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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Trash piling up faster along border with Mexico
RIO RICO, Ariz?? Picking her way into the desert brush, Raquel Martinez gathered scores of plastic water bottles tossed in an Arizona desert valley near the Mexico border, often by migrants making a risky trek into the United States across increasingly remote terrain.
"We need more bags ... there's so much trash," said Martinez, one of scores of volunteers helping clean up the dry bed of the Santa Cruz River about 10 miles north of the Mexico border on Saturday.
Trash tossed by thousands of illegal immigrants as they chase the American Dream has been a persistent problem for years in the rugged Arizona borderlands that lie on a main migration and smuggling route from Mexico.
The problem was compounded as immigrants and drug traffickers responded to ramped up vigilance on the U.S.-Mexico border by taking increasingly remote routes, leaving more waste behind in out-of-the way and hard-to-clean areas, authorities say.
"Migants used to follow the washes or follow the roads or utility poles," said Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based non-profit Humane Borders.
"Now they're having to move farther and farther from the middle of the valleys," he added. "They end up making more camp sites and cutting more trails when they do that, and, unfortunately ... leave more trash."
Those making the punishing march carry food, water and often a change of clothes on the trek through remote desert areas that can take several days.
Most is tossed before they pile into vehicles at pickup sites like the one getting attention on the outskirts of Rio Rico, from where they head on to the U.S. interior.
"One of the problems that we are facing is that these sites are becoming more and more remote as law enforcement steps up its efforts," Henry Darwin, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, said of the flourishing borderland garbage dumps.
"There's probably sites out there that we haven't encountered yet or don't know about because there's a lot of people out in those areas," added Darwin, who gave testimony on the issue to state lawmakers earlier this month.
There are no numbers to show exactly how many would-be migrants or smugglers take the illegal and surreptitious trek across the border into Arizona from Mexico each year.
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But in an indication of the scale of the migration, federal border police made nearly 130,000 arrests last year in Arizona, where hundreds of Border Patrol agents, miles of fencing and several unmanned surveillance drones have been added in recent years to tighten security along the porous border.
With limited funding for clean up, Arizona environmental authorities draw on volunteers to help in drives like the one near Rio Rico, where an estimated 140 volunteers including residents, community and youth groups took part on Saturday.
Clean up efforts since 2008 by the department of environmental quality have included pulling 42 tons of trash from 160 acres of Cocopah tribal lands in far western Arizona, and clean ups at least seven sites on ranches and public land in areas south of Tucson.
Signs of illegal immigrants and even drug traffickers making the circuitous foot journey abound in the mesquite-studded riverbed near Rio Rico, a vigorous day's walk north of the border.
"I've found about a trillion water bottles," said David Burkett, a lawyer from Scottsdale, who worked up a sweat as he filled his fourth 50-pound trash bag. Nearby are tossed backpacks, food containers, a blanket and a pair of shoes.
He points out that alongside the apparent migrant trash is a large amount of other waste including a couch, kitchen countertops and yard debris, likely tossed by residents and contractors. Still, it is a shock to those living locally.
"We don't realize how bad it is until we come down and see it," said Candy Lamar, a volunteer who lives in sprawling, low density Rio Rico, as she works to pick up trash.
The area getting attention on Saturday lies a few miles from a remote spot where the bodies of three suspected drug traffickers were found shot to death "execution style" last November.
The area is not far from another out-of-the-way spot where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot dead by suspected border bandits in December 2010. Volunteers working on Saturday were aware of the potential hazards.
As she stuffed a blue garbage sack with trash, retiree Sharon Christensen eyed discarded burlap sacking, blankets and cord -- the remains of a makeshift backpack of the type often used by drug traffickers walking marijuana loads up from Mexico.
"It would make me hesitant to come out here on my own, knowing that this kind of activity is going on ... It is a concern, and we need to be mindful," said Christensen, a retiree and hiking enthusiast.
Clean-up organizers liaise with Border Patrol and local police on security, in addition to warning volunteers of potential danger from snakes, scorpions or even bees that can swarm in discarded vehicle tires, and of potential hazards including medical waste and human excrement.
