Top 7 Disruptions of the Year
* By Epicenter Staff Email Author
* December 28, 2009 |
* 12:00 am |
* Categories: Crowdsourcing, Future Shock, Media, Miscellaneous, People, Search, Social Media
*
yelp iphone app augmented reality
Technology is like a dog; each year of it seems like the equivalent of seven human years — at least when you get to the end of it and realize it's only been 12 months since that now indispensable service first launched.
We spent 2009 documenting technology's disruption of how we live, entertain ourselves and do business. Looking back on the year from the comfortable perch of December, here are the seven most disruptive developments of 2009.
Google Stack
It's been a running joke for the last few years that Google knows everything you do online, but 2009 might be the year that Google became a full-scale technology platform — with technologies that layer on top of one another to create the "Google Stack." From your smartphone through to your enterprise's document-creation software, Google now has you covered, with promises of more to come. That means the list of companies whose revenues Google plans to undermine continues to grow (We're thinking about you, AT&T, Skype and Microsoft.)
2009 saw Google start to land in users' pockets, thanks to the the Android OS showing up on the coolest phones from three of the four dominant U.S. carriers. In July, Google announced the Google Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system that runs web services like Gmail and Google Calendar with a speed comparable to pesky installable software. Your Chrome browser will need to know how to get Google Apps, so it will use Google DNS (new for '09 too, just like Chrome for Mac).
When your friends want to reach you, they'll call your Google Voice number or they'll add a message to the right Google Wave. Or they'll visit your website hosted on Google Sites, click on the Google AdSense ads, which will fund the dinner you just added to you Google Calendar and will write about on your Google Blogger blog. And almost all of that is free so you won't need Google Checkout to pay for their services. And if there's a service missing from that stack (say photo sharing via Picasa), you can always use a search engine called Google to find it.
Mobile App Stores
Before Apple disrupted the mobile-phone market by granting thousands of software developers access to the iPhone through the App Store, cell carriers used to allow only a handful of companies to make stuff for their phones. Consumers and developers put up with it because we had no choice, but the App Store changed that.
Apple still exerts some control over which apps are sold in its store, but had approved over 100,000 apps as of November — an astonishing number no matter how you slice it. Google's Android app store now includes over 20,000 apps, and the concept is spreading to other platforms. Carriers now view third-party-designed apps as a way to augment their offerings and sell bigger data plans, rather than viewing them as an unconscionable loss of control. The app store phenomenon made the cellphone more like the personal computer, and we're all the better for it.
But as disruptive as the app stores are, they may not exist in five years, thanks to the next item on our list.
HTML5
Web protocols aren't as sexy as the iPhone, but they could soon replace the app store as mobile web browsers improve to run Javascript and HTML5, allowing developers to create what they make as apps today as mobile web pages tomorrow. Rather than developing a different app for every type of phone, they'll be able to write the code once and have it run everywhere.
Apps are everywhere right now — whatever you're looking for, there's an app for that, as the commercial says. But as the president of Mozilla's mobile division said, "Over time, the web will win, because it always does." Gmail's Mobile website already leans hard on HTML5 and is nearly as snappy as a native app. Still doubt that HTML5 can make Apple's apps obsolete? The same thing happened with applications that run on computers (see Google Stack), much to Microsoft's chagrin.
A New FCC
The FCC, under the leadership of Obama's law school classmate Julius Genachowski, is taking its job as the guardian of the nation's airwaves seriously again. The agency is talking about the politically controversial step of taking back spectrum from over-the-air TV broadcasters and making it available for wireless users.
Then this summer, the agency stuck their noses into Apple's app store to see why the Google Voice application was rejected — forcing AT&T to declare it would let VoIP applications on all their phones. They are setting formal 'net neutrality' rules and in the face of strong opposition from the wireless industry, plan to apply them to wireless, satellite, cable and DSL providers alike. It's trying to break the cable company's monopoly on set-top boxes, so you can buy one that actually does cool stuff.
And all the while, it's been hard at work composing the country's first-ever national broadband plan, which is due in February (though all signals are the plan will be pragmatic, rather than revolutionary). That's a far cry from the Bush era, where the agency took two years and a public roadshow before it ordered Comcast to stop blocking peer-to-peer file sharing.
journeyStreaming Music
This was the year streaming really took off, and Pandora and YouTube were the big winners in the music space — YouTube's video service allows it to stream on-demand music that music-only services can't afford.
Google's searches now link directly to on-demand music streaming services (see screenshot), which puts the phenomenon squarely in the mainstream. And more of us are listening to cloud-based music than ever before, through websites, MP3 blogs, MP3 blog aggregators, streaming software and mobile apps.
We're finishing the year with less diversity in the music space than we started with; Apple acquired Lala, and MySpace bought iLike and imeem. But these acquisitions are a sign that the big players recognize that the future belongs not to iTunes and iPods, but to web-based services and connected devices.
The Real-Time Web
Twitter is mostly just a protocol for publishing short little messages to the web, but in 2009, the little startup continued its shakeup of the net's landscape, and is on track to become what its leaked internal documents show it hopes to be: the "pulse of the planet." It's not quite that yet, despite becoming a player in the battle over Iran's future. But it has launched the notion of a real-time web, where netizens are constantly and instantaneously updated — even if it's just about the funny billboard your friend just walked by.
Add to that location services like foursquare and loopt — which report where you are — and the unproven concept of reporting to everyone what you bought via Blippy.com, and you've come up with a recipe for a net that values headlines over nut graphs, narcissism over thoughtfulness, and speed over deliberation.
But the notion was powerful enough to send Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all racing to add Twitter and Facebook posts to their search results, regardless of the utility. And Facebook got envious, re-doing its entire approach to social networking by pushing all of its users to post publicly in an attempt to become the net's vanity press. The upshot of it all: Add "get a prescription to Provigil" to your list of New Year's resolutions if you hope to keep up.
Augmented Reality
This year the world got its first real taste of mobile augmented-reality apps, which overlay digital information on top of analog reality. The idea is to let you see restaurant ratings floating over restaurants, peoples' tweets appear over their heads, what song they're listening to and so on.
Augmented reality is still a work-in-progress as developers iron out kinks such as the floating tag problem, and as consumers get used to the idea. But in a sense, it's already here — from geotagged photos to phones with compasses and maps in them, the internet already intersects with the world at specific locations, letting us access data where it's most relevant.
What did we miss?
Photo: Yelp's augmented-reality iPhone app shows you a restaurant's rating simply by pointing a phone's camera in the right direction.
Top 7 Disruptions of the Year | Epicenter | Wired.com (28 December 2009)
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Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
So Many Flat-Panel TVs. Which Is Right for You? By ERIC A. TAUB
June 18, 2009
So Many Flat-Panel TVs. Which Is Right for You? By ERIC A. TAUB
Just a few years ago, consumers interested in purchasing an HDTV set had to ask themselves just one simple question: Do I have a spare $10,000?
Today, as prices for LCD and plasma HDTVs race to the bottom, flat panel TVs have approached commodity status; stand outside many big-box retailers and you’ll see waves of customers rolling TVs to their cars.
As a result, both well known and virtually unknown TV manufacturers are introducing new features and system tweaks intended to differentiate themselves from the competition and get consumers to buy.
Buying a flat panel TV today means figuring out what resolution you need, how well the set produces a wide contrast ratio, whether the sound system is adequate, whether you can connect the set to the Internet and — most importantly — how to separate important features from marketing gimmicks.
If you’re ready to buy a new TV, here’s a rundown of the latest marketing angles and some tips on how to make a decision.
PLASMA VS. LCD VS. LED While LCD TVs have captured the public’s imagination and the bulk of TV market share, plasma TV still has a leg up when it comes to perceived image sharpness, the richness of its blacks and, often, price. Smaller sets, those below 40 inches in size, are only available as LCD models. In larger sizes, 50 inches and up, plasma tends to be cheaper than LCD.
In an attempt to increase sales and profit, several manufacturers, including LG, Samsung and Toshiba, have introduced so-called LED TVs. There is no such thing as an LED TV; they are simply LCD TVs that use LEDs, rather than fluorescent lamps, to light the screen.
Depending on the type of LED configuration used, some LED-lit LCD TVs — those that use a so-called backlight array — create richer blacks than standard LCD TVs, approaching the level that plasma sets have already achieved. But beware: if you opt for an LED-lit LCD today, you will probably pay a hefty price premium compared with a standard set. The Toshiba Regza SV670, for example, is a 46-inch LED-backlit LCD. It has a suggested retail price of $2,300. A 46-inch plasma from Panasonic costs as little as $1,100.
DISPELLING MYTHS ABOUT PLASMA Early plasma sets were plagued with problems of image burn-in, high power consumption and a relatively short display life. But today’s sets have conquered those issues.
Plasma panels from Panasonic, for example, offer 100,000 hours of life before the image has dimmed to 50 percent of its original brightness. If you watch TV four hours a night, every day of the year, that milestone wouldn’t be reached for 68 years.
When it comes to picture quality, plasma TV remains the benchmark, generally achieving higher black levels (and hence higher perceived resolution), better motion rendition and better viewing angles than most LCD TVs.
“The best LCD sets are now approaching plasmas in their ability to display black levels,” said Jim Willcox, Consumer Reports’ senior electronics editor.
VIEWING ANGLE If you typically watch TV with family members on the floor, or have friends sprawled across the couch to watch the big game, LCD TVs, with their limited angle of view, may not be for you. As you move away from the center of the screen, LCD TVs tend to lose their contrast and color saturation.
“LCD viewing angles have gone from poor to good, but there are still a number of sets that are only fair,” said Mr. Willcox.
MOTION DETECTION LCD TVs have traditionally had more trouble displaying motion than plasma sets. If you generally watch sitcoms and news shows, that won’t be a problem. But if you’re into fast-moving sports you’ll want a set that won’t turn a slide into first base into a blurred mess.
Manufacturers have improved the way that LCD TVs handle motion by introducing sets that use 120 Hz technology; simply put, the set’s circuitry doubles the number of video frames, smoothing out the motion.
Some manufacturers have gone a step further, introducing 240 Hz TVs that quadruple the number of frames.
Can most people see the difference? Unless you’re buying a gigantic TV, probably not, according to executives at the top TV manufacturers. But it makes for a nice marketing strategy. Before you pay extra to buy a 240 Hz set, watch a favorite DVD on TVs that use that and the less-expensive 120 Hz technology, and see if you can tell the difference.
SCREEN RESOLUTION While 1080p TVs have become almost standard issue, if you’re on a tight budget you can still save money by buying a lower-resolution 720p or 1080i resolution set.
Whether you can see the difference in screen sharpness depends in part on how far you sit from the set. If you’re watching a 30-inch HDTV screen from 20 feet away, they’ll all look the same.
Various charts are available to show you how far you should sit from a particular size screen in order to maximize the perceived resolution.
THIN AND THINNER Today’s flat TVs have slimmed down, with some plasma and LCD sets not much more than an inch deep.
The thinner they are, the higher the price. And unless you’re planning on mounting the TV on the wall, thinner sets may give you bragging rights, but with their higher prices, they’ll also give you a thinner wallet.
