Tag: iPad

iOS 11 drops tomorrow, the 19th

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Statement at Apple website: iOS 11 sets a new standard for what is already the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. It makes iPhone better than before. It makes iPad more capable than ever. And now it opens up both to amazing possibilities for augmented reality in games and apps. With iOS 11, iPhone and iPad are the most powerful, personal, and intelligent devices they’ve ever been.

Here in MDT, typically will drop at 11AM. The tvOS update should be rolling out, as well…though I’m still waiting for my fave reseller to get the 4K Gen 5 Apple TV.

How do toddlers use tablets? — a limited survey

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Can babies use iPads?

If you’ve ever viewed YouTube videos of infants and toddlers using iPads, then you know the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

But how are they using them?

To answer that question and others, a team of University of Iowa researchers set out to study more than 200 YouTube videos. Their paper is published in the proceedings of the CHI 2015 conference, the most prestigious in the field of human-computer interaction.

In the paper they write that their goal was to “provide a window into how these children are using tablets through an analysis of relevant YouTube videos.”

What they found was information that supports “opportunities for research and starting points for design.”

“By age two, 90 percent of the children in the videos had a moderate ability to use a tablet,” says Juan Pablo Hourcade, associate professor of computer science in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study. “Just over 50 percent of 12-to-17-month-old children in the videos had a moderate ability…”

He says that to his knowledge, other researchers have conducted surveys of the prevalence of tablet use by young children, however, the UI study is the first to study how infants and toddlers are actually using the devices…

Hourcade acknowledged the drawbacks of using unsolicited YouTube videos, such as not knowing the exact ages of the children pictured and that the children pictured were selected by their caregivers and may not be representative of the larger society. However, he says the researchers were able to estimate the ages of the children (two-thirds of the videos included the age) and observe a clear progression of successful performance linked to age that is consistent with developmental milestones…

He says he hopes that the study and others that follow will influence the development of apps that encourage interactive education for infants and toddlers. The apps he envisions might be similar to the social and interactive-like children’s programs currently found on public television.

Interesting stuff. I almost always end up supporting any sort of investigation that encourages early education.

My parents taught both my sister and me to read by the time we each were 4 years old. And we had plenty of reading material available for the following age group – and beyond. Speaking subjectively, it was a great advantage throughout school for each of us.

Apple’s ResearchKit offers scientists access to millions of volunteers

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Jeff Williams introduces Apple’s medical research kit — Reuters/Robert Galbraith

Apple just released ResearchKit, an open-source software tool designed to give scientists a new way to gather information on patients by using their iPhones.

Several top research institutions have already developed applications to work on the ResearchKit platform, including those pursuing clinical studies on asthma, breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. They include Stanford University School of Medicine and Weill Cornell Medical College.

The format will allow users to decide if they want to participate in a study and decide how their data is to be shared with researchers…

The ResearchKit platform is designed to work hand in hand with Apple’s HealthKit software, which allows iPhones to work with health and fitness apps that gather information on weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use.

The ResearchKit also allows researchers access to accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in the iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.

The software is also designed to help researchers build more diverse study populations, which traditionally have been limited by physical proximity to large academic medical centres.

My wife teases me – calls me her personal emoticon. And I admit I cried a little when Tim Cook and Jeff Williams were introducing ResearchKit.

The primary cause of my mom’s death was Parkinson’s. She devoted a lot of her life to the American Heart Association. I’ve done some similar things; but, the best was being able to volunteer as a human test subject for one ailment that, right now, still affects millions of people. Shingles. My mom suffered through some painful episodes and it pleased me much to be in the final test cycle of the Shingles vaccine before it was approved.

That was a big deal because it included several thousand volunteers nationwide. With ResearchKit, computational analysis of everything from day-by-day, minute-by-minute tracking of symptoms, response, exercise, a great deal of information previously only available from small groups, narrow demographics – can now be collated from millions of volunteers.

Doctors, researchers, universities worldwide can develop apps to fit their particular needs. And you decide what you wish to participate in – if at all.

You decide whether or not you are anonymous. You decide the boundaries for your participation. Apple sees none of the information. It’s all up to you.

Tim Cook and the designers at Apple feel the potential for this concept is so important — they’re making the SDK open source and developers can proceed on any platform they wish. You won’t have to own Apple products to participate.

What will your verse be?

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I’ve spent most of my life living multiple directions at the same time.

I went from being a kid performing artist as a classical musician to teen jazz musician – while studying photography and literature.

I went from industrial engineering to a major in English literature – after switching to a 12-string guitar. And stopped racing cars, legally or otherwise, which included a very short stint driving for a bootlegger.

There’s more – especially political struggles over the last half-century or so. But, if you’re a regular visitor to this blog you’ll bump into those tales, the pleasure I experience from materialist philosophy and dialectics, science and society.

But, the arts in one form or another should be part of everyone’s life. Today’s technology brings ease and experiment into everyone’s life. Music, photography, writing, reading, experiencing all the wonder of human creativity and nature’s reach can be in the palm of your hand.

The shared experience of seeing a scientist in Alabama – or a technology and business journalist in San Francisco – become really skilled with the digital tools they have chosen to describe the beauty of existence makes me one of the happiest critters on Earth.

When a company chooses to sell their wares on the basis of this capability adds to that enjoyment.