Equipped with gloves, volunteers such as Burkett, the Scottsdale lawyer, were glad to take part on Saturday.
"As an avid outdoors person in Arizona, I spend a lot of time using the desert," he said. "It's important to me personally to take the time to give back."
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46183245/ns/us_news-life/
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Monday, January 30, 2012
By The Numbers: Autism Is Not a Math Problem
News |
Mind & Brain
There are 2027 ways to be diagnosed with autism in DSM-IV and only 11 ways in DSM-5, but the numbers alone are misleading
?| January 30, 2012
SOMETHING DOES NOT ADD UP: There are many more ways to be diagnosed with autism in DSM-IV than in DSM-5, but looking at the numbers alone doesn't tell you much.
Image: Acdx, Wikimedia Commons
At a meeting of the Icelandic Medical Association last week, Yale University child psychologist Fred Volkmar gave a presentation on how the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is changing the definition of autism. In his talk, Volkmar came to a startling conclusion: more than half of the people who meet the existing criteria for autism would not meet the APA?s new definition of autism and, therefore, may not receive state educational and medical services.
The APA defines autism in a reference guide for clinicians called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). The newest version of the manual, the DSM-5, is slated for publication in May 2013.
In Iceland, Volkmar presented data from an unpublished preliminary analysis of 372 high-functioning autistic children and adults with IQs above 70. He plans to publish a broader analysis later this year. On a key PowerPoint slide that Volkmar shared with Scientific American, he notes that there are 2688 ways to get a diagnosis of autistic disorder in DSM-IV, but only six ways to get a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in DSM-5. Although intriguing at first glance, it turns out that both these numbers are slightly wrong?and that they are pretty much useless when comparing the DSM-IV and DSM-5. You cannot reduce autism to a math problem.
Scientific American wanted to explore this gaping discrepancy further, so we asked astronomer and Hubble Fellow Joshua Peek of Columbia University to code a computer program that would calculate the total possible ways to get a diagnosis of autistic disorder in DSM-IV and the total possible ways to get a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in DSM-5. You can do the math by hand too, if you like: It all comes down to factorials. The DSM-IV criteria are a set of 12 items in three groups from which you must choose 6, with at least two items from group one and at least one item each from groups two and three. The DSM-5 criteria are a set of 7 items in two groups from which you must choose 5, including all three items in group one and at least two of the four items in group two. Peek's program crunched the numbers: there are 2027 different ways to be diagnosed with autism in DSM-IV and 11 ways to be diagnosed with autism in DSM-5.
One might think that those statistics make it absurdly easy to qualify for a diagnosis of autism in DSM-IV and incredibly difficult to meet the criteria for autism in DSM-5, but those numbers alone don't tell you anything unless you understand how common each symptom of autism is in the general population. Symptoms of autism are not randomly distributed throughout the population and the symptoms do not cluster together in random combinations. Research in the past decade has shown that some symptoms appear together much more often than others. In fact, that is one of the main reasons that the APA has consolidated the DSM-IV criteria for autism into fewer, denser and more accurate criteria in the DSM-5. The idea is that the DSM-IV criteria allowed for too many possible combinations, many of which rarely occur; the DSM-5 criteria, in contrast, better reflect the most common combinations of symptoms.
Specifically, the APA has merged two distinct groups of symptoms from the DSM-IV - deficits in communication and deficits in social interaction - into one group in the DSM-5 because someone with autism almost always has both kinds of symptoms.
Most psychiatrists applaud this consolidation because, as several recently published studies have shown, the new criteria are more precise: they rarely assign autism to people who do not have it. However, the DSM-5 criteria may be a little too strict, ignoring some autistic people with milder symptoms. Two recently published studies suggest an easy fix: if the new criteria require that patients meet one fewer symptom?4 out of 7 instead of 5 out of 7?high-functioning autistic people will not be excluded. (To learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the APA's changes to the definition of autism, read the companion piece: Redefining Autism.)
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=e2c249825c7824b44e17b217da29cfe9
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
FBI seeks help finding teacher's body
WILLISTON, N.D.?? Authorities renewed calls Monday for landowners near the northern North Dakota-Montana border to look for signs of a missing Montana teacher's buried body, while documents revealed one of the two suspects in her disappearance has spent time in prison.
