is Intel’s Atom CE4100 SoC (system-on-chip processor), running at 1.2 GHz.

The Boxee Box can support dual 1080p video streams, along with advanced 3-D graphics and audio.

Since many of our favorite movies and shows are being uploaded to the Internet, we have an almost endless supply of them to choose from, so it makes sense to use the Boxee Box for watching any video you want, when you want.

The Boxee also works well with the Netflix online movie library.

An SD (secure digital) card slot is found on the Boxee Box which can be used to display the pictures from your camera’s SD memory card.

One can also access the videos, music, or pictures from your personal computer or any network drive with the Boxee.

The Boxee Box comes with a remote control unit, an HMDI (high-definition multimedia interface) cable, Ethernet port, 802.11n Wi-Fi, two USB ports, and composite audio connectors.

The Boxee Box supports the following operating system platforms: Apple Mac, Linux, and Windows.

So, now your favorite techno-geek can watch real Web TV on their high-definition television without having to use the family computer.

The Boxee Box is priced at about $200.

For more information, check out the website at http://www.boxee.tv.

A fun tech toy on my list this year is the . . . say it out loud with me . . . “WowWee Robosapien V2 Full Function Humanoid Robot.”

This entertaining, programmable robot comes equipped with hearing and vision sensors.

It will respond using its voice (in English) when someone speaks to it.

Standing at nearly 2 feet tall, the robot can “see” people close by using its vision-sensor eyes, and will follow the movement of objects around it.

The robot’s grip sensors allow it to pick up small items, too.

This holiday gift is a bit pricey, at nearly $500, but hey, you are getting a real, live robot for your money.

Just go to YouTube and search for videos on WowWee Robosapien V2 Full Function Humanoid Robots to see them in action.

A couple of robots I remember playing with as a youth were called the “Rock’em Sock’em Robots.”

For those of you over 50 who like to reminiscence, check out this memorable television commercial from our youth at tinyurl.com/35r326.

Utilizing the Internet during US - S. Korea military exercises

2010-12-02T14:50:00.000-08:00

Dec. 6, 2010
by Mark Ollig

The USS George Washington (CVN 73) arrived off the coast of South Korea a couple of weeks ago to participate in Naval drill exercises in the Yellow Sea.

With the drill taking place close to North Korea, one could expect some tension.

I did what many folks do; I looked to the mainstream media for updated news and information.

When I turned on the television, I was surprised by the lack of any real-time coverage of this event as it unfolded.

So, on the evening of Nov. 27, I instead turned to the Internet.

Using http://hashtags.org, I was able to follow the Twitter hashtag’s being used, which relayed messages about the Naval drill and the events taking place.

I then spent the next 30 minutes filtering out the many repetitive messages.

Most Twitter users were merely repeating or “re-tweeting” the same thing to each other.

There wasn’t any current news up to this point.

Then, one message (sandwiched in-between the repetitive stream) appeared, which stood out uniquely from the others.

The message came from a source who was actually reporting the events as they were happening in South Korea.

The posted message read, “We’ve now got reliable info that both surface-to-surface & surface-to-air missiles being readied in N. Korea on the west coast.”

This communication read like it was being reported from a news war correspondent in the field.

The Twitter’s user name was @W7VOA.

W7VOA is actually Steven L. Herman, who is the Voice of America (VOA) Bureau Chief/Correspondent covering the Korean peninsula and Japan.

Herman was also a print and broadcast reporter and editor with the Associated Press.

He is currently based on the scene in Seoul South Korea.

Herman’s personal web link, where his direct posts are being sent to, can be seen scrolling in real-time at http://tvtokyo.com/steve.html.

Late that night, Nov. 27, a message posted from W7VOA read “AFP photographer on Yeonpyeong says anyone still there ordered to take shelter in bunkers.”

Later, W7VOA sent this report via his Blackberry, “Ministry tells all journalists remaining on Yeonpyeong to evacuate island by taking 1900KST ferry to Incheon.”

Another reporter named Sam Kim, who was covering North Korea, sent messages under the user name @egalite_twitted. He posted fresh new pictures of the USS George Washington upon its arrival at http://ow.ly/3gzHm.

This reporter works for Seoul’s Yonhap news outlet, their website is http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr.

“Wish I could see inside South Korea right now,” I thought.

I opened another tab in my web browser to search for any live webcams (video camera’s transmitting live images over the Internet) originating from South Korea.

It was 10 o’clock at night here, which meant it was 1 o’clock in the afternoon and still daylight in South Korea.

A South Korean website map showed the locations of 13 webcams.

I clicked on the link of the webcam located in the most northern section of South Korea and closest to North Korea.