Also, the thinner the set, the more difficult it is to get decent sound out of the speakers that generally need to face downward to conserve space. “Downward facing speakers do not work well,” said Gary Merson, owner of HDGuru.com. “They sound as if you’re speaking to someone while facing away from them.”
ARE YOU WELL-CONNECTED? Modern HDTVs, as well as the additional audio and video components you’ll join to them, use HDMI cables as the standard connection method. Unlike other cables, HDMI combines audio and video; Blu-ray signals will only pass through an HDMI plug.
Before you decide on your purchase, figure out how many HDMI inputs you’ll need on the TV. If you plan on connecting a Blu-ray or DVD player, an audio receiver, a digital video recorder and a video game console, that could be as many as four. Some manufacturers offer a side-mounted HDMI input, handy for the occasional times you want to plug in a digital video camcorder.
SURF’S UP Many new HDTVs from most manufacturers, including LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp and Vizio, offer proprietary Web-based content, like news, weather, YouTube videos, the Picasa photo site and access to certain movies and TV shows from Netflix and Amazon’s online download services.
To receive it, you’ll need an HDTV that has an Ethernet connection. New models are beginning to appear that offer wireless connections, perfect for those whose Ethernet access is in another room.
Even if you’re not interested in accessing Web-based content on your TV, an Ethernet connection can prove useful when a manufacturer needs to upgrade the digital TV’s operating system to, for example, address incompatibilities between it and a set-top box.
Some day, manufacturers will be able to use your TV’s Internet connection to remotely diagnose any problems with the set.
Technicians from the electronics maker Sharp can already remotely adjust picture quality over the Internet.
So Many Flat-Panel TVs. Which Is Right for You? By ERIC A. TAUB
Just a few years ago, consumers interested in purchasing an HDTV set had to ask themselves just one simple question: Do I have a spare $10,000?
Today, as prices for LCD and plasma HDTVs race to the bottom, flat panel TVs have approached commodity status; stand outside many big-box retailers and you’ll see waves of customers rolling TVs to their cars.
As a result, both well known and virtually unknown TV manufacturers are introducing new features and system tweaks intended to differentiate themselves from the competition and get consumers to buy.
Buying a flat panel TV today means figuring out what resolution you need, how well the set produces a wide contrast ratio, whether the sound system is adequate, whether you can connect the set to the Internet and — most importantly — how to separate important features from marketing gimmicks.
If you’re ready to buy a new TV, here’s a rundown of the latest marketing angles and some tips on how to make a decision.
PLASMA VS. LCD VS. LED While LCD TVs have captured the public’s imagination and the bulk of TV market share, plasma TV still has a leg up when it comes to perceived image sharpness, the richness of its blacks and, often, price. Smaller sets, those below 40 inches in size, are only available as LCD models. In larger sizes, 50 inches and up, plasma tends to be cheaper than LCD.
In an attempt to increase sales and profit, several manufacturers, including LG, Samsung and Toshiba, have introduced so-called LED TVs. There is no such thing as an LED TV; they are simply LCD TVs that use LEDs, rather than fluorescent lamps, to light the screen.
Depending on the type of LED configuration used, some LED-lit LCD TVs — those that use a so-called backlight array — create richer blacks than standard LCD TVs, approaching the level that plasma sets have already achieved. But beware: if you opt for an LED-lit LCD today, you will probably pay a hefty price premium compared with a standard set. The Toshiba Regza SV670, for example, is a 46-inch LED-backlit LCD. It has a suggested retail price of $2,300. A 46-inch plasma from Panasonic costs as little as $1,100.
DISPELLING MYTHS ABOUT PLASMA Early plasma sets were plagued with problems of image burn-in, high power consumption and a relatively short display life. But today’s sets have conquered those issues.
Plasma panels from Panasonic, for example, offer 100,000 hours of life before the image has dimmed to 50 percent of its original brightness. If you watch TV four hours a night, every day of the year, that milestone wouldn’t be reached for 68 years.
When it comes to picture quality, plasma TV remains the benchmark, generally achieving higher black levels (and hence higher perceived resolution), better motion rendition and better viewing angles than most LCD TVs.
“The best LCD sets are now approaching plasmas in their ability to display black levels,” said Jim Willcox, Consumer Reports’ senior electronics editor.
VIEWING ANGLE If you typically watch TV with family members on the floor, or have friends sprawled across the couch to watch the big game, LCD TVs, with their limited angle of view, may not be for you. As you move away from the center of the screen, LCD TVs tend to lose their contrast and color saturation.
“LCD viewing angles have gone from poor to good, but there are still a number of sets that are only fair,” said Mr. Willcox.
MOTION DETECTION LCD TVs have traditionally had more trouble displaying motion than plasma sets. If you generally watch sitcoms and news shows, that won’t be a problem. But if you’re into fast-moving sports you’ll want a set that won’t turn a slide into first base into a blurred mess.
Manufacturers have improved the way that LCD TVs handle motion by introducing sets that use 120 Hz technology; simply put, the set’s circuitry doubles the number of video frames, smoothing out the motion.
Some manufacturers have gone a step further, introducing 240 Hz TVs that quadruple the number of frames.
Can most people see the difference? Unless you’re buying a gigantic TV, probably not, according to executives at the top TV manufacturers. But it makes for a nice marketing strategy. Before you pay extra to buy a 240 Hz set, watch a favorite DVD on TVs that use that and the less-expensive 120 Hz technology, and see if you can tell the difference.
SCREEN RESOLUTION While 1080p TVs have become almost standard issue, if you’re on a tight budget you can still save money by buying a lower-resolution 720p or 1080i resolution set.
Whether you can see the difference in screen sharpness depends in part on how far you sit from the set. If you’re watching a 30-inch HDTV screen from 20 feet away, they’ll all look the same.
Various charts are available to show you how far you should sit from a particular size screen in order to maximize the perceived resolution.
THIN AND THINNER Today’s flat TVs have slimmed down, with some plasma and LCD sets not much more than an inch deep.
The thinner they are, the higher the price. And unless you’re planning on mounting the TV on the wall, thinner sets may give you bragging rights, but with their higher prices, they’ll also give you a thinner wallet.
Also, the thinner the set, the more difficult it is to get decent sound out of the speakers that generally need to face downward to conserve space. “Downward facing speakers do not work well,” said Gary Merson, owner of HDGuru.com. “They sound as if you’re speaking to someone while facing away from them.”
ARE YOU WELL-CONNECTED? Modern HDTVs, as well as the additional audio and video components you’ll join to them, use HDMI cables as the standard connection method. Unlike other cables, HDMI combines audio and video; Blu-ray signals will only pass through an HDMI plug.
Before you decide on your purchase, figure out how many HDMI inputs you’ll need on the TV. If you plan on connecting a Blu-ray or DVD player, an audio receiver, a digital video recorder and a video game console, that could be as many as four. Some manufacturers offer a side-mounted HDMI input, handy for the occasional times you want to plug in a digital video camcorder.
SURF’S UP Many new HDTVs from most manufacturers, including LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp and Vizio, offer proprietary Web-based content, like news, weather, YouTube videos, the Picasa photo site and access to certain movies and TV shows from Netflix and Amazon’s online download services.
To receive it, you’ll need an HDTV that has an Ethernet connection. New models are beginning to appear that offer wireless connections, perfect for those whose Ethernet access is in another room.
Even if you’re not interested in accessing Web-based content on your TV, an Ethernet connection can prove useful when a manufacturer needs to upgrade the digital TV’s operating system to, for example, address incompatibilities between it and a set-top box.
Some day, manufacturers will be able to use your TV’s Internet connection to remotely diagnose any problems with the set.
Technicians from the electronics maker Sharp can already remotely adjust picture quality over the Internet.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care? By JILL COLVIN
April 2, 2009
You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care? By JILL COLVIN
WHEN Steve Hamrick left his last job as manager at a software corporation, he had at least 25 unheard messages in his office voice mailbox. And that’s not counting the unreturned calls on his cellphone or landline at home.
It’s not that he doesn’t like to talk. But with the cascade of messages he receives by e-mail, texting and on Facebook, Mr. Hamrick, 29, a self-described “voice mail phobic” from Cupertino, Calif., said he’d found better ways to keep in touch.
“I had to give up something and that, for me, was voice mail,” he said. “It’s cutting out some forms of communication to make room for the others.”
When it was introduced in the early 1980s, voice mail was hailed as a miracle invention — a boon to office productivity and a godsend to busy households. Hollywood screenwriters incorporated it into plotlines: Distraught heroine comes home, sees blinking red light, listens as desperate suitor begs for another chance to make it all right. Beep!
But in an age of instant information gratification, the burden of having to hit the playback button — or worse, dial in to a mailbox and enter a pass code — and sit through “ums” and “ahs” can seem too much to bear.
Many dread the process or, like Mr. Hamrick, avoid it altogether, raising the question: is voice mail on its way to becoming obsolete?
“Once upon a time, voice mail was useful,” said Yen Cheong, 32, a book publicist in New York who has transitioned almost entirely to e-mail and text messaging. According to her calculation, it takes 7 to 10 steps to check a voice mail message versus zero to 3 for an e-mail.
“If you left a message, I have to dial in, dial in my code,” Ms. Cheong said. “Then I mess up and redial. Then once I hear the message, I need the phone number. I try to write it down, and then I have to rewind the message to hear it again,” she added, feigning exhaustion.
Tim Kassouf from Baltimore, 24, who calls himself “a certified voice mail hater,” said he had 68 messages, 62 of them unheard, in his cellphone mail box. Scott Taylor, 41, a senior manager at an e-commerce company in Phoenix, said voice mail was “just totally an ineffective communication method, almost ancient now.”
Like many others, Mr. Taylor advises callers on his outgoing message to try his cellphone or to send an e-mail message if they need to reach him right away.
It is good advice. Research shows that people take longer to reply to voice messages than other types of communication. Data from uReach Technologies, which operates the voice messaging systems of Verizon Wireless and other cellphone carriers, shows that over 30 percent of voice messages linger unheard for three days or longer and that more than 20 percent of people with messages in their mailboxes “rarely even dial in” to check them, said Saul Einbinder, senior vice president for marketing and business development for uReach, in an e-mail message.
By contrast, 91 percent of people under 30 respond to text messages within an hour, and they are four times more likely to respond to texts than to voice messages within minutes, according to a 2008 study for Sprint conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. Even adults 30 and older are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text than to a voice message, the study found.
There are no definitive studies of how many voice mail messages American leave compared with earlier periods, but if the technology is heading toward obsolescence — as many communication experts suspect — the trend is being driven by young people. Again and again, people under 25 recount returning calls from older colleagues and family members without bothering to listen to messages first. Thanks to cellphone technology, they can see who called and hit the Send button to reply without calling their voice mail box. “Didn’t you get my message?” parents ask. “No,” their children reply, “but I saw that you called.”
Jack Cathey, 20, a college student in Lewisburg, Tenn., said his parents and grandparents continued trying to leave him voice messages despite his objections. “Do you know your voice mail’s full?” a family member asked him recently, failing to comprehend that, for his generation, that might not be a problem.
To cater to those with no patience for voice mail, wireless providers are busy rolling out a new generation of text-based alternatives that promise to make communication faster and more efficient.