At a news conference Monday, authorities asked that "landowners and landowners only" help look for the body of 43-year-old Sherry Arnold, a math teacher from Sidney, Mont., who has been missing since Jan. 7 and is presumed dead.
"We don't want the public out there running around in the countryside," Williston Police Chief Jim Lokken said. "The landowners know their land and their property. If they see anything that has been disturbed, we want them to check it out."
Authorities said little of the two men believed to be involved in Arnold's disappearance: 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters Jr. and 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell, both of Parachute, Colo.
Waters was arrested in Williston, and Spell was arrested in Rapid, City, S.D., The Billings Gazette reported.
The two are being held on aggravated kidnapping charges in the Williams County jail pending extradition to Montana, the newspaper reported.
Prison records in Florida show Waters has a criminal history in that state and has served prison time. Florida records show Waters has felony convictions for driving without a valid license and leaving the scene of an injury crash. He also served time for a weapons offense, and records show he has used numerous aliases.
Waters was released from a minimum-security corrections facility in August 2010, after serving about 18 months. He also was incarcerated between September 2002 and December 2003, and again between August 2007 and March 2008.
Court records show Spell was arrested in Colorado in May 2007 on state charges of drug possession, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sexual contact without consent ? but the charges were dropped five months later. The records do not say why the charges were dismissed.
Spell also faced charges of careless driving and driving without a license in 2007, but that case also was dropped.
Investigators offered few new details on the investigation Monday, a day after the FBI issued a statement suggesting Arnold's body might be buried in a shelter belt, or line of trees that protects farmland from the region's strong winds.
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The agency put out a call to property owners in far northeastern Montana and in the North Dakota counties of Williams, McKenzie, Mountrail and in southern Divide County. It asked that they check vacant farmsteads for signs of disturbed soil or matted grass, especially in areas with lines of mature or rotted trees that serve as windbreaks.
Landowners who discover something unusual should not disturb the area, but call authorities, the FBI said.
Williams County Sheriff Scott Busching said the two suspects have made court appearances or are in the process. However, the closure of court offices for the weekend and the holiday Monday have confounded efforts to track legal documents filed in their cases. Busching said it's up to prosecutors to determine whether charges will be filed at the state or federal level.
"A lot of this will come out of the prosecution phase," Busching said. "We want to get Mrs. Arnold back to her family. We are not going to put anything out there that will even remotely hinder those efforts."
The Williams County Correctional Facility is about 46 miles from Sidney, where officials say Arnold disappeared while on an early-morning run along a truck route on the edge of the oil boom town of more than 5,500 residents.
Sidney school officials posted a statement online Friday saying they learned of Arnold's death that day. The statement provided no details.
In the days after Arnold disappeared, hundreds of residents, police, firefighters and others combed the town and surrounding countryside without success. The only clue that has been publicly released was that one of Arnold's shoes was found along her running route.
Arnold and her husband, Gary Arnold, have five children combined from prior marriages. Two live at home and attend the same school system where Sherry Arnold worked for the past 18 years.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46013196/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Electric plants shift from coal to natural gas (AP)
PITTSBURGH ? The huge, belching smokestacks of electric power plants have long symbolized air pollution woes. But a shift is under way: More and more electric plants around the nation are being fueled by natural gas, which is far cleaner than coal, the traditional fuel.
The most optimistic projections describe an abundant domestic energy source that will create enormous numbers of jobs and lead to cleaner skies.
Nationwide, the electricity generated by gas-fired plants has risen by more than 50 percent over the last decade, while coal-fired generation has declined slightly. The gas plants generated about 600 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2000 and 981 billion hours in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
During the same period coal generation declined from 1,966 billion hours to 1,850 billion hours, while hydroelectric and nuclear generation stayed about the same. The figures include electricity use by consumers and industry.
Nationwide, EIA said natural gas use for power generation rose 7 percent between 2009 and 2010. That's about 515 billion cubic feet. The biggest jumps were in the Southeast, with use rising 24 percent in North Carolina, 18 percent in Virginia and 15 percent in South Carolina.