This website, originating from South Korea, appears in Korean text; however, at the top of the web page I saw an “ENG” translations icon, thus saving yours truly from having to learn the Korean language.

The most northern webcam was called “Sunrise of Han River.”

Clicking this link opened the sites webcam online video player.

Soon, I was watching in real-time, outdoor events occurring in this part of South Korea.

The webcam is physically located in Haneul Park, which is right along the Hangang River.

This is the website’s description of the webcam’s location, “Haneul Park is a grass park that is the nearest to the sky settled in the 2nd Nanjido reclaimed land, having a wonderful look of Seoul at one sight.”

“Especially here you could see Seoul at one sight, those are Buchanan to the north, Namsan and 63 Building to the south, and Hangjusanseong to the west,” the translated text on the webpage explained.

This particular webcam automatically pans slowly back and forth, showing almost a full panoramic view of the surrounding area.

One could see brush and grass gently swaying in a light breeze along the countryside and in the background were several rolling hills underneath a blue sky.

The webcam showed the Sungsan Grand Bridge, buildings, and highways with cars traveling along them unimpeded.

When I checked this webcam during the night, thousands of individual dots of light emanating from building windows were clearly visible.

Seoul is to the southeast, and Incheon is to the southwest of this webcam’s location.

The link I used to find the webcam is http://livecam.seoul.go.kr.

In the morning, Nov. 29, W7VOA messaged, “Pentagon now confirms there will be “live fire” exercises as part of the US-ROK naval drill in Yellow Sea.”

Nov. 30 W7VOA reported ,“Gen. Sharp, the USFK commander, says “situation is calmer,” but will continue to keep all informed.”

Using the Internet, I was able to view in real-time a northern geographical location in South Korea, while receiving up-to-the-minute messages sent out by news correspondents based inside South Korea.

All of us have the means to go online and independently learn about (or report on) late-breaking news events as they happen.

"Vintage" Bits and Bytes - from the archives (December 15, 1997)

2010-11-23T06:53:00.000-08:00

Bits and Bytes
By Mark Ollig
December 15, 1997

“A Personal Experience”

This latest “adventure-in-computing” column was the day someone (me) spilled cappuccino all over my brand new HP OmniBook laptop.

My first thought was “I can’t believe I did this!”

I am referring to about a week ago when I was doing some work with my laptop computer and sipping cappuccino.

I usually set the cup on the table away from the computer.

This time I didn’t. I set it next to my computer.

Getting back to the cappuccino. Yes, it was sitting there on the desk next to my computer, and over the course of an hour I had expertly handled it with great care making sure I didn’t commit the cardinal sin of all computer users: Spilling something on the computer.

Reaching for the cup again, I did it.

“I don’t believe I actually did this,” I said out loud, with no one but the cat looking at me.

The first thing I did was to get the computer off the pool of dark brown liquid.

But it was too late.

Hazel Nut cappuccino had done its deed all over my Hewlett Packard OmniBook.

I did the normal, rational thing. I turned off the computer and went crazy getting a towel. . . and trying to wipe off the desk and computer.

Oh, yes, the cat was still in the room, no doubt laughing its little feline head off at me.

After I calmed down, I assessed the situation.

I opened up the laptop and pressed the power button.

Nothing happened.

You know that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when you realize that something terrible has occurred?

“It is still under warranty!” I exclaimed. I can just drop it off where I bought it and have them open it up and take a look.

As I walked in the show room, the salesman smiled and asked if I needed anything.

Yes, I know why he was smiling.

“Well, I had an accident and spilled cappuccino on this,” I said to him. “But it still should be under warranty.”

He went over to his computer (by the way, I noticed he had no cups near his computer) and looked up my computer and warranty information.

“The good news is that the computer is still under warranty.” He said. “The bad news is that the warranty doesn’t cover spills.”

Well, I was there so I let them look at it anyway.

“They seem to put the screws on these computers in the hardest to find places,” the technician said nervously.

I started thinking that maybe I should leave.

“Well, I know how it feels to have someone staring over your shoulder while you’re trying to work on something, so I have a few things I can do and I will stop by in a half hour and see how you’re coming along.”

“Thanks,” the technician said with some relief.

While I was in my car driving, I thought, I should have taken the laptop battery out and then see if it would turn on with only the AC running it. Maybe the battery is shorting out.

Thinking I had found the answer and could save time, I called the technician on my car phone and asked him to try that and see if it would power up.

Nope.

“Nice idea though,” the technician told me.

After awhile, I went back to the store and asked how it was going.

“It is working now!” the salesman beamed.

They had opened up the computer and used compressed air to dry it out.

“Shouldn’t be long now; there is just one thing that we are checking,” the salesman said.

Twenty minutes went by and I was wondering what was taking so long.