The most popular is Visual Voicemail, which comes standard on the iPhone and is available on other smart phones, including the Samsung Instinct and the BlackBerry Storm. The application displays messages in a visual in-box, just like e-mail, and allows users to listen to messages one by one, in any order, so important calls can be returned first and others saved.
Other companies have taken a bolder approach, eliminating the need to listen to messages altogether.
Frustrated by missing important calls while stuck in meetings, James Siminoff founded PhoneTag, now one of a handful of companies that offer voice-to-text transcription services. For a monthly or per-message fee, subscribers’ messages are converted into typed texts, which are then automatically delivered to phones or e-mail in-boxes.
“Voice mails are totally trapped info,” Mr. Siminoff said. Because the average person can read at least twice as quickly as he or she can speak, and text messages require no log-ins or waiting, Mr. Siminoff estimates that textual voice messaging is about 15 to 20 times faster than traditional voice mail.
Services like PhoneTag are about to be jolted by Google, which plans to introduce a competing free service, Google Voice, in a matter of weeks. The service will ring each phone a person uses at once — cell, home, office — and centralize all the messages received. Most important for the voice-mail-averse, Google Voice will also transcribe voice mails at no cost.
“Voice mail feels like it was a technology that was created to fill a gap — until something better came along,” Piers Fawkes, 34, a trend tracker, wrote on his company’s popular trend-tracking site, PSFK.com. “And now it has.”
Those in the industry expect voice-to-text messaging service to be standard in as little as a year or two down the line.
“Text is the future of voice mail,” Mr. Fawkes said.
But not everyone thinks that voice mail is going the way of the floppy disk. Richard Kelleher, 59, from Phoenix, who worked at AT&T when voice mail was developed, said he was still a loyal user and wondered why young people were shunning the technology.
“What does it take, 10 seconds to leave a message?” he said. “I can do that faster than Twittering.”
Yet many see the shift away from voice mail as part of a generational divide, in which younger people are substituting text for talk, while older folks yammer on.
Text messaging has increased more than tenfold over the last three years, according to CTIA — the Wireless Association, the trade group representing the industry. Young people have overwhelmingly been the most enthusiastic adopters. According to Nielsen Mobile, users 13 to 17 now send or receive an average of 1,742 text messages a month, versus 231 cellphone calls, and they spend nearly the same amount of time on their phones texting as talking.
For Charlie Park, 30, a Web developer in Williamsburg, Va., a text message is more efficient and — equally important — more respectful of the recipient’s time.
“You never send an e-mail that says, ‘Hey, e-mail me back!’ You’re always sending information,” he said.
But even Mr. Park admits that sometimes, there is value in voice.
When his eldest daughter, Lucy, now 5, was learning to talk, he had to take a business trip. While away, she left him a message: “I love you daddy. I miss you. Come home soon.”
Mr. Park said he kept the message for several years and would replay it again and again.
“There is something nice about hearing people’s voices,” he said.
Thankfully, she kept it brief.
Jill Colvin is a reporter for the Columbia News Service.
You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care? By JILL COLVIN
WHEN Steve Hamrick left his last job as manager at a software corporation, he had at least 25 unheard messages in his office voice mailbox. And that’s not counting the unreturned calls on his cellphone or landline at home.
It’s not that he doesn’t like to talk. But with the cascade of messages he receives by e-mail, texting and on Facebook, Mr. Hamrick, 29, a self-described “voice mail phobic” from Cupertino, Calif., said he’d found better ways to keep in touch.
“I had to give up something and that, for me, was voice mail,” he said. “It’s cutting out some forms of communication to make room for the others.”
When it was introduced in the early 1980s, voice mail was hailed as a miracle invention — a boon to office productivity and a godsend to busy households. Hollywood screenwriters incorporated it into plotlines: Distraught heroine comes home, sees blinking red light, listens as desperate suitor begs for another chance to make it all right. Beep!
But in an age of instant information gratification, the burden of having to hit the playback button — or worse, dial in to a mailbox and enter a pass code — and sit through “ums” and “ahs” can seem too much to bear.
Many dread the process or, like Mr. Hamrick, avoid it altogether, raising the question: is voice mail on its way to becoming obsolete?
“Once upon a time, voice mail was useful,” said Yen Cheong, 32, a book publicist in New York who has transitioned almost entirely to e-mail and text messaging. According to her calculation, it takes 7 to 10 steps to check a voice mail message versus zero to 3 for an e-mail.
“If you left a message, I have to dial in, dial in my code,” Ms. Cheong said. “Then I mess up and redial. Then once I hear the message, I need the phone number. I try to write it down, and then I have to rewind the message to hear it again,” she added, feigning exhaustion.
Tim Kassouf from Baltimore, 24, who calls himself “a certified voice mail hater,” said he had 68 messages, 62 of them unheard, in his cellphone mail box. Scott Taylor, 41, a senior manager at an e-commerce company in Phoenix, said voice mail was “just totally an ineffective communication method, almost ancient now.”
Like many others, Mr. Taylor advises callers on his outgoing message to try his cellphone or to send an e-mail message if they need to reach him right away.
It is good advice. Research shows that people take longer to reply to voice messages than other types of communication. Data from uReach Technologies, which operates the voice messaging systems of Verizon Wireless and other cellphone carriers, shows that over 30 percent of voice messages linger unheard for three days or longer and that more than 20 percent of people with messages in their mailboxes “rarely even dial in” to check them, said Saul Einbinder, senior vice president for marketing and business development for uReach, in an e-mail message.
By contrast, 91 percent of people under 30 respond to text messages within an hour, and they are four times more likely to respond to texts than to voice messages within minutes, according to a 2008 study for Sprint conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. Even adults 30 and older are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text than to a voice message, the study found.
There are no definitive studies of how many voice mail messages American leave compared with earlier periods, but if the technology is heading toward obsolescence — as many communication experts suspect — the trend is being driven by young people. Again and again, people under 25 recount returning calls from older colleagues and family members without bothering to listen to messages first. Thanks to cellphone technology, they can see who called and hit the Send button to reply without calling their voice mail box. “Didn’t you get my message?” parents ask. “No,” their children reply, “but I saw that you called.”
Jack Cathey, 20, a college student in Lewisburg, Tenn., said his parents and grandparents continued trying to leave him voice messages despite his objections. “Do you know your voice mail’s full?” a family member asked him recently, failing to comprehend that, for his generation, that might not be a problem.
To cater to those with no patience for voice mail, wireless providers are busy rolling out a new generation of text-based alternatives that promise to make communication faster and more efficient.
The most popular is Visual Voicemail, which comes standard on the iPhone and is available on other smart phones, including the Samsung Instinct and the BlackBerry Storm. The application displays messages in a visual in-box, just like e-mail, and allows users to listen to messages one by one, in any order, so important calls can be returned first and others saved.
Other companies have taken a bolder approach, eliminating the need to listen to messages altogether.
Frustrated by missing important calls while stuck in meetings, James Siminoff founded PhoneTag, now one of a handful of companies that offer voice-to-text transcription services. For a monthly or per-message fee, subscribers’ messages are converted into typed texts, which are then automatically delivered to phones or e-mail in-boxes.
“Voice mails are totally trapped info,” Mr. Siminoff said. Because the average person can read at least twice as quickly as he or she can speak, and text messages require no log-ins or waiting, Mr. Siminoff estimates that textual voice messaging is about 15 to 20 times faster than traditional voice mail.
Services like PhoneTag are about to be jolted by Google, which plans to introduce a competing free service, Google Voice, in a matter of weeks. The service will ring each phone a person uses at once — cell, home, office — and centralize all the messages received. Most important for the voice-mail-averse, Google Voice will also transcribe voice mails at no cost.
“Voice mail feels like it was a technology that was created to fill a gap — until something better came along,” Piers Fawkes, 34, a trend tracker, wrote on his company’s popular trend-tracking site, PSFK.com. “And now it has.”
Those in the industry expect voice-to-text messaging service to be standard in as little as a year or two down the line.
“Text is the future of voice mail,” Mr. Fawkes said.
But not everyone thinks that voice mail is going the way of the floppy disk. Richard Kelleher, 59, from Phoenix, who worked at AT&T when voice mail was developed, said he was still a loyal user and wondered why young people were shunning the technology.
“What does it take, 10 seconds to leave a message?” he said. “I can do that faster than Twittering.”
Yet many see the shift away from voice mail as part of a generational divide, in which younger people are substituting text for talk, while older folks yammer on.
Text messaging has increased more than tenfold over the last three years, according to CTIA — the Wireless Association, the trade group representing the industry. Young people have overwhelmingly been the most enthusiastic adopters. According to Nielsen Mobile, users 13 to 17 now send or receive an average of 1,742 text messages a month, versus 231 cellphone calls, and they spend nearly the same amount of time on their phones texting as talking.
For Charlie Park, 30, a Web developer in Williamsburg, Va., a text message is more efficient and — equally important — more respectful of the recipient’s time.
“You never send an e-mail that says, ‘Hey, e-mail me back!’ You’re always sending information,” he said.
But even Mr. Park admits that sometimes, there is value in voice.
When his eldest daughter, Lucy, now 5, was learning to talk, he had to take a business trip. While away, she left him a message: “I love you daddy. I miss you. Come home soon.”
Mr. Park said he kept the message for several years and would replay it again and again.
“There is something nice about hearing people’s voices,” he said.
Thankfully, she kept it brief.
Jill Colvin is a reporter for the Columbia News Service.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
An Empty In-Box, or With Just a Few E-Mail Messages? Read On By FARHAD MANJOO
March 5, 2009
Basics
An Empty In-Box, or With Just a Few E-Mail Messages? Read On By FARHAD MANJOO
SINCE e-mail became a fixture in our professional and personal lives, many academic researchers have investigated the complex mix of feelings brought on by the technology.
We feel guilty about being late in responding, about our in-boxes being disorganized, about the tens of thousands of unread messages that we’re sure we’ll never get to. What is it about e-mail that consumes us — that invades every corner of our personal space, demands ever more sophisticated methods of organization, and makes us wish for extra hours in the day to deal with the deluge? More important, how can we overcome it?
In the last few weeks, I set about finding a cure for e-mail anxiety. It was not the first time I’d done so; I’ve been looking for better ways to handle my mail since shortly after logging in to my first in-box.
Over the years, I’ve discovered many methods that worked for a while, but never permanently. For a while, I set up elaborate filters meant to automatically categorize every incoming message according to who sent it. Another time, I instituted a complicated system of color-coded labels aimed at getting me to understand which e-mail messages I had to respond to, which I had to save and which I could ignore.
But eventually every finely honed trick to tame my mail would collapse, and I’d backslide into a messy, undisciplined in-box. So in my search for a new way to deal with e-mail, I followed one guiding principle: Keep it simple. Any method that made too many demands on my time or my brain was bound to fail.
Fortunately, after much experimentation with various experts’ many tips, I’ve found something that works. Here are the basic rules:
LIMIT YOUR TIME WITH IT Turn off all auto-notifications that alert you to incoming mail, and if you must check mail while you’re on the go, keep it to a minimum. Here’s a good guideline that worked for me: Don’t dip into your in-box more than three times an hour. It’s unlikely that any message is so urgent that it can’t wait 20 minutes for your response — if it were, the sender would call, send an instant message or find some other way to reach you.