"Most of the people I know in the electric power industry are building natural gas" plants, said Jay Apt, a professor of technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. That's because of low prices over the last few years and the relatively low cost of building such plants, compared with coal-fired or nuclear.
But Apt cautions that the trend could stall because the basics of supply and demand mean that if too many plants embrace cheap gas, it won't stay cheap.
"The surest route to $6 or $8 gas is for everybody to plan on $4 gas," Apt said, and if prices do rise, coal will again be the most cost-effective fuel. Natural gas is priced per million BTU.
Apt noted that there was a "huge building boom" in natural gas plants from the late 1990s to 2004, because utilities thought they would get rich from the combination of cheap fuel and plants that were highly efficient and relatively cheap to build. There were predictions that prices would stay low over the long term, too.
But natural gas prices spiked, and the new gas-fired plants around the nation stayed idle much of the time. That trend was also driven by another irony: The gas-fired plants are easier to start and stop compared with coal or nuclear, so many utilities used them just for peak electric demand periods.
Still, history may not repeat itself because of the huge surge in supply from Marcellus Shale gas drilling. Vast gas deposits that previously couldn't be extracted economically are now being tapped using new technologies. Instead of drilling straight down, companies can drill horizontally and follow seams of gas for a mile or more deep underground. Then the drillers use hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to free the gas from the relatively dense shale rock.
That's led to environmental concerns from some residents, scientists and regulators who feel there are too many unknowns in the process, along with an undisputed boom in production that's brought great wealth to some landowners, and a surge of jobs.
Some companies clearly believe the switch to natural gas plants makes long-term sense.
Sunbury Generation LP in central Pennsylvania plans to close five of its six coal-fired generators and replace them with two natural gas-fired turbines by 2015, the Daily Item reported last month.
But some companies are deciding not to switch fuels.
The owners of the Homer City Generating Station in western Pennsylvania, the state's second-largest coal plant, plan to add $700 million in pollution control equipment to keep the 40-year-old plant running and in compliance with clean air laws.
Natural gas-fired power plants are "orders of magnitude cleaner" than coal plants, said Jan Jarrett, president of the PennFuture environmental group.
Jarrett said PennFuture wants coal-fired units retired and replaced by gas-fired, at least for the short term.
"There's no way that we can scale up wind and solar to meet the demands over the near future," she said. "Gas itself is a much cleaner burning fuel that can help clean up our air."
But Apt sees a slow, moderate shift.
"My sense is you'll get small changes here," he said, since the current low natural gas prices are attracting market demand from around the world.
There are already federal permits for 3 trillion cubic feet per year of natural gas exports, Apt said.
"Will we export that bounty, and if we do, will that drive up U.S. prices," he said. Natural gas sells for about $8 in Europe and $14 in Japan, but less than $4 here.
"They're not going to tear down the coal plants, because they've seen this movie before," Apt said of electric companies. "They will mothball those plants and start up the coal plants again" if natural gas prices rise.
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76ers win 3rd straight, beat Bucks 94-82 (AP)
PHILADELPHIA ? Jrue Holiday scored 24 points and Andre Iguodala had 21 to help the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Milwaukee Bucks 94-82 on Monday and remain unbeaten at home.
Everything is going right for the Sixers this season. They've won three straight, nine of 10 overall and already hold a four-game lead over the second-place New York Knicks in the Atlantic Division. The Sixers are 6-0 at home.
Iguodala went 9 of 14 from the floor hours after he was chosen as part of the 20-player men's Olympic basketball pool. Known as a lockdown defender, he surprised Tobias Harris with a block from behind late in the third.
Spencer Hawes, their 7-foot-1 center, buried his first two 3-pointers of the season in the third.
Andrew Bogut returned from concussion-like symptoms to lead the Bucks with 20 points and 11 rebounds.
Hawes finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and Lou Williams scored 17 points. The Sixers won without reserve guard Evan Turner, who sat out with a right quad contusion.
