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Show of 3-24-2012

Best of Tech Talk Edition

  • Segments taken from previous shows.

Email and Forum Questions

  • Email from Tung: Dear Tech Talk, I just got back from a trip to Las Vegas. I used my iPhone to take pictures of my trip. I am using iCloud with Photostream. Now I want to delete some of those pictures because they are embarrassing. However, I can’t delete any pictures from the Photostream subdirectory. If I remove and then re-install Photostream on my iPhone, the pictures just come back. What can I do? Thanks, Tung
  • Tech Talk Responds: By default, Apple will delete your photos from Photo Stream after 30 days. It will also start removing them once you’ve hit 1000 images. But it will not let you delete just one “private” picture manually. Here is the procedure to delete all of your Photostream pics.
    • Step 1: Login to iCloud.com. You should just be able to use your Apple ID and password.
    • Step 2: Once you’ve logged in, tap on your name in the top right hand corner of the screen (to the left of where it says Sign Out).
    • Step 3: You should now be looking at your profile. Click the button labeled Advanced.
    • Step 4: If you’re sure you want all of your photos deleted, click Reset Photo Stream (this doesn’t delete photos in your camera roll).
  • Hopefully at some point we’ll see an option to delete photos individually from the cloud, but for now, this will work. It is in beta now and should be released soon.
  • Email from Arnie McKechnie: Hi Dr. Shurtz, Here are some questions for Tech Talk. I just read an article that discusses using laser pulses to increase the time to write a disk. They have not perfected this yet. Still, I don’t see how this works since magnets and heat are not compatible. And the speeds they mention; how can they tell how fast this is being done? Like 60 femtosecond pulses of laser — that’s a duration of 60 quadrillionths of a second. How does this speed compare to the speed of light? There are a lot of zeros in the speeds they mention. Also, how do you think they’re going to overcome the problem of retrieving data? Thought you would like an interesting physics question. With the speeds involved with this, I don’t see how they work with it. Really like your program. Thanks, Anie McKechnie, Dvidsonville, MD
  • Tech Talk Responds: They are using a solid state laser to heat very small areas of a thin magnetically polarized film. They have show that thermal effects alone can de-polarize this material. They are using a 60 femtosecond laser pulse to write in less than 5 picoseconds (10 raised to the -12). A femtosecond is 10 raised to the minus -15 seconds. Light travels on foot in a nanosecond (10 raised to the -9). They can get this speed because of the intensity of the light beam, both spatially and temporally. You are right they cannot read at those speeds. But they can write 1,000 times faster. They still have to find a way to direct the beam to various locations at that speed too.
  • Email from Loyal Listener: Dear Dr. Richard Shurtz , I participate in a yahoogroups that is a neighborhood listserv. It is wonderful 99% of the time. There is One person who has a problem and sends very snide comments to every other poster. More than one person complained to the Listserv manager. Listserv manager says –it is a free speech world and All are welcome.
  • How can I block this man from emailing me? Many of his remarks are emailed directly to me, not to the listserv….If I choose SPAM in my yahoo inbox to send his emails there I believe the new ones still come through. Your help is most appreciated. What I am amazed about is all of these yrs with email and it seems no one has solved the SPAM issue that is such a nuisance.  Thank You : ). A Loyal Listener
  • Tech Talk Responds: You will not be able to block only his messages from the Listserv. You can block all Listserv messages. If his comments are abusive, he should be kicked out of the forum. The good news is that you can get rid of all the emails that he sends directly to you. Simply go to email rules, and create a rule that all emails from his email address will be deleted. If you are using Outlook, go to Options in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Select Create an Inbox Rule. Select New. Select If Was Received from. Select Delete the Message. Name the Rule. Then save the rule.
  • Email from a Regular Listener: Dear Doc, One unsettling article in the Feb. 4 that I hope you might comment on. “Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85 percent of its total revenue. Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads. Hundreds of other companies have also staked claims on people’s online data by using cookies or other tracking.” Has anyone written the Top 10 things a pc user needs to do to retain some degree of privacy?  Best, Regular listener.
  • Tech Talk Responds: This is a great question. Here are a few options that may help.
    • The Block cookies on your Web browser.
    • Don’t put your full birth date on your social-networking profiles.
    • Don’t download Facebook apps from outside the United States.
    • Use multiple usernames and passwords.
    • Know how much private data are out there about you.
    • Be really cautious about geo-location services
    • Shred.
    • Opt out of “people search” sites.
    • Max out your privacy settings on social networks.
    • Close old accounts.
  • Two recommended websites to help with this project:
  • Email from Steve: I recently downloaded two sizable content files, each 1.1GB. My FIOS is 20/5. The first file took X minutes to download. The second download link (from the same company) to me to a “content downloader” and the file of the same size took less than half the time I wonder how their “downloader” program can cut the download time of a huge file in half because my internet connection is still 20/5.  Thanks, Steve
  • Tech Talk Responds: Download accelerators certainly don’t make your internet connection any faster, but they do sometimes seem like they do. Download Accelerator can use many techniques to speed file transfer.
    • Multiple connections: Normally, in a traditional file, download only one connection is used. Download accelerators most commonly speed up downloads by creating more than one. Interestingly, the impact of this technique appears to be greatest the faster your internet connection, where the delays in a normal download become a proportionally larger percentage of the time spent downloading.
    • Data Compression: If a file being downloaded is not itself compressed – say it’s a text file or word document, or even an executable “.exe” file – the act of downloading it does not necessarily compress it. Some download accelerators cause the file to be compressed by the server before transmission.
    • Resumability: This isn’t so much a true speed up in the downloading technology, but it represents a huge speed up if you’ve ever been disconnected in the middle of a large download. Many download accelerators not only remember where you were when a download is disconnected for some reason, but they’ll often automatically re-connect.
    • Transfer Window Adjustment: Data is transferred in larger blocks before are response is required. Most TCP/IP connections start with a small window and increase the window if the transfer channel has a low error rate.
  • Email from Fredericksburg Listener: Dear Tech Talk, I just received this email from AT&T regarding my cellular data usage on my cell phone. What are my options?
    • “As mentioned on a previous bill, we’re taking additional, more immediate steps to help address network congestion and improve reliability.
    • One of these steps involves a change for some customers who use extraordinarily large amounts of data in a single billing period – about 12 times more data than the average Smartphone user.
    • Here’s how it works: Smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle.
    • We’re writing because you are in the top 5 percent of heaviest data users for this billing cycle. Because we recognize that data usage can change from month to month, you will not see reduced speeds this billing cycle. What are my options?”
  • Thanks.  Love the show. Listening in Fredericksburg.
  • Tech Talk Responds: Thanks for the email. I have wondered when AT&T was going to begin throttling their customers because of high bandwidth usage.
  • Wi-Fi offers great speeds and doesn’t add to your wireless data usage. Consider using Wi-Fi when possible for applications that use the highest amounts of data, such as streaming video apps, remote web camera apps, large data-file transfers (like video) and some online gaming.
  • I would avoid upgrading to the tiered data plan recommended by AT&T to avoid transfer slowdown. I would also explore Sprint and Verizon data plan options.