Fox News’ new giant screens are lower resolution than an iPad

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News anchor Shepard Smith proudly demonstrated a remodeled “Fox News Deck” featuring massive, expensive new 55 inch touchscreens sold by Microsoft. However, the giant new screens have much lower resolution than even a 9.7″ iPad.

Smith beamed in showing off how Fox had, at considerable expense, revamped its news anchor sound stage to include actors manipulating at least ten of the massive new displays, each of which sells for around $7,100.

The displays are sold by Microsoft, which last year acquired Perceptive Pixel, the manufacturer of the giant touchscreens. The screen is essentially a very high quality HDTV equipped with a “projected capacitative” multitouch sensor. The screens are powered by Windows 8 and can also be navigated using an “Active Stylus,” which works like a wireless remote control.

Fox News said the month-long remodeling of its “revolutionary new studio” was performed in response to viewership changes, particularly the shifts occurring among users armed with mobile phones and iPads, many of which have ubiquitous data service…

Smith added, “we had to completely overhaul the way our news gathering works.” However, the “brand new tools to track developing stories,” that Smith said Fox was installing on stage for viewers to observe actually convey far less information that a typical pair of 17 inch computer screens.

Continue reading →

Wider Image app from Reuters – a sample

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Under a lone street lamp
By Tim Wimborne


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Since mid-March I have developed a new habit. Not a bad habit but a pretty regular one, about three nights a week, driving down to a local park near the harbor’s edge and parking by the side of the road, looking for a woman under a street light. Not any woman in particular but it’s always the same street light.

It’s a bit like being a John searching out a good time with a lady of the night. Not that anyone would suspect that – I’m in a ritzy part of town.

After testing a new kit weeks ago, one evening, at the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a potential picture far below caught my eye. A simple frame with a composition that symbolizes the phrase “less is more”; a woman and her personal trainer boxing under a lone street light. Just the two of them, their gloves and their shadows, surrounded by nothing else but by the time I got into position they’d moved on.

It’s a popular place for personal trainers taking their nine-to-five office worker clients through their paces so I figured these guys were regulars. And so started my evening sorties. These evening forays would see me sitting in my car, on park benches, walking around the park, up on the bridge above, bringing my kids, stopping by after laps at the local swimming pool – every time with a camera over my shoulder, exposure set to make that image. I’d see folks exercising in groups, walking their dogs, taking evening strolls, joggers, the list goes on…

The Wider Image is an entirely new interactive experience from the world’s largest news agency. Created exclusively for the iPad, this immersive multimedia app offers a multitude of ways to visually explore the world. Get the wider story. Transform the way you see.

And that’s how I happened upon this personal work from one of Reuters’ professional photographers. The app offers both personal and assignment work from the pros who work for Reuters. And as often as I criticize – or sometimes praise – the editorial and social content of work from one of the oldest and largest news gathering companies in the world, their photography is often something special. On any level.

You could do a lot worse than to learn from these folks.

Keep tabs on your baby via an iPhone or iPad

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Belkin has announced the launch of its WeMo Baby device that turns any iOS device into a digital baby monitor. Comprising a Wi-Fi connecting baby monitor and an accompanying iOS app, the WeMo Baby lets anxious parents listen to high-quality audio from their baby’s room whether they’re in the next room or the other side of the world … though it’s probably not a good idea that the baby is left that unattended.

Once the inoffensive-looking device is installed in a nursery (or anywhere you want to listen to for that matter), users download the free iOS WeMo Baby app and connect it to their existing Wi-Fi network. They can then use an iPhone or iPad to listen in to streaming audio using 3G/4G or Wi-Fi.

There’s no video like we’re seen previously on the iBaby monitor and BabyPing, but there is a visual indicator of baby noise, complete with a dial going from a contented green to ominous orange. Because there’s no range limit as is often the case with traditional baby monitors, and listening does not require an additional receiver, it’s claimed the WeMo Baby will allow parents to travel further afield while their little-ones sleep…

The Belkin WeMo Baby will support up to six users. It is “Coming Soon” and it will sell for US$90.

Arrests made in kidney-for-iPhone transaction

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Authorities have indicted five people in central China for involvement in illegal organ trading after a teenager sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

The case has prompted an outpouring of concern that not enough is being done to guard against the negative impact of increasing consumerism in Chinese society, particularly among young people who have grown up with more creature comforts than the generations before them.

Prosecutors in the city of Chenzhou charged the suspects with intentional injury for organizing the removal and transplant of a kidney from a 17-year-old high school student surnamed Wang, the official Xinhua News Agency said…

The defendants include a surgeon, a hospital contractor, and brokers who looked for donors online and leased an operating room to conduct the procedure…

Xinhua described one of the defendants named He Wei as being broke and frustrated over gambling debts. It said he asked another defendant to look for organ donors in online chat rooms and someone else to lease an operating room for the transplant, which took place in April last year.

He received 220,000 yuan, or $35,000 US for the transplant, gave the student 22,000 yuan ($3,500) and shared the remaining money with the other defendants and several medical staff involved in the operation, Xinhua said.

When the student returned home, he was asked how he could afford a new iPhone and an iPad and he told his mother that he sold one of his kidneys, the report said.

Needless to say, Mom went ballistic.

The story has spun in any number of directions – from the lack of interest by the general public in participating in organ donor programs – which will be exacerbated by the government’s recent decision to halt the harvesting of organs from prisoners who die either of natural causes or capital punishment.

Which, frankly – I thought was rather a good idea. Giving a little back to the society you screwed.