Williams cut off a late Bucks' surge with a 3-pointer that stretched the lead to 83-71. Their top reserve, Williams entered as the Sixers' leading scorer at 16.1 points per game. Six other Sixers averaged double-digit scoring, proving they don't need a superstar to make them contenders in the Eastern Conference, just team-oriented basketball.
Coach Doug Collins calls the Sixers perhaps the most unselfish team he's coached in all his years in basketball.
Check out the assist totals that go along with the points: Williams had six, Holiday five and Iguodala four.
Iguodala was rewarded for his defensive effort Monday when he was announced as one of the 20 players who will be candidates for the London Games. Iguodala, the ninth overall pick of the 2004 draft, has spent all nine seasons with the Sixers. He was the go-to defensive stopper for the U.S. team that won gold in the 2010 world championships.
"I think Dre's got a great chance if he stays healthy," Collins said. "He's gotten off to a great start for us this year."
While he's carved a reputation as a stout man-to-man defender, Iguodala bested Harris late in the third. Stephen Jackson made a nice dish to Harris as he cut down the lane, but Iguodala was there to swat the ball against the backboard with his left hand.
Hawes stunned everyone in the third when he nailed a pair of 3-pointers after missing his previous four attempts on the season. His first one gave the Sixers a 67-54 lead, then he stepped back to end the third with his second straight for a 76-62 lead. It was that kind of game.
The Sixers made 11 of 23 3-pointers. With a hand in the lane, they forced the Bucks to shoot a step or two beyond their comfort range and into 3 of 14 3-point shooting.
One weak point for the Sixers had been slow starts, but they made 12 of 19 shots in the first quarter and rolled to an early 13 point lead.
Brandon Jennings (18.7 ppg) was limited to seven points and missed eight of 11 attempts and was outplayed by Holiday. With Jennings struggling to get going, the Bucks fell to 0-8 on the road.
Notes: The Sixers are off to their best home start since going 10-0 in 2002-03. ... The Bucks failed to win three straight over the Sixers for the first time since 2005. ... The Sixers won six games at home by holding all teams under 90 points.
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
The Best New Speakers [Ces]
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Friday, January 13, 2012
mobclix: DEVS: Free Registration Available for Developer University at #CES! http://t.co/NPiEk6jP /via @intlCES #CES2012
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Visual-effects pioneer Trumbull to receive Oscar
This undated photo released by Richard Harbaugh/A.M.P.A.S. shows Douglas Trumbull. Hollywood filmmaker and visual-effects master Douglas Trumbull is receiving an honorary Academy Award. The Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it present its Gordon E. Sawyer Award to Trumbull, whose pioneering visual-effects credits include "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Blade Runner." (AP Photo/Richard Harbaugh/A.M.P.A.S.)
This undated photo released by Richard Harbaugh/A.M.P.A.S. shows Douglas Trumbull. Hollywood filmmaker and visual-effects master Douglas Trumbull is receiving an honorary Academy Award. The Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it present its Gordon E. Sawyer Award to Trumbull, whose pioneering visual-effects credits include "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Blade Runner." (AP Photo/Richard Harbaugh/A.M.P.A.S.)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Hollywood filmmaker and visual-effects master Douglas Trumbull is receiving an honorary Academy Award.
The Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it will present its Gordon E. Sawyer Award to Trumbull, whose pioneering visual-effects credits include "2001: A Space Odyssey," ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind," ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Blade Runner."
Trumbull worked on last year's Brad Pitt-Terrence Malick drama "The Tree of Life," which featured grand images of the cosmos and the age of dinosaurs.
The honorary Oscar will be presented to Trumbull at the academy's scientific and technical awards ceremony Feb. 11.
Trumbull is the 23rd recipient of the Sawyer Award, which honors technical contributions to Hollywood.
___
Online:
http://www.oscars.org
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Celtics forward Jeff Green undergoes surgery for an aeortic aneurysm (Mark Maske's NFL Insider)
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PFT: Brady: McDaniels has 'inside info' on Denver
APHaving played with both Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, Packers receiver Greg Jennings says he leans toward Rodgers as the better quarterback.
?They both bring different things to the table, but honestly right now I definitely have to go with . . . Aaron, his body of work at such a young age, his attention to detail, his discipline, I think it?s really second to none ? its un-paralleled,? Jennings told Ian O?Connor on ESPN New York 1050.