CLEAR OUT YOUR IN-BOX Set aside an hour or two to respond to every important message that has dogged you in the last couple months (anything older than that is too ancient to bother with). Next, move everything else into a new folder called Archive — this will be your storehouse of old mail.
Your in-box should now be empty. Think of this as its optimal state — your goal, from now on, will be to keep this space as pristine as possible, either empty or nearly so. To realize that goal, live by this precept: Whenever you receive a new message, do something with it. Don’t read your e-mail and then just let it sit there — that’s a recipe for chaos.
This isn’t always so easy. A day’s worth of mail demands a variety of complex actions, and the daunting task of figuring out how to respond to each message is probably what made your in-box untidy in the first place.
That’s where the next steps come in — an algorithm for dealing with incoming e-mail messages. For each new one you receive, take one of the following actions:
ARCHIVE IT Most e-mail messages require no action or response on your part — messages from Facebook letting you know that an old college pal has commented on your wall, for instance. Skim through these missives (or leave them unread), then shoot them into your archive and forget them.
RESPOND TO IT If the e-mail message calls for an easy answer, send it. Say a colleague wants to know if you’re up for dinner at his place on Saturday, or your boss wants to praise you for a job well done. Shoot back a quick response — “Yes!” or “Thanks!” — and then push the original message into your archive. The productivity guru and “Getting Things Done” author David Allen has a rule of thumb that comes in handy here: If responding is going to take two minutes or less, you’re better off doing it now than procrastinating.
FORWARD IT If the message is better handled by someone else — your boss, your sister, anyone but you — send it off to that person, then archive it.
HOLD IT FOR LATER This is the trickiest option. Some e-mail messages demand complicated answers. You don’t really want to dine with your colleague, but coming up with an excuse will take longer than two minutes. Other messages simply require information not yet available. Your friend wants to know if you’re up for watching the game on Sunday, but you’ve got to check with your spouse first.
You can leave these messages in your in-box with a promise to come back to them soon. (Depending on the mail program you use, you might want to set a reminder or a flag to make it stand out — in Microsoft Outlook, you can click the flag icon, or in Google’s Gmail, the star).
Be careful to avoid letting many such messages pile up. Carve out a short amount of time — perhaps 15 to 30 minutes at the end of the day — to respond to all flagged e-mail. Remember, your goal is to keep your in-box empty. Each message sitting there should serve as a stark, visible reminder of your undisciplined ways.
Notice that my system doesn’t include any complex method for organizing e-mail — I don’t categorize my messages into folders by sender, subject matter, date or any other scheme. That way lies distraction.
E-mail isn’t a test of your skills at making things look pretty; indeed, making things look pretty will only take time away from your goal of actually getting through your mail. Most modern e-mail programs include search engines that are powerful enough to find any message you need without the aid of a taxonomy.
Note, too, that this system is far from new. It was inspired by Mr. Allen’s ideas, and it’s been proselytized, in various forms, by a host of efficiency experts and people who have spent a lot of time wrestling with e-mail.
In particular, I relied partly on a series of essays and lectures put together by Merlin Mann, proprietor of the Web site 43 Folders, which aims to help you get a handle on how much attention you focus on unrewarding tasks, like e-mail.
It wasn’t easy for me to curb my time in my in-box. E-mail was like a drug, and I needed a constant fix. That’s a good sign you need help.
“People arrive at this because they’re feeling overwhelmed,” Mr. Mann said. “They feel like the train is going off the rails.” He was careful to add that much of what troubles people about modern life goes beyond e-mail — but you can think of fixing your in-box as a private victory for modern professionals. Once you deal with your e-mail, you’ll be able to tackle stuff that really matters.
Basics
An Empty In-Box, or With Just a Few E-Mail Messages? Read On By FARHAD MANJOO
SINCE e-mail became a fixture in our professional and personal lives, many academic researchers have investigated the complex mix of feelings brought on by the technology.
We feel guilty about being late in responding, about our in-boxes being disorganized, about the tens of thousands of unread messages that we’re sure we’ll never get to. What is it about e-mail that consumes us — that invades every corner of our personal space, demands ever more sophisticated methods of organization, and makes us wish for extra hours in the day to deal with the deluge? More important, how can we overcome it?
In the last few weeks, I set about finding a cure for e-mail anxiety. It was not the first time I’d done so; I’ve been looking for better ways to handle my mail since shortly after logging in to my first in-box.
Over the years, I’ve discovered many methods that worked for a while, but never permanently. For a while, I set up elaborate filters meant to automatically categorize every incoming message according to who sent it. Another time, I instituted a complicated system of color-coded labels aimed at getting me to understand which e-mail messages I had to respond to, which I had to save and which I could ignore.
But eventually every finely honed trick to tame my mail would collapse, and I’d backslide into a messy, undisciplined in-box. So in my search for a new way to deal with e-mail, I followed one guiding principle: Keep it simple. Any method that made too many demands on my time or my brain was bound to fail.
Fortunately, after much experimentation with various experts’ many tips, I’ve found something that works. Here are the basic rules:
LIMIT YOUR TIME WITH IT Turn off all auto-notifications that alert you to incoming mail, and if you must check mail while you’re on the go, keep it to a minimum. Here’s a good guideline that worked for me: Don’t dip into your in-box more than three times an hour. It’s unlikely that any message is so urgent that it can’t wait 20 minutes for your response — if it were, the sender would call, send an instant message or find some other way to reach you.
CLEAR OUT YOUR IN-BOX Set aside an hour or two to respond to every important message that has dogged you in the last couple months (anything older than that is too ancient to bother with). Next, move everything else into a new folder called Archive — this will be your storehouse of old mail.
Your in-box should now be empty. Think of this as its optimal state — your goal, from now on, will be to keep this space as pristine as possible, either empty or nearly so. To realize that goal, live by this precept: Whenever you receive a new message, do something with it. Don’t read your e-mail and then just let it sit there — that’s a recipe for chaos.
This isn’t always so easy. A day’s worth of mail demands a variety of complex actions, and the daunting task of figuring out how to respond to each message is probably what made your in-box untidy in the first place.
That’s where the next steps come in — an algorithm for dealing with incoming e-mail messages. For each new one you receive, take one of the following actions:
ARCHIVE IT Most e-mail messages require no action or response on your part — messages from Facebook letting you know that an old college pal has commented on your wall, for instance. Skim through these missives (or leave them unread), then shoot them into your archive and forget them.
RESPOND TO IT If the e-mail message calls for an easy answer, send it. Say a colleague wants to know if you’re up for dinner at his place on Saturday, or your boss wants to praise you for a job well done. Shoot back a quick response — “Yes!” or “Thanks!” — and then push the original message into your archive. The productivity guru and “Getting Things Done” author David Allen has a rule of thumb that comes in handy here: If responding is going to take two minutes or less, you’re better off doing it now than procrastinating.
FORWARD IT If the message is better handled by someone else — your boss, your sister, anyone but you — send it off to that person, then archive it.
HOLD IT FOR LATER This is the trickiest option. Some e-mail messages demand complicated answers. You don’t really want to dine with your colleague, but coming up with an excuse will take longer than two minutes. Other messages simply require information not yet available. Your friend wants to know if you’re up for watching the game on Sunday, but you’ve got to check with your spouse first.
You can leave these messages in your in-box with a promise to come back to them soon. (Depending on the mail program you use, you might want to set a reminder or a flag to make it stand out — in Microsoft Outlook, you can click the flag icon, or in Google’s Gmail, the star).
Be careful to avoid letting many such messages pile up. Carve out a short amount of time — perhaps 15 to 30 minutes at the end of the day — to respond to all flagged e-mail. Remember, your goal is to keep your in-box empty. Each message sitting there should serve as a stark, visible reminder of your undisciplined ways.
Notice that my system doesn’t include any complex method for organizing e-mail — I don’t categorize my messages into folders by sender, subject matter, date or any other scheme. That way lies distraction.
E-mail isn’t a test of your skills at making things look pretty; indeed, making things look pretty will only take time away from your goal of actually getting through your mail. Most modern e-mail programs include search engines that are powerful enough to find any message you need without the aid of a taxonomy.
Note, too, that this system is far from new. It was inspired by Mr. Allen’s ideas, and it’s been proselytized, in various forms, by a host of efficiency experts and people who have spent a lot of time wrestling with e-mail.
In particular, I relied partly on a series of essays and lectures put together by Merlin Mann, proprietor of the Web site 43 Folders, which aims to help you get a handle on how much attention you focus on unrewarding tasks, like e-mail.
It wasn’t easy for me to curb my time in my in-box. E-mail was like a drug, and I needed a constant fix. That’s a good sign you need help.
“People arrive at this because they’re feeling overwhelmed,” Mr. Mann said. “They feel like the train is going off the rails.” He was careful to add that much of what troubles people about modern life goes beyond e-mail — but you can think of fixing your in-box as a private victory for modern professionals. Once you deal with your e-mail, you’ll be able to tackle stuff that really matters.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Fight Over NASA's Future By JOHN SCHWARTZ
December 30, 2008
The Long Countdown
The Fight Over NASA's Future By JOHN SCHWARTZ
NASA has named the rocket Ares I, as in the god of war — and its life has been a battle from the start.
Ares I is part of a new system of spacecraft being designed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to replace the nation's aging space shuttles. The Ares I and its Orion capsule, along with a companion heavy-lift rocket known as the Ares V, are meant for travel to the Moon and beyond.
Technical troubles have dogged the design process for the Ares I, the first of the rockets scheduled to be built, with attendant delays and growing costs. And in an age of always-on communication, instant messages and blogs, internal debate that once might have been part of a cloistered process has spilled into public view.
Some critics say there are profound problems with the design that render the Ares I dead on arrival, while other observers argue that technical complications crop up in any spacecraft development program of this scope.
The issues have become a focus of the members of the presidential transition team dealing with NASA, and the space program could undergo a transformation after Barack Obama takes office.
During his campaign, Mr. Obama expressed support for NASA and criticized the five-year gap between the scheduled end of the space shuttle program in 2010 and the planned debut of the first components of the new system, which NASA has given the overall name Constellation, in 2015. (During the pause in American flights — a Bush administration plan to conserve money during the development process — the United States will depend on Russia and its Soyuz spacecraft for trips to the International Space Station.)
But NASA, which has a $17 billion annual budget and most likely would face higher expenses if the gap is to be narrowed and the new program kept on track, will be competing for money as the new administration faces urgent and expensive crises.
The Obama transition team, in meetings and requests for information from NASA, contractors and others with a stake in the process, has asked whether increased financing can narrow the five-year flight gap by speeding development of the new spacecraft. The advisers have also asked what the costs and consequences might be of continuing to fly the shuttles for at least one or two additional flights, or even to keep flying them until the next system is ready.
The team has also asked whether the development program is truly in trouble and, if so, whether the Ares I should be modified or replaced by rockets used by the Air Force to launch satellites, or the Ariane 5 rocket from Europe.
While some involved in developing the rockets have read volumes into the questions, a spokesman for the transition team, Nick Shapiro, said that "the role of the agency review teams is not to make recommendations on any of the issues they are reviewing. They are fact-finding and preparing the full range of options for consideration by the incoming appointees."