Profiles in IT: Leila Chirayath Janah

  • Leila Chirayath Janah is the founder of Samasource, a business that connects people living in poverty to micro-work or small, computer-based tasks that build skills and generate income.
  • She was born in 1983 in Buffalo, NY to parents who had emigrated from India.
  • She grew up in Los Angeles had heard many stories about poverty in India.
  • At the age of 16, she won a college scholarship from a local tobacco company.
  • She was able to convince its executives to let her use the money to spend six months teaching in Ghana. She wanted to learn more about poverty in the developing world.
  • Janah taught 60 rural high school students, who shared three textbooks.
  • She wondered how a country so rich in human capital could be so poor.
  • She graduating from Harvard in 2004 with a degree in African culture.
  • She led the Harvard International Development Group and published a paper on the Rwandan genocide.
  • Along with Professors Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis, she founded Incentives for Global Health and helped produce a plan for incentivizing the development of new drugs for neglected diseases.
  • She worked briefly at the World Bank doing research and later at Katzenbach Partners as an outsourcing consultant.
  • She realized that she could get work to developing countries via outsourcing. In 2009 she founded Samasource, a non-profit corporation. “Sama” means “equal” in Sanskrit.
  • The organization’s mission is to bring micro-work – as opposed to micro-credit – to women, youth, and refugees living in poverty around the world.
  • Janah describes Samasource as a marriage between Silicon Valley technology and poor people that creates a compelling value proposition for customers who send work assignments to the firm.
  • Micro-work is defined as small digital tasks that can be performed on inexpensive computers and smart phones from anywhere by anyone.
  • Janah says employing the world’s poor this way is feasible because of several trends, including the rise in global literacy and a growing access to technology.
  • Janah believes that the lack of work in the developing world represents the biggest threat to global stability. Youth without hope are exploited by the terrorists.
  • Funding her new company has been difficult. She stayed with friends for six months.
  • Two years ago her project was selected for the Facebook Fund Incubator Program.
    Facebook connected her with many technologists who helped develop the platform and locate 80K in angel financing.
  • She then received grants from the Rockefeller and Templeton Foundations.
  • She now has more than 600 micro-workers and 18 companies providing work.
  • Leila is a recipient of the Rainer Arnhold and TEDIndia Fellowships, and serves on the San Francisco board of the Social Enterprise Institute.
  • Samasource website: http://www.samasource.com/
  • Her personal website: http://leilajanah.com/
  • Her Social Edge blog: http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/samasourcing
  • Her twitter account: http://twitter.com/leila_c