It?s easy to see why Jennings would be happier with Rodgers, because he?s catching more passes from Rodgers. In two seasons as one of Favre?s starting receivers, Jennings averaged 49 catches for 776 yards. In four seasons with Rodgers, Jennings has averaged 73 catches for 1,155 yards.
But is it really fair to say Rodgers has a superior body of work to Favre? After all, Favre played 20 seasons, won the MVP award at the end of three of those seasons, and still has about 55,000 more career passing yards than Rodgers.
What Jennings is really saying is that Rodgers is playing at a higher level right now than Favre ever played at, and that?s a reasonable assessment.
?You haven?t really found a QB that has done it the way [Rodgers] has done it,? Jennings said. ?I mean you have the young guys that are coming out and they?re making a huge impact in this game . . . but his attention to detail and his discipline to be perfect or so close to perfect I think that?s really going to separate himself . . . his study habits are . . . they speak volume for themselves.?
And that?s why Jennings is speaking up for Rodgers.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Live online learning from Coventry University with Ericsson solution
Live online learning from Coventry University with Ericsson solution
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN -- (MARKET WIRE) -- Jan 09, 2012 --
* Live lectures and interaction with tutors possible via smartphones and tablets * Coventry University known for putting Shakespeare archives in a mobile app * 25-thousand students registered for online learning with Coventry University can now learn on mobiles
A collaboration between Coventry University and Ericsson (
This is a cloud service that is based on IMS architecture: IP Multimedia Subsystem, an industry standard for multimedia communication; and the service In-Game communication from Ericsson, which provides an enriched voice experience for users. By basing the In-Game solution on Ericsson's IMS product portfolio, services can be scaled for a potentially unlimited number of users, with telecom-grade availability and security.
Coventry University has established itself as an institution on the cutting edge of learning. The Serious Games Institute at Coventry University was set up to conduct research and development into future solutions in education. Tim Luft, Director of the Serious Games Institute, said: "We wanted to work with Ericsson to transform our current range of mobile applications into an interactive experience for our many thousands of mobile learners. Many people who now take short courses on their mobiles have been limited to static images and recorded audio or video.
"We want to change that, and we hope that the expertise provided by Coventry University and Ericsson will help to improve the experience of our learners by allowing them to interact in a number ways, perhaps by listening to a live keynote speech through a smart phone or sharing course notes with a tutor," said Luft.
Magnus Furustam, Head of Core & IMS at Business Unit Networks at Ericsson, says: "Gaming for entertainment has been a driver for hardware and software technology for the last 10 years, and younger generations are familiar with how to use it. Together with Coventry University we will combine our forethought in gaming technology with education, and take online education to a new dimension."
An earlier project led by the Serious Games Institute included an initiative to digitize a host of Shakespeare archive materials and to open up access through a smart phone browser.
Notes to editors:
Serious Games Institute at Coventry University
Our multimedia content is available at the broadcast room: www.ericsson.com/broadcast_room
About Serious Games Institute
The Serious Games Institute (SGI) has a global reputation and was the first Serious Games Institute in the world. The SGI is part of Coventry University and is one of three Institutes located on the Coventry University Science Park. The Institute supports the development of digital media, in particular;- Serious Games, 3D animation/ virtual worlds/ games based training/ mobile applications and associated technology. The SGI incorporates a training division, an applied research team, a dedicated technology incubator and a mobile application development lab. The mobile 'apps' lab rolls out specialist industry training with regard to mobile technology, develops mobile proof of concepts and commercial prototype.
In addition to technical expertise Coventry University understands the needs and demands of SMEs as we work with over 6,000 SMEs each year and we were ranked 1st out of 187 Higher Education Institutions in UK in 2009-10 for the number of SME consultancy contracts we won.
About Ericsson
Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices.
Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an all- communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 180 countries, more than 90,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 203.3 billion (USD 28.2 billion) in 2010. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.
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This announcement is distributed by Thomson Reuters on behalf of Thomson Reuters clients. The owner of this announcement warrants that:
(i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and
(ii) they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Can Windows Phone make mobile a three-horse race?