Nonetheless, tensions have increased between the incoming administration and the management of NASA, whose administrator, Michael D. Griffin, is fighting to keep the program on course. If he is not reappointed by Mr. Obama, his term will end Jan. 20.
John Logsdon, a space historian at the Smithsonian Institution, said Mr. Griffin was fighting for a program "which he's put his whole reputation on." On the other hand, Dr. Logsdon said, a new president needs to press and probe. "Any administration making a choice that's going to last for a generation needs to make that choice for itself," he said.
A New Direction
In an enormous barnlike building at the Kennedy Space Center earlier this year, officials proudly showed off a prototype of the heat shield of the new Orion capsule, a rounded disc some 15 feet across. Startlingly large but oddly prosaic — it looked like nothing so much as a gigantic muffin top — it served as a powerful symbol for those at the space center. It meant the first pieces of test hardware were moving from computer screens to reality.
Metal, as they say, is being bent.
President Bush announced the new direction for the space program in January 2004, nearly a year after the loss of the shuttle Columbia underscored the risks inherent in the spacecraft — especially the potential for debris to strike it during launching. In 2005, NASA lifted the curtain on the Constellation program, with the Orion capsule that would ride on top of its rocket, Ares I, out of the way of launch debris. It would be capable of carrying six astronauts; Apollo held three.
The Ares rockets are very different — both from the shuttle and each other.
Ares I, uses as its first stage a lengthened solid rocket booster like the ones used by the shuttle. The second stage is a rocket that will burn liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, as the shuttle's main engines do. Atop the stack will sit the Orion capsule.
The first test of an unmanned Ares I could take place next summer. The test, however, will use a spacecraft that is very different from the Ares I to come. It will involve a solid rocket booster of the same length that the shuttle uses, and the second stage and capsule will be dummies. Four more test flights are scheduled before the rocket is used beginning in 2015.
The Ares V is a much brawnier rocket designed to send equipment to the Moon and beyond. Its first stage includes two solid rocket boosters and a liquid-fueled set of six rocket engines.
The design process has run into technical problems. Orion is far heavier than the Apollo capsule and weight issues have required redesigns of both the capsule and the rocket, further complicating technical issues. Engineers have also had to come up with ways to dampen potentially dangerous vibrations along the shaft of the rocket as the solid rocket engine empties.
Some inside the development program have complained that it is run with a my-way-or-the-highway attitude that stifles dissent and innovation. Jeffrey Finckenor, an engineer who left NASA this year, sent a goodbye letter to colleagues that expressed his frustrations with the program. "At the highest levels of the agency, there seems to be a belief that you can mandate reality," he wrote, "followed by a refusal to accept any information that runs counter to that mandate." The letter was posted to the independent NASA Watch Web site.
Mr. Finckenor has refused to comment further.
Leroy Chiao, a retired astronaut who flew three shuttle missions and served aboard the space station, said that the 2004 announcement by Mr. Bush of NASA's new direction "was a time of great optimism." Mr. Chiao is not involved with the Constellation project today, but he said it was clear from some of the leaked discussions that "the program has not panned out as I, and the vast majority of people, had hoped."
Sunny Assessments
NASA officials say the Constellation program is actually coming along well. In an interview in November, Mr. Griffin said, "I can't imagine somebody thinks you're going to develop a new space transportation system and encounter no challenges." The ones NASA is encountering, he said, are "routine in the extreme."
Douglas R. Cooke, a leading space agency official on the Constellation program, told reporters this month that the weight and vibration issues were well on their way to being fixed. And Neil Otte, the launching chief engineer for the Constellation rockets, said that solving tough problems was what engineers did for a living. When they encounter a particularly difficult challenge, he said, their attitude is, "Hey, it's starting to get fun now, and we're earning our money."
Nonetheless, the chorus of naysayers that has arisen online, and even within NASA, often has a favorite alternative in mind. There is momentum behind using Atlas and Delta rockets developed for satellite delivery, which proponents say could quickly be fitted with the Orion capsule.
Mr. Griffin has proposed using satellite launchers for human flights in the past, a process known as "human rating" that involves upgrades to the safety and reliability of the craft. This year, he told French lawmakers that it would be a "small step" from today's French Ariane 5 rocket, which has launched a cargo craft to the International Space Station, to "an independent European human spaceflight capability." But he opposes the plan to use the military rockets and has said that the switch would lead to delay and cost increases while risking safety.
Mr. Otte said using military rockets would be far more complex than simply putting a capsule on top of off-the-shelf equipment. Rockets built for satellites would have to be extensively modified before putting humans aboard.
A second group of engineers favors plans for a follow-up system, called Direct 2.0, that is drawn largely from old NASA plans that had been abandoned. Ross Tierney, a spokesman for the group pushing Direct 2.0, said, "Let's have an independent review and check them all out."
"We're confident of what the numbers are going to be, and that we'll come out on top," he said.
But that concept has gained few followers, and in April, Richard Gilbrech, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems at the time, testified before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics that "we can't justify, based on laws of physics, the performance" claimed by the plan's proponents.
Edward F. Crawley, a senior professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the Ares I was not perfect, but that when seen in the context of its use of components from the shuttle program, military systems and the coming Ares V, it was the product of sensible choices. "I don't have any reason to believe there are major technical issues to block its success," he said.
Building a new rocket "is a hard thing," Dr. Crawley said, and initial test flights often end in embarrassment or even disaster because everything in a very complex system has to go right. "It's one strike and you're out," he said. "If you put every day of its development under a microscope, you'll find plenty of things to write about."
To Keep Flying or Not
When Mr. Obama decides what to do about space, he might also decide to narrow NASA's five-year flight gap simply by flying the space shuttles past the Bush administration's 2010 deadline.
Pressure has grown to keep the shuttles flying. In July, former Senator John Glenn of Ohio said in testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee that he favored flying the shuttles until the Constellation craft were ready to fly. "I never thought I would see the day when the world's richest, most powerful, most accomplished spacefaring nation would have to buy tickets from Russia to get up to our station," said Mr. Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
Continuing shuttle flights has also been proposed by the New Democracy Project, a group with strong ties to John D. Podesta, a co-chairman of the Obama transition team.
To Mr. Griffin, though, such proposals threaten to scuttle the new space program by hijacking billions of dollars that could go to Constellation development. He also argues that the shuttle's considerable risks make it unsafe to continue flying it. In an interview in November, Mr. Griffin defended the program he has put in place.
"U.S. civil space policy, in terms of its goals, was headed in the wrong direction after the Nixon administration," he said. Today, with the nation talking about going back to the Moon, exploring near-Earth asteroids and even going to Mars, "that's the right path for us to be investing in," he said.
Dr. Crawley of M.I.T. said he would like to see a panel of "unbiased and wise people" under the new administration weigh NASA's plans against the alternatives while keeping in mind the broad range of budgetary, workforce and technical issues. "I don't frankly know what the answer is," he said, "but I know it's a lot closer and a lot more complicated answer than the one playing out in the media and the blogs."
And then, Dr. Crawley said, get on with it. The space program's $17 billion annual budget is small in comparison with other elements of the nation's spending. But its payoff, he noted, can be big. If the new president seeks to stimulate the economy with "domestic high-technology jobs that provide stable and rewarding employment," he said, "space would be a well-placed investment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30spac.html?ref=science&pagewanted=print
null
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/29/science/space/CONSTELLATION.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/29/science/123008-Nasa_index.html
The Long Countdown
The Fight Over NASA's Future By JOHN SCHWARTZ
NASA has named the rocket Ares I, as in the god of war — and its life has been a battle from the start.
Ares I is part of a new system of spacecraft being designed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to replace the nation's aging space shuttles. The Ares I and its Orion capsule, along with a companion heavy-lift rocket known as the Ares V, are meant for travel to the Moon and beyond.
Technical troubles have dogged the design process for the Ares I, the first of the rockets scheduled to be built, with attendant delays and growing costs. And in an age of always-on communication, instant messages and blogs, internal debate that once might have been part of a cloistered process has spilled into public view.
Some critics say there are profound problems with the design that render the Ares I dead on arrival, while other observers argue that technical complications crop up in any spacecraft development program of this scope.
The issues have become a focus of the members of the presidential transition team dealing with NASA, and the space program could undergo a transformation after Barack Obama takes office.
During his campaign, Mr. Obama expressed support for NASA and criticized the five-year gap between the scheduled end of the space shuttle program in 2010 and the planned debut of the first components of the new system, which NASA has given the overall name Constellation, in 2015. (During the pause in American flights — a Bush administration plan to conserve money during the development process — the United States will depend on Russia and its Soyuz spacecraft for trips to the International Space Station.)
But NASA, which has a $17 billion annual budget and most likely would face higher expenses if the gap is to be narrowed and the new program kept on track, will be competing for money as the new administration faces urgent and expensive crises.
The Obama transition team, in meetings and requests for information from NASA, contractors and others with a stake in the process, has asked whether increased financing can narrow the five-year flight gap by speeding development of the new spacecraft. The advisers have also asked what the costs and consequences might be of continuing to fly the shuttles for at least one or two additional flights, or even to keep flying them until the next system is ready.
The team has also asked whether the development program is truly in trouble and, if so, whether the Ares I should be modified or replaced by rockets used by the Air Force to launch satellites, or the Ariane 5 rocket from Europe.
While some involved in developing the rockets have read volumes into the questions, a spokesman for the transition team, Nick Shapiro, said that "the role of the agency review teams is not to make recommendations on any of the issues they are reviewing. They are fact-finding and preparing the full range of options for consideration by the incoming appointees."
Nonetheless, tensions have increased between the incoming administration and the management of NASA, whose administrator, Michael D. Griffin, is fighting to keep the program on course. If he is not reappointed by Mr. Obama, his term will end Jan. 20.
John Logsdon, a space historian at the Smithsonian Institution, said Mr. Griffin was fighting for a program "which he's put his whole reputation on." On the other hand, Dr. Logsdon said, a new president needs to press and probe. "Any administration making a choice that's going to last for a generation needs to make that choice for itself," he said.
A New Direction
In an enormous barnlike building at the Kennedy Space Center earlier this year, officials proudly showed off a prototype of the heat shield of the new Orion capsule, a rounded disc some 15 feet across. Startlingly large but oddly prosaic — it looked like nothing so much as a gigantic muffin top — it served as a powerful symbol for those at the space center. It meant the first pieces of test hardware were moving from computer screens to reality.
Metal, as they say, is being bent.
President Bush announced the new direction for the space program in January 2004, nearly a year after the loss of the shuttle Columbia underscored the risks inherent in the spacecraft — especially the potential for debris to strike it during launching. In 2005, NASA lifted the curtain on the Constellation program, with the Orion capsule that would ride on top of its rocket, Ares I, out of the way of launch debris. It would be capable of carrying six astronauts; Apollo held three.
The Ares rockets are very different — both from the shuttle and each other.
Ares I, uses as its first stage a lengthened solid rocket booster like the ones used by the shuttle. The second stage is a rocket that will burn liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, as the shuttle's main engines do. Atop the stack will sit the Orion capsule.
The first test of an unmanned Ares I could take place next summer. The test, however, will use a spacecraft that is very different from the Ares I to come. It will involve a solid rocket booster of the same length that the shuttle uses, and the second stage and capsule will be dummies. Four more test flights are scheduled before the rocket is used beginning in 2015.