Tech Moment from History: First Webcam

  • The Trojan room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world’s first webcam.
  • The coffee pot was located in the Trojan Room, within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge.
  • The webcam was created to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee room by providing a live picture of the state of the coffee pot.
  • The camera was installed on a local network in 1991 using a video capture card on an Acorn Archimedes.
  • Employing the X Window System protocol, Quentin Stafford-Fraser wrote the client software and Paul Jardetzky wrote the server
  • When web-browsers gained the ability to display images in March 1993, it was clear this would be an easier way to make the picture available.
  • The camera was connected to the Internet in November 1993 by Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson.
  • It therefore became visible to all Internet users and grew into a popular landmark of the early web.
  • At 0954 UTC on 22 August 2001 the camera was finally switched off and the pot (actually the fourth or fifth seen on-line) was auctioned on eBay for around $5450 to Spiegel Online.

iPad 2 is Official

  • The iPad 2 is 33 percent thinner than its predecessor and a little lighter.
  • iPad 2 features a 1GHz dual-core A5 chip.
  • It includes Apple’s iOS 4.3
  • It has two cameras, both on the front and rear.
  • 720p video recording at 30fpsfrom the rear-facing camera, which also has 5x digital zoom
  • The front-facing imager will record at VGA resolution at 30fps.
  • The new CPU twice as fast, with graphics performance up to nine times better than on the original iPad.
  • Same 1024 x 768 resolution and IPS LCD screen technology as on the original iPad.
  • Power requirements have been kept the same so battery life is unaltered (10 hours).
  • The new tablet will come with an HDMI output capable of 1080p using a USB $39 USB dongle.
  • Enlarged speaker grille on the back.
  • There’s a new cover for the device, a magnetic flap that protects the front and automatically wakes and puts the device to sleep based on whether it’s open or closed.
  • Pricing is the same: starting at $499 for a 16GB WiFi-only iPad 2, up to $829 for a WiFi + 3G with 64GB of storage.
  • It will be available on both AT&T and Verizon and start shipping March 11.
  • Apple Thinks Ecosystem, Not Just Tablet
  • What’s the key to Apple being able to bring out a $500 tablet.
  • First, the combination of Apple’s 300+ retail stores and its online Apple Store means that the company sells a huge chunk of its iPads directly to its customers.
  • Second, designing in-house means Apple doesn’t have to pay licensing fees to third parties to use their intellectual property. For instance, the A4 chip inside the iPad is based on technology developed and owned by Apple (not Intel, AMD or Nvidia). The operating system is Apple’s own, not something licensed from Microsoft or Google.
  • Third, Apple takes a cut of each sale made through each of its digital storefronts: the App Store, iBooks and iTunes music and video.
  • Selling iPad to a consumer isn’t the last contact the company expects to have with the user. To Apple, the iPad isn’t a tablet, it’s a logical, progressive extension of existing ecosystems.
  • This is a very different approach to the one taken by many of the tablet manufacturers.
  • Now you know how Apple can sell an $800 tablet for only $500.
  • Profitable app/media ecosystems are key to keeping tablet prices low.