“We can’t seem to get the mouse to work,” he told me.

“What mouse? I didn’t bring it in with my mouse,” I said.

They had connected one of their mice to my computer to check it out and their mouse wasn’t working on it so they thought there was another problem.

“You have to use the HP mouse that uses the HP mouse driver,” I said.

Silence.

I got home and turned on the computer, plugged in the HP mouse (which worked) and made sure the ol’ OmniBook computer was OK.

The experience made me realize an important object lesson for all of us.

Keep the beverages away from the computer.

Web Summit 2.0 provides unique Internet forum

2010-11-18T08:24:00.001-08:00

Nov. 22, 2010
by Mark Ollig

The seventh annual Web Summit 2.0 conference in San Francisco last week brought online business leaders together to communicate their expertise regarding commerce over the Internet.

Some shared their thoughts about ways to utilize “content consumers information” on the Web – more or less to “open up our virtual wallets” and purchase the services and products they are selling.

Yours truly was able to watch some of the event’s content via the live streaming video feed.

Last Tuesday, while watching the live video, I noted the number of online viewers hit 2,504.

John Hayes, a global marketing officer for American Express, told the audience in attendance how the competition for business needs to “worry about the people in a garage starting an online business and then reaching 2 billion people faster than any existing business situated in a brick and mortar building.”

Another speaker, Mary Meeker, is a managing director and serves as leader of Morgan Stanley’s global technology research team.

Meeker’s presentation started off with a list of the current top Internet markets.

The number one market is China, with 384 million users; followed by the US with 240 million. Brazil is third, with 76 million users. India comes in fourth, with 61 million; and Russia rounds out the top five with its 60 million users.

A change in how the majority of us are accessing the Internet is also going through a revolution of sorts.

The number of personal mobile devices like iPhones, Blackberrys, iPods, Droids and iPads accessing the Web is increasing dramatically.

“A mobile device connected to the cloud [Internet] is how people want to interact with media,” said Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, during his presentation.

Meeker pointed out that the US leads the world in the top mobile Internet market statistics, with 136.6 million mobile devices, which includes 3G.

Japan is second at 106.3 million, while China is ranked 12th with 13.3 million mobile device users.

Three hundred million mobile devices were being used world-wide in 2004.

By 2012, global shipments of mobile smartphone devices will surpass notebook personal computers.

Desktop computers were surpassed in total global shipments by notebook personal computers in 2009.

Meeker’s research information comes from the World Cellular Information Service (WCIS).

Facebook is thought to be the largest online social network, with 620 million users world-wide, however, it is not.

Tencent, founded in 1998, is the name of the largest online social network in China, and it is reported to have 637 million active users.

Facebook is, however, the largest online social network in English-speaking countries.

Speaking of exploding online-user social networks, YouTube’s servers are now being downloaded with an average of 35 hours worth of user video content per minute.

Meeker’s power point presentation chart showed the total number of global Internet users in 1995 was around 6 million.

At the end of 2009, there were an estimated 1.2 billion users.

In 1995, the online ad revenues per user was approximately $9, and the total global online Internet ad revenue generated was $55 million dollars.

By 2009, these numbers jumped dramatically with $46 worth of ad revenue being generated per user and an incredible $54 billion being generated globally via Internet e-commerce.

In the very near future, “contactless” payment technology will become the new method used for making quick payments.

Imagine shopping at your favorite store and paying for your purchases simply by waving or swiping your iPhone in front of a wireless payment terminal reader on your way out the door.

No need for the plastic credit card, writing a check or fumbling with cash.

Our mobile devices handsets will soon be equipped with technology enabling them to be used for making “contactless payments.”

Nokia has confirmed a new software upgrade will take place early next year which will activate what is called the “near-field communication” (NFC) chip.

NFC is a short range wireless system which allows data to be transferred between devices.

Google announced that NFC software will be included in their next update of Google’s smartphone operating system, Android 2.3.

Visa and DeviceFidelity, will also launch a mobile contactless payment technology for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS devices.

Web Summit 2.0 provided some mind-blowing numbers.

In 2004, there were 300 million devices connected to the Internet.

By 2020, it is estimated 1 trillion (yes, trillion) consumer-electronic devices will be connected to the Internet’s social and media networks.

A speaker from Cisco Systems stated, by 2013 they forecast the yearly global IP (Internet Protocol) traffic will reach 667 exabytes and all Internet video content will generate 18 exabytes per month.

An exabyte is about one quintillion bytes, or around one billion gigabytes.

The next number above an exabyte is called a zettabyte, which is about 1,000 exabytes.

Okay, I need to take a couple Advil tablets for my headache now.

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Web Summit 2.0 provides unique Internet forum