The Ares V is a much brawnier rocket designed to send equipment to the Moon and beyond. Its first stage includes two solid rocket boosters and a liquid-fueled set of six rocket engines.
The design process has run into technical problems. Orion is far heavier than the Apollo capsule and weight issues have required redesigns of both the capsule and the rocket, further complicating technical issues. Engineers have also had to come up with ways to dampen potentially dangerous vibrations along the shaft of the rocket as the solid rocket engine empties.
Some inside the development program have complained that it is run with a my-way-or-the-highway attitude that stifles dissent and innovation. Jeffrey Finckenor, an engineer who left NASA this year, sent a goodbye letter to colleagues that expressed his frustrations with the program. "At the highest levels of the agency, there seems to be a belief that you can mandate reality," he wrote, "followed by a refusal to accept any information that runs counter to that mandate." The letter was posted to the independent NASA Watch Web site.
Mr. Finckenor has refused to comment further.
Leroy Chiao, a retired astronaut who flew three shuttle missions and served aboard the space station, said that the 2004 announcement by Mr. Bush of NASA's new direction "was a time of great optimism." Mr. Chiao is not involved with the Constellation project today, but he said it was clear from some of the leaked discussions that "the program has not panned out as I, and the vast majority of people, had hoped."
Sunny Assessments
NASA officials say the Constellation program is actually coming along well. In an interview in November, Mr. Griffin said, "I can't imagine somebody thinks you're going to develop a new space transportation system and encounter no challenges." The ones NASA is encountering, he said, are "routine in the extreme."
Douglas R. Cooke, a leading space agency official on the Constellation program, told reporters this month that the weight and vibration issues were well on their way to being fixed. And Neil Otte, the launching chief engineer for the Constellation rockets, said that solving tough problems was what engineers did for a living. When they encounter a particularly difficult challenge, he said, their attitude is, "Hey, it's starting to get fun now, and we're earning our money."
Nonetheless, the chorus of naysayers that has arisen online, and even within NASA, often has a favorite alternative in mind. There is momentum behind using Atlas and Delta rockets developed for satellite delivery, which proponents say could quickly be fitted with the Orion capsule.
Mr. Griffin has proposed using satellite launchers for human flights in the past, a process known as "human rating" that involves upgrades to the safety and reliability of the craft. This year, he told French lawmakers that it would be a "small step" from today's French Ariane 5 rocket, which has launched a cargo craft to the International Space Station, to "an independent European human spaceflight capability." But he opposes the plan to use the military rockets and has said that the switch would lead to delay and cost increases while risking safety.
Mr. Otte said using military rockets would be far more complex than simply putting a capsule on top of off-the-shelf equipment. Rockets built for satellites would have to be extensively modified before putting humans aboard.
A second group of engineers favors plans for a follow-up system, called Direct 2.0, that is drawn largely from old NASA plans that had been abandoned. Ross Tierney, a spokesman for the group pushing Direct 2.0, said, "Let's have an independent review and check them all out."
"We're confident of what the numbers are going to be, and that we'll come out on top," he said.
But that concept has gained few followers, and in April, Richard Gilbrech, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems at the time, testified before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics that "we can't justify, based on laws of physics, the performance" claimed by the plan's proponents.
Edward F. Crawley, a senior professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that the Ares I was not perfect, but that when seen in the context of its use of components from the shuttle program, military systems and the coming Ares V, it was the product of sensible choices. "I don't have any reason to believe there are major technical issues to block its success," he said.
Building a new rocket "is a hard thing," Dr. Crawley said, and initial test flights often end in embarrassment or even disaster because everything in a very complex system has to go right. "It's one strike and you're out," he said. "If you put every day of its development under a microscope, you'll find plenty of things to write about."
To Keep Flying or Not
When Mr. Obama decides what to do about space, he might also decide to narrow NASA's five-year flight gap simply by flying the space shuttles past the Bush administration's 2010 deadline.
Pressure has grown to keep the shuttles flying. In July, former Senator John Glenn of Ohio said in testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee that he favored flying the shuttles until the Constellation craft were ready to fly. "I never thought I would see the day when the world's richest, most powerful, most accomplished spacefaring nation would have to buy tickets from Russia to get up to our station," said Mr. Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
Continuing shuttle flights has also been proposed by the New Democracy Project, a group with strong ties to John D. Podesta, a co-chairman of the Obama transition team.
To Mr. Griffin, though, such proposals threaten to scuttle the new space program by hijacking billions of dollars that could go to Constellation development. He also argues that the shuttle's considerable risks make it unsafe to continue flying it. In an interview in November, Mr. Griffin defended the program he has put in place.
"U.S. civil space policy, in terms of its goals, was headed in the wrong direction after the Nixon administration," he said. Today, with the nation talking about going back to the Moon, exploring near-Earth asteroids and even going to Mars, "that's the right path for us to be investing in," he said.
Dr. Crawley of M.I.T. said he would like to see a panel of "unbiased and wise people" under the new administration weigh NASA's plans against the alternatives while keeping in mind the broad range of budgetary, workforce and technical issues. "I don't frankly know what the answer is," he said, "but I know it's a lot closer and a lot more complicated answer than the one playing out in the media and the blogs."
And then, Dr. Crawley said, get on with it. The space program's $17 billion annual budget is small in comparison with other elements of the nation's spending. But its payoff, he noted, can be big. If the new president seeks to stimulate the economy with "domestic high-technology jobs that provide stable and rewarding employment," he said, "space would be a well-placed investment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/science/30spac.html?ref=science&pagewanted=print
null
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/29/science/space/CONSTELLATION.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/29/science/123008-Nasa_index.html
Friday, December 26, 2008
Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008 By Priya Ganapati Email 12.26.08
Gadgets : Miscellaneous RSS
Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008 By Priya Ganapati Email 12.26.08
The economy may be tanking, but innovation is alive and well.
When it came to products, incremental improvements were the name of the game this year. Phones got faster (iPhone 3G anyone?), notebooks turned into netbooks and pocket cameras went from recording standard-definition video to HD.
But the world's corporate and academic R&D labs were busy laying the foundations of some amazing future technologies in 2008. They produced concepts such as silicon chips you can swallow for personalized medicine from the inside out and a fourth fundamental element in electronic circuitry. And engineers cranked out a few less groundbreaking — but no less important — inventions, like a space-age swimsuit to help Michael Phelps slice through the water faster than a river otter on a jet ski.
Here's our countdown of what rocked our world in 2008 — and what will change yours in 2009 and beyond.
10. Flexible Displays
Flexible displays are likely to be a reality by 2010 or 2011.
Courtesy Phillip Spears
A sliver of the future can soon be tucked into your back pocket. For years, researchers have worked on thin, paperlike displays that can be folded, rolled or sewn into the sleeve of your hoodie. Flexible displays could change the way we interact with the info-universe, creating new kinds of cellphones, portable computers, e-newspapers and electronic books.
This year, the research moved from the realm of science fiction to plausible reality. With help from the U.S. Army, Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center has created a prototype for soldiers, and hopes to have the devices in field trials in the next three years. Startups like Plastic Logic and E-Ink have been developing similar technologies.
Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard announced a manufacturing breakthrough that allows the thin-film transistor arrays to be fabricated on flexible plastic materials, enabling manufacturers to "print" displays on big, newsprintlike rolls. Samsung showed off a mobile phone prototype with a flexible display that folds like a book.
Outlook: A Minority Report-style digital newspaper that you can roll up in your pocket isn't happening before 2010 at the earliest. But to quote science fiction novelist William Gibson: "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."
9. Edible Chips
Grandma's pillbox with the days of the week neatly marked is set to go high tech. Tiny edible chips will replace the organizer, tracking when patients take their pills (or don't) and monitoring the effects of the drugs they're taking. Proteus, a Redwood City, California, company, has created tiny chips out of silicon grains that, once swallowed, activate in the stomach. The chips send a signal to an external patch that monitors vital parameters such as heart rate, temperature, state of wakefulness or body angle.
The data is then sent to an online repository or a cellphone for the physician and the patient to track. Proteus says its chips can keep score of how patients are responding to the medication. That may be just the beginning, as the chips could improve drug delivery and even insert other kinds of health monitors inside the body. Now doctors may have a better answer to a common patient complaint — they will know exactly how it feels.
Outlook: If proven in clinical trials, edible chips could let physicians look into a patient's system in a way that could change how medicine is prescribed and how we take the drugs.
8. Speedo LZR
Michael Phelps. 2008 Olympics. Enough said. Phelps and others were able to log faster times because of Speedo's LZR swimsuit. It blends new materials and a dose of NASA rocket science to boost the speeds of elite swimmers — legally.
Viscous drag on a swimmer can be as much as 25 percent of the total retarding force. But Speedo's suit, with its ultrasonically bonded seams instead of stitches, low-drag panels and a mix of polyurethane layers, can cut resistance and help swimmers move through the water faster. It also has a rigid, girdle-style structure that helps position the swimmer's body in an optimal position. Did it have anything to do with Michael Phelps' amazing eight Olympic gold medals? Probably not, as nearly every swimmer at the Games was wearing a Speedo suit.
Outlook: We're hoping at least some of the technologies in the LZR will trickle down to the consumer level so we can slice through the water at the Y.
7. Flash Memory
When Apple blessed the iPod with flash memory, it gave new life to a technology that had long played second fiddle to hard disk drives. Now flash memory is a mainstay of most consumer electronics products, from ultralight notebooks to digital cameras and media players.
Next, the who's who of the tech industry — EMC, Sun Microsystems, Intel and Hitachi — are championing flash drives for larger business users.
The advantage? Solid-state flash drives offer faster response times than hard disk drives and they require much less power. The hitch is that they are almost eight times more expensive than hard disk drives. But with the star power behind flash storage, the prices have nowhere to go but down.
Outlook: More data centers are likely to move to flash storage in 2009, which is likely to drive prices down further. If this trend takes off, say goodbye to the hard disk drives in your house. It will be time to flash your drive.
6. GPS
The Global Positioning System is old, old, older than you think. The system has been operational since 1978 and available for commercial use since 1993, but for years its use was relegated to expensive personal navigation devices and the dashboards of high-end cars.
This year, suddenly GPS popped up everywhere else, from the iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1 to notebooks such as Fujitsu's LifeBook series.
And devices that couldn't or didn't include true GPS made do with cell-tower triangulation or geolocation based on Wi-Fi hotspots. Now getting lost is no longer an option.
Outlook: With widespread GPS capabilities throughout the gadget world, services that make use of geographic data, like Loopt and Yahoo's Firebird, will be able to build critical mass.
5. The Memristor
It's not often that a fundamental tech breakthrough has the potential to change how we compute. Nearly 37 years after it was first described in a series of mathematical equations, researchers at HP Labs proved that the fourth fundamental element of electronic circuitry is for real. The "memristor," or memory transistor, now joins the three other widely known elements: the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor.
The discovery will make it possible to develop computer systems that remember what's stored in memory when they are turned off. That means computers that don't need to be booted up and systems that are far more energy efficient than the current crop. Researchers also hope the memristor can help develop a new kind of computer memory that can supplement or ultimately replace dynamic random access memory, or DRAM — the type of memory used in personal computers.