Great expectations ... The new Nokia smart phone Lumia 800 featuring the Windows Phone operating system. Photo: Reuters
Long ridiculed as the tech industry dullard, Microsoft actually has a hit, at least with the technorati.
It is the mobile phone software called Windows Phone ? and they need it to be a blockbuster here at Microsoft Central.
Yes, Windows and Office products are ubiquitous and highly profitable. But they?re about as inspirational as a stapler.
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While the likes of Apple have captured our imaginations with nifty products like the iPhone, Microsoft has produced a long list of flops, from smart wristwatches to the Zune music player to the Kin phones.
Steve Jobs used to deride Microsoft for a lack of originality. In his opinion, the company didn?t bring ?much culture? to its products. With Windows Phone, though, Microsoft is finally getting some buzz.
?I am a devoted Apple fan ? I was in line for the iPhone,? said Axel Roesler, assistant professor for interaction design at the University of Washington in Seattle, but Windows Phone ?strikes me as quite different and an advance.?
Windows Phone, which began appearing in devices late last year, certainly stands out visually.
It has bold, on-screen typography and a mosaic of animated tiles on the home screen ? a stark departure from the neat grid of icons made popular by the iPhone.
While most phones force users to open stand-alone apps to get into social networks, Facebook and Twitter are wired into Windows Phone. The tiles spring to life as friends or family post fresh pictures, text messages and status updates.
Even so, relatively few consumers have been tempted, and sales have been lacklustre. A big problem is that, initially, the handsets running Microsoft?s software, made by companies like HTC and Samsung, were unexceptional.
Even more important, the US carriers, the gatekeepers for nearly all mobile phones, have not been aggressively selling Windows phones in their stores. Most promote the iPhone and devices running Google?s Android operating system.
And so Microsoft has struck a partnership with Nokia, and executives at both companies have high hopes that their handsets will catch on with consumers.
On Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nokia plans to introduce a sleek metallic Windows Phone called the Lumia 900 that will be sold by AT&T in the US, according to two people with knowledge of its plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the product has not yet been announced. Unlike other handset makers creating devices with Microsoft?s software, Nokia is not also developing Android phones.
?We are doing our best work for Windows Phone,? said Stephen Elop, the chief executive of Nokia and a former Microsoft executive.
While the customers? verdict is still unknown, the group that developed Windows Phone has already profoundly affected Microsoft itself, influencing work on other consumer products. The next major version of software for PCs, Windows 8, will look a lot like Windows Phone, which Microsoft hopes will help it work better on tablet devices. A Windows Phone-like makeover was also part of the new software update for Xbox, which along with Kinect is one of Microsoft?s few consumer hits.
Bill Flora, one of the designers of Windows Phone, said the care that Microsoft took in designing its products had changed vastly since he joined the company out of art school in the early 1990s.
?Now, instead of 80 per cent of its efforts being unenlightened, just 20 per cent are unenlightened,? said Flora, who recently left Microsoft to form his own design firm in Seattle.
The tale of how Microsoft created Windows Phone starts with the introduction of the iPhone, in 2007. To Joe Belfiore, now 43, an engineer who oversees software design for Windows Phone, that was the spark.
?Apple created a sea change in the industry in terms of the kinds of things they did that were unique and highly appealing to consumers,? Belfiore said in an interview. ?We wanted to respond with something that would be competitive, but not the same.?
Microsoft had been an early player in smartphones with Windows Mobile, software that ran on devices made by Samsung, Motorola and others. But one word describes its early effort: complicated. Windows Mobile had a complex array of on-screen menus, including a start button for applications that was borrowed from Windows PCs. The software ran on sluggish devices that had physical keyboards and, in some cases, styluses.
Once the iPhone exploded into the marketplace, Microsoft executives knew that their software, as designed, could never compete. So in December 2008, Terry Myerson, who had just taken over engineering for the mobile group, convened a meeting that members of his management team came to call the ?cage match.?
With a prototype of a new Windows Mobile phone on a table, Myerson, a no-nonsense engineer, led a heated debate over whether any of the software could be salvaged. No one was leaving the room until the issue was resolved, he said.
