Amazon’s popular reading device “kindle” converts text to speech.  The device “reads” the text out loud and speaks it out loud, like your own personal book-reader.   So, in theory it is definitely a good buy for blind people.   But, vision-disability groups aren’t very happy with it.  Infact they are unhappy to the point that they are protesting against university libraries who buy it. Why? it is not user friendly.  To be able to use Kindle, you have to be able actually see the controls on the screen.  That’s the blooper of the year to me!  In fact, NPR reports, various libraries across the US are infact cancelling orders of Kindle and/or not buying anymore because of the strong urging from the vision-disability groups! Syracuse university is one.  Says Amazon, “we are working on it.”  That further enraged the disability groups.  One activist says, “It is not a difficult thing to fix.  That is a very pathetic response from Amazon.”

The system is best designed to operate on netbooks.  Ideally, the system, which focuses on web browsing will run on less battery power and will allow users to boot their systems in roughly seven seconds, like turning on a television.  Speed is definitely one of the top priorities of the system and Google hopes will be a main competitive advantage of the Chrome OS.

The user interface resembles Google’s Chrome web browser. Because the browser will be the only application residing on the device, Google Chrome OS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Internet.

This is not really a significant issue because by the year 2038, many anticipate that very few 32-bit systems will remain.  The greatest threat lies with anyone using a legacy system or legacy software. Legacy software is characterized informally as old software that is still performing a useful job for the community.

Ultimately, like Y2K, this problem can’t necessarily be categorized as trivial, but it is unlikely to cause any damage or crisis of consequence.

Wow!  In a landmark case for Information Technology, the govt. of Finland has made broadband internet connection a legal right.  Telecom companies are now REQUIRED to provide broadband connection at 1MBPS to customers.   Citizens have to pay a monthly fee.  While this is not a mandate for the citizens to buy broadband, this is primarily a mandate for telecom companies to provide such service.  The govt. is running on the idea that broadband rates are pretty cheap, and IT is becoming more and more important not only as a business tool, but also for the general public to have to keep up with the times and be competitive and productive.  There will be more and more e-services springing up, and the govt thinks it necessary that the citizens should not be left behind.  By 2015, the speed of boardband will be mandated to go up to 100 MBPS.

We have been talking all semester long about IT being important in business.  This only goes to show how important IT has and will become in personal lives as well!

Another exiting news was that according to a UK gaming magazine Microsoft. NATAL is releasing on November 2010. It’s a controller free gaming technique based on motion sensor. It will sense the body motion without any device attached to your body or in your hands. Seems pretty cool! Microsoft has put this idea long back almost 5 years and still has one year to launch so people are not so sure about the launch of NATAL. I saw an advertisement video of NATAL on you tube feature and functions are very advanced for a gaming console like face and voice recognition. Let’s see what it brings out in November 2010.

Recently, administrators in the Southeastern Conference prohibited the use of social networking tools by fans attending football games. The general premise behind this prohibition is to protect their product as well as their investment, a multi-billion dollar television contract. It is not totally unreasonable, but it does seem a stretch to believe football fans would view Twitter or Facebook updates as a redistribution of a football game. Reading live updates about a game via twitter is hardly a suitable alternative to watching a game on television. The authors also noted the fact that this rule is ultimately a threat since it would be extremely difficult to enforce the ban at a stadium seating roughly 90,000 fans.

In a similar vein, the National Football League has prohibited players and officials from using social networking tools from 90 minutes before kickoff until post-game media interviews are conducted. The NFL has encouraged its players to utilize social networking tools to further interaction with fans, however the league believes using these tools during a game could be a distraction or reveal valuable information that could sacrifice the integrity of the game or alter gambling lines/odds.

Other sports leagues have also implemented restrictions or policies regarding the use of Twitter and Facebook during games. The NBA has delegated social networking restrictions to individual teams, issuing no league-wide policy. Ultimately, it is expected that all sports leagues and associations will have some sort of policy in the near future if they don’t already.

It would not be surprising if this trend popped up in other areas of media, including television/movie studios, record labels, etc. so as to prevent the release of sensitive information. The authors also said they expect to see government bodies and agencies to do the same so that politicians don’t compromise themselves over the Internet. It is certainly an interesting trend and one worth watching as it continues to develop.

Web mail is an easily accessible feature from any computer, and we don’t need to install and maintain software, but the problem is we have to keep a browser window open to know that we have an email. The solution is that we can install small application on machine that monitors Gmail account and pops up an alert when we get a message.

Two types of Gmail Notifiers are available for Windows and Mac from Google. Third type of notifier called Notify for the Mac is available on Vibealicious

The first one provided by Google is quite basic. It supports Windows and Mac, shows up on system tray or menu bar, monitors your Gmail account and pops up when we get a message. It’s simple to download, install, and be up and running to monitor our Gmail account.

Notify from Vibealicious is much advance and helpful when we have more than one Gmail account and choose not to use the multiple account feature on the server to send and receive all email at one place. Notify allows us to monitor multiple Gmail accounts at once. It’s only available for Mac. It sits in the menu bar with a little icon and number of unread messages. By clicking it we can get a full interface. Notify is free.

Gmail Notifier from http://gmailnotifier.com supports both Windows and Mac. It is Similar to Notify from Vibealicious and supports multiple accounts. It runs in the system tray or Mac menu bar like Google’s tool. When clicked it pops up as an index of all Gmail accounts and shows unread messages of each. It has simple controls to manage the message index and select messages for deletion, mark them as read, etc. It even supports Google Calendar alerts. It’s also free.

The authors have described Wave as a combination of email, instant messaging, collaborative software and an application platform.  Users familiar with other google applications will certainly recognize elements of gmail, google chat and google docs.  The general premise is that Wave allows real time communication and collaboration among multiple individuals.  Much like google docs, a user creates a wave and extends invites to additional users.  From here, any participant in the wave can make real time updates and/or communications.  Google doc users will attest to the fact that this real-time editing can become somewhat chaotic; a notable feature to address this is the playback function that allows users to view a wave in stages to examine updates that occurred at any particular time.

Essentially a centralized platform for various applications, Wave’s ability as an interactive tool is tremendous.  For example, say a band is performing a show; a fan could embed a Wave link into their blog that contained a map to the venue, links to videos, an interactive poll to gauge interest, etc.

Perhaps the most impressive feature is the automatic translation tool.  Users around the globe could communicate or collaborate on the same project, speaking different languages and Wave automatically translates text to the desired language.  In theory this is fantastic, but I remain skeptical about the accuracy and/or effectiveness of this tool.

Ultimately, Wave has the potential to be a revolutionary tool, allowing users to centralize a limitless number of applications.  Wave is still in a preliminary stage and its functionality is restricted due to the limited number of users (Wave requires an invite to join).  That said, at this stage it appears that Wave will become a mainstay within the near future and become another notch in Google’s already impressive belt.