Outlook: Memristors are still primarily confined to the lab, so don't expect commercial products based on this kind of circuitry for at least five years.
4. Video-Capable SLRs
Video-capable SLRs will meld high-def moving and still images.
Courtesy of Nikon
For years, high-end single-lens reflex cameras have been unable to do what even $100 pocket cams can do: Shoot video. That's because of the type of imaging chip used by SLRs.
This year, the camera industry overcame that limitation. Two new cameras, the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D Mark II capture top-notch still images, but let the photographer to shoot high-definition video. No longer do SLR users have to stand by, while friends mock them for their expensive camera's inability to shoot video.
Outlook: Shooting high-def videos with an SLR is cheap compared to using professional video equipment — and it gives photographers access to a wide range of lenses. In 2009, we predict this will lead to an explosion in arty, high-def videos shot by professional still photographers.
3. USB 3.0
Fasten your seatbelts. The data-transfer freeway is set to turn into an autobahn. The Universal Serial Bus, or USB, a popular standard for transferring files to your PC or charging your iPhone, got its first major update in eight years. USB 3.0 will be 10 times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard, and will increase the amount of electrical current that can be delivered through a USB cable.
Users need the increased speed — 4.8 gigabits per second, to be precise. Digital cameras and pocket-size HD video recorders generate a torrent of bits, all of which need to be transferred quickly to computers, so they can be uploaded to YouTube, adding to the internet video that only a handful of people will ever watch.
And as consumers carry around more devices, charging them off a PC using a USB cable will be much easier than carrying multiple chargers. With the USB 3.0 specifications nailed down this year, the standard will bump up the power output to 900 milliamps from 100 milliamps, allowing more devices to be charged faster.
Outlook: We expect the earliest USB 3.0 products in mid-2009.
2. Android
Handset makers from Motorola to Sony Ericsson are rushing to add Android to their lineup.
Jon Snyder/Wired.com
There were many reasons to dislike the T-Mobile HTC G1 phone: its color, poor battery life and a touchscreen that isn't super-responsive. And the numbers reflect that. Only about 1.5 million units of the G1 have been sold since its October 2008 launch. Compare that to the 3 million iPhones that sold when it debuted.
But the G1 scores with its operating system. It runs Android, the free mobile operating system from Google. It's the first mobile OS to make its debut in years and the G1 is just the first of what will be many phones that use it. With its open source base, growing developer community and dozens of cellphone manufacturers pledging to make Android phones, Android has the potential to reshape the wireless industry in significant ways.
Outlook: At least half a dozen manufacturers are likely to release Android phones in 2009, increasing the pressure on other smartphone operating systems. The iPhone is likely to remain the top-selling smartphone through the end of the year, however.
1. Apple's App Store
Until this year, mobile app developers lacked an easy way to get their software into the hands of consumers, forcing them to make deals with finicky and power-hungry carriers if they wanted to get any distribution at all. Apple's App Store changed all that. It made creating and distributing mobile applications for cellphone users easy — jumpstarting the mobile-app development market and creating clones such as the Android Market. It even forced Research in Motion to offer a BlackBerry Application Storefront. For thousands of programmers, the cellphone is the new PC.
Outlook: App stores have changed forever the way we use our phones, turning them into personalized devices filled with utilities, handy tools and copies of Tap Tap Revenge.
Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008 By Priya Ganapati Email 12.26.08
The economy may be tanking, but innovation is alive and well.
When it came to products, incremental improvements were the name of the game this year. Phones got faster (iPhone 3G anyone?), notebooks turned into netbooks and pocket cameras went from recording standard-definition video to HD.
But the world's corporate and academic R&D labs were busy laying the foundations of some amazing future technologies in 2008. They produced concepts such as silicon chips you can swallow for personalized medicine from the inside out and a fourth fundamental element in electronic circuitry. And engineers cranked out a few less groundbreaking — but no less important — inventions, like a space-age swimsuit to help Michael Phelps slice through the water faster than a river otter on a jet ski.
Here's our countdown of what rocked our world in 2008 — and what will change yours in 2009 and beyond.
10. Flexible Displays
Flexible displays are likely to be a reality by 2010 or 2011.
Courtesy Phillip Spears
A sliver of the future can soon be tucked into your back pocket. For years, researchers have worked on thin, paperlike displays that can be folded, rolled or sewn into the sleeve of your hoodie. Flexible displays could change the way we interact with the info-universe, creating new kinds of cellphones, portable computers, e-newspapers and electronic books.
This year, the research moved from the realm of science fiction to plausible reality. With help from the U.S. Army, Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center has created a prototype for soldiers, and hopes to have the devices in field trials in the next three years. Startups like Plastic Logic and E-Ink have been developing similar technologies.
Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard announced a manufacturing breakthrough that allows the thin-film transistor arrays to be fabricated on flexible plastic materials, enabling manufacturers to "print" displays on big, newsprintlike rolls. Samsung showed off a mobile phone prototype with a flexible display that folds like a book.
Outlook: A Minority Report-style digital newspaper that you can roll up in your pocket isn't happening before 2010 at the earliest. But to quote science fiction novelist William Gibson: "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."
9. Edible Chips
Grandma's pillbox with the days of the week neatly marked is set to go high tech. Tiny edible chips will replace the organizer, tracking when patients take their pills (or don't) and monitoring the effects of the drugs they're taking. Proteus, a Redwood City, California, company, has created tiny chips out of silicon grains that, once swallowed, activate in the stomach. The chips send a signal to an external patch that monitors vital parameters such as heart rate, temperature, state of wakefulness or body angle.
The data is then sent to an online repository or a cellphone for the physician and the patient to track. Proteus says its chips can keep score of how patients are responding to the medication. That may be just the beginning, as the chips could improve drug delivery and even insert other kinds of health monitors inside the body. Now doctors may have a better answer to a common patient complaint — they will know exactly how it feels.
Outlook: If proven in clinical trials, edible chips could let physicians look into a patient's system in a way that could change how medicine is prescribed and how we take the drugs.
8. Speedo LZR
Michael Phelps. 2008 Olympics. Enough said. Phelps and others were able to log faster times because of Speedo's LZR swimsuit. It blends new materials and a dose of NASA rocket science to boost the speeds of elite swimmers — legally.
Viscous drag on a swimmer can be as much as 25 percent of the total retarding force. But Speedo's suit, with its ultrasonically bonded seams instead of stitches, low-drag panels and a mix of polyurethane layers, can cut resistance and help swimmers move through the water faster. It also has a rigid, girdle-style structure that helps position the swimmer's body in an optimal position. Did it have anything to do with Michael Phelps' amazing eight Olympic gold medals? Probably not, as nearly every swimmer at the Games was wearing a Speedo suit.
Outlook: We're hoping at least some of the technologies in the LZR will trickle down to the consumer level so we can slice through the water at the Y.
7. Flash Memory
When Apple blessed the iPod with flash memory, it gave new life to a technology that had long played second fiddle to hard disk drives. Now flash memory is a mainstay of most consumer electronics products, from ultralight notebooks to digital cameras and media players.
Next, the who's who of the tech industry — EMC, Sun Microsystems, Intel and Hitachi — are championing flash drives for larger business users.
The advantage? Solid-state flash drives offer faster response times than hard disk drives and they require much less power. The hitch is that they are almost eight times more expensive than hard disk drives. But with the star power behind flash storage, the prices have nowhere to go but down.
Outlook: More data centers are likely to move to flash storage in 2009, which is likely to drive prices down further. If this trend takes off, say goodbye to the hard disk drives in your house. It will be time to flash your drive.
6. GPS
The Global Positioning System is old, old, older than you think. The system has been operational since 1978 and available for commercial use since 1993, but for years its use was relegated to expensive personal navigation devices and the dashboards of high-end cars.
This year, suddenly GPS popped up everywhere else, from the iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1 to notebooks such as Fujitsu's LifeBook series.
And devices that couldn't or didn't include true GPS made do with cell-tower triangulation or geolocation based on Wi-Fi hotspots. Now getting lost is no longer an option.
Outlook: With widespread GPS capabilities throughout the gadget world, services that make use of geographic data, like Loopt and Yahoo's Firebird, will be able to build critical mass.
5. The Memristor
It's not often that a fundamental tech breakthrough has the potential to change how we compute. Nearly 37 years after it was first described in a series of mathematical equations, researchers at HP Labs proved that the fourth fundamental element of electronic circuitry is for real. The "memristor," or memory transistor, now joins the three other widely known elements: the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor.
The discovery will make it possible to develop computer systems that remember what's stored in memory when they are turned off. That means computers that don't need to be booted up and systems that are far more energy efficient than the current crop. Researchers also hope the memristor can help develop a new kind of computer memory that can supplement or ultimately replace dynamic random access memory, or DRAM — the type of memory used in personal computers.
Outlook: Memristors are still primarily confined to the lab, so don't expect commercial products based on this kind of circuitry for at least five years.
4. Video-Capable SLRs
Video-capable SLRs will meld high-def moving and still images.
Courtesy of Nikon
For years, high-end single-lens reflex cameras have been unable to do what even $100 pocket cams can do: Shoot video. That's because of the type of imaging chip used by SLRs.
This year, the camera industry overcame that limitation. Two new cameras, the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D Mark II capture top-notch still images, but let the photographer to shoot high-definition video. No longer do SLR users have to stand by, while friends mock them for their expensive camera's inability to shoot video.
Outlook: Shooting high-def videos with an SLR is cheap compared to using professional video equipment — and it gives photographers access to a wide range of lenses. In 2009, we predict this will lead to an explosion in arty, high-def videos shot by professional still photographers.
3. USB 3.0
Fasten your seatbelts. The data-transfer freeway is set to turn into an autobahn. The Universal Serial Bus, or USB, a popular standard for transferring files to your PC or charging your iPhone, got its first major update in eight years. USB 3.0 will be 10 times faster than the current USB 2.0 standard, and will increase the amount of electrical current that can be delivered through a USB cable.
Users need the increased speed — 4.8 gigabits per second, to be precise. Digital cameras and pocket-size HD video recorders generate a torrent of bits, all of which need to be transferred quickly to computers, so they can be uploaded to YouTube, adding to the internet video that only a handful of people will ever watch.
And as consumers carry around more devices, charging them off a PC using a USB cable will be much easier than carrying multiple chargers. With the USB 3.0 specifications nailed down this year, the standard will bump up the power output to 900 milliamps from 100 milliamps, allowing more devices to be charged faster.
Outlook: We expect the earliest USB 3.0 products in mid-2009.
2. Android
Handset makers from Motorola to Sony Ericsson are rushing to add Android to their lineup.
Jon Snyder/Wired.com
There were many reasons to dislike the T-Mobile HTC G1 phone: its color, poor battery life and a touchscreen that isn't super-responsive. And the numbers reflect that. Only about 1.5 million units of the G1 have been sold since its October 2008 launch. Compare that to the 3 million iPhones that sold when it debuted.
But the G1 scores with its operating system. It runs Android, the free mobile operating system from Google. It's the first mobile OS to make its debut in years and the G1 is just the first of what will be many phones that use it. With its open source base, growing developer community and dozens of cellphone manufacturers pledging to make Android phones, Android has the potential to reshape the wireless industry in significant ways.