Seven hours later, the meeting finally adjourned, after Myerson got a call from his wife saying a pipe had frozen at his home. By then, a consensus had emerged that there wasn?t much technology worth saving. ?We had hit bottom,? Myerson, who is now 39.
?That frankly gives you the freedom to try new things, build a new team and set a new path,? he added.
The decision was to start from scratch, a move that had serious consequences. Not only did it delay a Windows phone, it gave Google an opening to woo Microsoft handset partners to Android.
Charlie Kindel, a longtime Microsoft manager who joined its mobile team in early 2009, compared the pain caused by starting over to the predicament of Aron Ralston, the hiker who amputated his own arm in 2003 after it was it pinned under a boulder in the Utah desert.
?This boulder comprised of Apple and Blackberry rolled on our arm,? said Kindel, who left Microsoft last year. ?Microsoft sat there for three or four years struggling to get out.?
Myerson also had to rebuild the mobile team ? and Belfiore was his first major hire.
Belfiore is a rare breed of Microsoft executive: He joined the company in 1990 fresh out of university and stayed, even as others fled to work for companies with more pizazz.
For much of his career, Belfiore worked on the design of Windows and Internet Explorer, the kind of Microsoft software that is everywhere but not always admired for innovation. But he was also known for spending hours testing Microsoft technologies outside the office to see how they could be simplified.
In recent years, Belfiore earned a reputation in the company for working on more adventurous projects, even if they sometimes bombed in the market. Before he joined the mobile group, for instance, he oversaw design of Zune, Microsoft?s ill-fated answer to the iPod.
A version of the product released in 2009, the Zune HD, was praised by reviewers for its spare design that featured elegant typography and snappy, animated screen transitions as users flipped around music collections. But the Zune HD came out years too late, well after the iPod had cemented its lead.
Belfiore took over the mobile group in early 2009, just as designers were finishing up the earliest prototypes for Windows Phone. In those prototypes, Bill Flora drew inspiration from the signs in airports and other transportation hubs.
He borrowed the emphasis on clarity, clean typography and broadcast-quality transitions between screens from Zune, which he had worked on with Belfiore. The ideas gradually gelled into a software design language that Microsoft calls Metro.
But there were challenges beyond design. Microsoft had to take a fresh approach to working with phone makers so it could have its slick new software function properly. Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn?t make its own hardware. Before it restarted its mobile strategy, Microsoft did little to ensure that its handset partners were putting its software on devices that could run it well.
No longer would that be tolerated. Microsoft gave its handset partners detailed specifications of the types of technical innards required, including processors with certain amounts of power and screen technologies. Handset makers grumbled about the rules, but the result was phones that ran better.
?It?s not just about software,? said Albert Shum, general manager of the design studio for Windows Phone. ?It?s about the whole end-to-end experience.?
When senior executives got their first look at the software, Myerson said, there was ?some hesitancy.? Steve Ballmer, Microsoft?s chief executive, didn?t like that the first screen that appeared after turning on the device contained oversized type that cut off the day of the week. (Wednesday showed up as Wed.) Revisions were made.
But the group was given its creative freedom. And the critics, at least, have approved the final results.
?It looks like nothing we?ve seen before from Microsoft,? said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, the technology research firm. ?The company is being somewhat bold and saying what worked for them in 1992 won?t work now.?
Still, last summer, Ballmer told Microsoft investors that he was disappointed with Windows Phone sales. In mid-December, he named Myerson, the engineering head, to take full control of the group. He charged Myerson with improving the Windows Phone advertising campaign and relationships with carriers. A software update for Windows Phones in late last year added a number of improvements to the product, including basic editing functions like copy and paste.
But this year is crucial; it will show whether a respected product is enough to help Microsoft make up for lost time. Even if it feels good to be a favorite of tech critics for a change, Microsoft needs a blockbuster in the mobile business, not a cult hit.
?Entering the market so late with this experience has created some special challenges for us,? Myerson said. ?I think if we were there earlier it would be different.?
The New York Times
Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5719174849&f=378
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Thursday, January 5, 2012
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