Outlook: At least half a dozen manufacturers are likely to release Android phones in 2009, increasing the pressure on other smartphone operating systems. The iPhone is likely to remain the top-selling smartphone through the end of the year, however.
1. Apple's App Store
Until this year, mobile app developers lacked an easy way to get their software into the hands of consumers, forcing them to make deals with finicky and power-hungry carriers if they wanted to get any distribution at all. Apple's App Store changed all that. It made creating and distributing mobile applications for cellphone users easy — jumpstarting the mobile-app development market and creating clones such as the Android Market. It even forced Research in Motion to offer a BlackBerry Application Storefront. For thousands of programmers, the cellphone is the new PC.
Outlook: App stores have changed forever the way we use our phones, turning them into personalized devices filled with utilities, handy tools and copies of Tap Tap Revenge.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Soup Up Your Cellphone By KEVIN C. TOFEL
November 29, 2007
Basics
Soup Up Your Cellphone By KEVIN C. TOFEL
It is all too easy to get caught up in the hype that comes with the latest and greatest cellphones. And right now, the latest and greatest are the iPhone and the iPhone clones that, with a touch of the finger, open up maps, restaurant listings and the weather.
If those phones are too pricey for your budget or you've got more months on your contract with your carrier, there might be another way to get some of those handy services on your phone: widgets. (For a touch screen, you'll just have to wait.)
Widgets are small applications, most often free, that appear on your phone's menu pages. They deliver news or information to most handsets. You can use them to track down a cab company or follow stock prices. Other widgets deliver maps or headlines from media sources like the BBC, Bloomberg and this newspaper. For anyone with a smartphone that has the ability to connect to the Internet, it might make sense to simply use the included Web browser to visit Google Maps, YouTube and such, but if you're looking to extend the life of an older handset, widgets are a good option.
Widgets will not turn your vintage Motorola StarTAC into an iPhone, but they will add features and functions that you didn't think your phone could ever possess. There are several Web sites that offer widgets like GetMobio.com, Plusmo.com, Openwave.com and WidSets.com.
WidSets is one of the most popular such places because it has a large library of more than 2,650 widgets that work on more than 300 devices from all the leading manufacturers, even though the site is affiliated with Nokia, the world's largest maker of handsets. Most phones made in the last three years are supported by WidSets, including golden oldies like the Motorola RAZR V3.
GetMobio has fewer widgets and supports about 90 phones, but among its widgets are a cheap-gas finder, a store locator and something called the Panic Kit, which locates locksmiths, cab companies and pharmacies at the spur of the moment. Plusmo's roster is not as extensive, but among its widgets are applications to bring in news from CNN and a daily Peanuts cartoon.
Why would you use widgets when your carrier might offer similar applications? To save money. Cellular providers do not make much money selling handsets to consumers; in fact, they typically subsidize your handset purchase. By paying for a portion of your device, they're investing in you for the next two years. Over the contract's life, the real money is made in monthly service plan fees, overage charges and the extra services they can offer you.
That's where free widgets come in. You can avoid paying for extra services like news headlines and sports information that carriers typically bundle in packages for $5, $10, $20 or more. Often, you do not need the whole bundle, just one small feature like a stock price ticker or a weather update. Single-purpose widgets might serve your purpose (and your budget) better since you're installing only what you need.
While widgets are usually free, you can still end up paying your carrier for data transfer or airtime. The widgets need to piggyback on your cellular connection for data. Verify with your carrier that you either have some data allowance included in your plan or that it will charge only a nominal fee for small amounts of data. (Afterward, you can use the Traffic Feature in WidSets widgets to track how much data airtime you use.) Occasional updates of text data may seem small, but they add up quickly, so prepare accordingly with your service provider and monthly plan.
It does not matter whether your phone is on the CDMA network that Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel use or the GSM network that AT&T and T-Mobile use. The determining factor for widget compatibility is whether your phone supports Java software, or more specifically what is known as Java MIDP 2.0. With a few notable exceptions, like the Apple iPhone, Java is fairly commonplace in handsets because it gives the wireless carriers a flexible and easy way to add services. Smartphones that run on Windows Mobile, Palm and even BlackBerry operating systems also support Java, though on some phones you may have to download it first.
It is easy to install widgets. Go to WidSets.com to verify whether your phone can accept widgets. Widgets that you select are sent directly to your handset along with a WidSets application to run them. The process should take less than five minutes.
Here are some popular and most recommended widgets to get you started:
¶AccuWeather. One of the most useful widgets is also one of the most popular; at last check, more than 125,000 people were running this widget. And why not when you can get the weather forecast, including local current weather, extended forecasts and even radar maps?
¶Google Calendar. The Web-based calendar is with you everywhere with this widget. The best part? Update your calendar in one place on the Internet and the changes are viewable on other devices.
¶Wikipedia. There's an option to turn off images in this encyclopedia and provide just text to speed up the information download as well as reduce the amount of data transferred.
¶YouTube. This widget might be a little more limited than the iPhone's YouTube application, but you can still catch recently added videos and more.
¶Flickr. One of the most popular photo-sharing services on the Internet is right in the palm of your hand. You can view your photos and those that your friends and family have uploaded or search by a keyword to see what's out there.
¶Private Chat. Those instant-message fees add up quickly. Get your closest friends to install this widget and pay for just the airtime in real-time chat sessions. With over 350,000 users, you'll never be lonely again, but you might want to invest in an unlimited data plan for this one.
¶Twitter. If you want a wider audience than just one chat participant, Twitter is the answer. This short-messaging service allows you to "micro-blog" your life in 140 character bursts.
¶Sudoku. You've got a number pad on that phone, so why not use it to exercise your brain?
¶EBay. Searching for that special item? Now you can do it all the time and everywhere.
¶Newsvine. A combination of mainstream news and user-generated opinions that offers up wide viewpoints on current topics. Start with headlines in the widget and read any story with a single click. You can also choose to have news that focuses on a keyword of your choice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/technology/personaltech/29basics.htm?sq=&st=cse%22Soup%20Up%20Your%20Cellphone=%22=&scp=1&pagewanted=print
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Basics
Soup Up Your Cellphone By KEVIN C. TOFEL
It is all too easy to get caught up in the hype that comes with the latest and greatest cellphones. And right now, the latest and greatest are the iPhone and the iPhone clones that, with a touch of the finger, open up maps, restaurant listings and the weather.
If those phones are too pricey for your budget or you've got more months on your contract with your carrier, there might be another way to get some of those handy services on your phone: widgets. (For a touch screen, you'll just have to wait.)
Widgets are small applications, most often free, that appear on your phone's menu pages. They deliver news or information to most handsets. You can use them to track down a cab company or follow stock prices. Other widgets deliver maps or headlines from media sources like the BBC, Bloomberg and this newspaper. For anyone with a smartphone that has the ability to connect to the Internet, it might make sense to simply use the included Web browser to visit Google Maps, YouTube and such, but if you're looking to extend the life of an older handset, widgets are a good option.
Widgets will not turn your vintage Motorola StarTAC into an iPhone, but they will add features and functions that you didn't think your phone could ever possess. There are several Web sites that offer widgets like GetMobio.com, Plusmo.com, Openwave.com and WidSets.com.
WidSets is one of the most popular such places because it has a large library of more than 2,650 widgets that work on more than 300 devices from all the leading manufacturers, even though the site is affiliated with Nokia, the world's largest maker of handsets. Most phones made in the last three years are supported by WidSets, including golden oldies like the Motorola RAZR V3.
GetMobio has fewer widgets and supports about 90 phones, but among its widgets are a cheap-gas finder, a store locator and something called the Panic Kit, which locates locksmiths, cab companies and pharmacies at the spur of the moment. Plusmo's roster is not as extensive, but among its widgets are applications to bring in news from CNN and a daily Peanuts cartoon.
Why would you use widgets when your carrier might offer similar applications? To save money. Cellular providers do not make much money selling handsets to consumers; in fact, they typically subsidize your handset purchase. By paying for a portion of your device, they're investing in you for the next two years. Over the contract's life, the real money is made in monthly service plan fees, overage charges and the extra services they can offer you.
That's where free widgets come in. You can avoid paying for extra services like news headlines and sports information that carriers typically bundle in packages for $5, $10, $20 or more. Often, you do not need the whole bundle, just one small feature like a stock price ticker or a weather update. Single-purpose widgets might serve your purpose (and your budget) better since you're installing only what you need.
While widgets are usually free, you can still end up paying your carrier for data transfer or airtime. The widgets need to piggyback on your cellular connection for data. Verify with your carrier that you either have some data allowance included in your plan or that it will charge only a nominal fee for small amounts of data. (Afterward, you can use the Traffic Feature in WidSets widgets to track how much data airtime you use.) Occasional updates of text data may seem small, but they add up quickly, so prepare accordingly with your service provider and monthly plan.
It does not matter whether your phone is on the CDMA network that Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel use or the GSM network that AT&T and T-Mobile use. The determining factor for widget compatibility is whether your phone supports Java software, or more specifically what is known as Java MIDP 2.0. With a few notable exceptions, like the Apple iPhone, Java is fairly commonplace in handsets because it gives the wireless carriers a flexible and easy way to add services. Smartphones that run on Windows Mobile, Palm and even BlackBerry operating systems also support Java, though on some phones you may have to download it first.
It is easy to install widgets. Go to WidSets.com to verify whether your phone can accept widgets. Widgets that you select are sent directly to your handset along with a WidSets application to run them. The process should take less than five minutes.
Here are some popular and most recommended widgets to get you started:
¶AccuWeather. One of the most useful widgets is also one of the most popular; at last check, more than 125,000 people were running this widget. And why not when you can get the weather forecast, including local current weather, extended forecasts and even radar maps?
¶Google Calendar. The Web-based calendar is with you everywhere with this widget. The best part? Update your calendar in one place on the Internet and the changes are viewable on other devices.
¶Wikipedia. There's an option to turn off images in this encyclopedia and provide just text to speed up the information download as well as reduce the amount of data transferred.
¶YouTube. This widget might be a little more limited than the iPhone's YouTube application, but you can still catch recently added videos and more.
¶Flickr. One of the most popular photo-sharing services on the Internet is right in the palm of your hand. You can view your photos and those that your friends and family have uploaded or search by a keyword to see what's out there.
¶Private Chat. Those instant-message fees add up quickly. Get your closest friends to install this widget and pay for just the airtime in real-time chat sessions. With over 350,000 users, you'll never be lonely again, but you might want to invest in an unlimited data plan for this one.
¶Twitter. If you want a wider audience than just one chat participant, Twitter is the answer. This short-messaging service allows you to "micro-blog" your life in 140 character bursts.
¶Sudoku. You've got a number pad on that phone, so why not use it to exercise your brain?
¶EBay. Searching for that special item? Now you can do it all the time and everywhere.
¶Newsvine. A combination of mainstream news and user-generated opinions that offers up wide viewpoints on current topics. Start with headlines in the widget and read any story with a single click. You can also choose to have news that focuses on a keyword of your choice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/technology/personaltech/29basics.htm?sq=&st=cse%22Soup%20Up%20Your%20Cellphone=%22=&scp=1&pagewanted=print
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