A screen shot of the Webcast with Obama administration CTO Aneesh Chopra (left) and CIO Vivek Kundra (center) formally unveiling the Open Government Directive.
(Credit: Whitehouse.gov)The Obama administration on Tuesday officially unveiled its Open Government directive, a document that charges each federal agency with making high value data publicly available and with quickly coming up with formal open government plans.
The announcement follows up on President Obama's first executive act--the issuing on January 21 of his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. That document set forth, among other things, that, "We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."
The administration's Chief Information Officer Aneesh Chopra and Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra on Tuesday appeared together in a live Webcast to spell out the new directive and to answer questions from the public. The event seemed audience-appropriate in that it was extremely informal and questions were being fed to them from a colleague who pulled them off of Twitter.
Among the major points of the directive (PDF), it:
• Requires federal agencies to make a minimum of three "high-value" data sets available within 45 days. An example, they said, was data that was released on Data.gov earlier this year by the Federal Aviation Administration about the on-time performance of commercial airline flights, and which was subsequently used by a member of the public to create Flyontime.us.
• Directs that within 60 days, the White House will launch a dashboard on Whitehouse.gov that will be used to hold each agency accountable for the contents of the directive.
• Commits each federal agency to launching its own open government Web site.
• Says that within 90 days, agencies will receive guidance from the federal Office of Management and Budget about creating challenges and contests for how best to use publicly available data.
• And mandates that within 120 days, each agency will create an open government plan geared towards ensuring that the philosophies of openness, transparency, and collaboration are permanently "hardwired."
Note: Please click here for an interview with Beth Noveck, the Obama administration's deputy chief technology officer for open government, a principal contributor to the new directive.
In announcing the directive, which was posted Tuesday morning by OMB Director Peter Orszag, Chopra said there were three key themes that everyone involved in putting it together had sought to achieve. First, that the directive reflected Obama's priorities and put the open government initiative into the hands of the executive branch. Second, that those involved have been and will be working together as a team with stakeholders at the federal level, in state and local governments, and with the public. And third, that the directive is focused on results. In other words, he said, Obama has "called on us" to deliver.
For the most part, supporters of open government initiatives seem pleased by the release of the directive. While some had previously expressed concern that the Obama administration was taking too long in issuing the directive, the same people expressed their satisfaction with what Chopra and Kundra talked about Tuesday morning.
"Now that we've seen it, we are very excited," said John Wonderlich, policy director at the Washington, D.C.-based Sunlight Foundation. "They're really taking on a lot of initiatives and doing so in an aggressive fashion. We couldn't have written it better ourselves. It's very ambitious."
Similarly, Patrice McDermott, the director of OpenTheGovernment.org, another Washington, D.C.-based watchdog organization, said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the announcement and the contents of the directive, particularly the elements of it which formally spell out in detail the open government plan each agency has to create and put up on its Web site.
For example, McDermott said she was happy about components of the plan addressing compliance with records management and Freedom of Information Act backlogs. As well, she cited a provision that would require agencies with classified material to post a link to a publicly-available Web page where the public can learn about declassification procedures. "That's quite unusual and quite new," McDermott said.
During their announcement, Chopra and Kundra addressed one of the most common questions about the directive, that of how it would ensure that neither national security nor personal privacy are endangered by the open government efforts.
"Central [to the plan] is that it in no way compromises national security [or privacy]," said Kundra. "It may make sense, for example, to release a data set...[that] when combined with other data, creates a concern about security and privacy. We need to make sure we have proper concerns for privacy, confidentiality, and national security. That's part of the directive itself."
The two also responded enthusiastically to a question about whether the directive will trickle down to state and local government. "We highly encourage state and local [governments] to consider the same [kind of] directives," said Chopra. "This is a key pillar of public sector work and we hope this will be a helpful tool" for state and local governments.
Kundra added that when Data.gov, an earlier Obama administration effort to post federal agency data online, went live, the cities of New York and San Francisco, as well as the state of Massachusetts and even the United Kingdom quickly adopted similar programs.
Concerns about oversight
While McDermott praised the directive, she also voiced some concern that Chopra and Kundra didn't adequately spell out who would have oversight over the agencies' adoption of it, and how it would be enforced.
"The agencies are all each required to put up these open government plans," McDermott said, "but there's no indication of who's going to oversee [them] and oversee [their] implementation and the quality of their implementation. It's as if the OMB is expecting the public to do this."
But Wonderlich said he's not too worried about oversight or enforcement. In fact, he sounded satisfied with the notion that the very public nature of the program, and its specific provisions, would indeed mean that it would be the public that would be overseeing the program.
"I think you can interpret this as a management directive, or a White House directive," said Wonderlich. "There's a big dose of public scrutiny to require them to do it."
Still, Wonderlich was not completely convinced that the directive answers every question and concern his organization has had about the administration's open government plans.
"My main concern," he said, "is whether they're going to live up to everything they're taking on. There will be a lot of agency push back. It's up to all of us. It's not going to be an easy situation, so it's going to take work."
I love tools that are all about providing people with information they want, and on Tuesday, the video game industry's official ratings board got my attention with something awfully useful.
The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) announced on Tuesday its new iPhone app, which is designed to put the board's full written summaries of more than 2,500 video games right at parents' fingertips.
A new iPhone app from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board allows parents to see the full ratings summaries of more than 1,500 video games.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)The idea is that with the app--officially called ESRB Rating, and available now, for free, in Apple's App Store--parents can punch in the name of any game rated by the board after July 1, 2008, and see not just the official rating--such as "M" for those 17 and up, or "E" for everyone--but the ESRB's full written summary of the title. The ESRB began writing the full summaries on July 1, 2008. Users of the app can also search for information about titles from before that date, but they will see only the basic letter rating and a brief content description.
Just over a year ago, the ESRB began making those summaries available to the public through its Web site, and through a mobile site (m.esrb.org). But the Web site isn't convenient to a parent who is actually out shopping for junior, and the mobile site is not something that many people who have standard cell phones will use, especially if they have to pay extra for data. An iPhone app is just so much easier.
Brilliant on-the-fly tools
Add this app, then, to the growing list of tools available for the iPhone and other smartphones that give consumers the ability to arm themselves with the most information about products and pricing while they actually have boots in the Best Buy, so to speak. Others include the brilliant SnapTell, which delivers comparative pricing information about books, DVDs, video games, and other items from sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Gamespot, and others based solely on a photograph, and RedLaser, which scans items' bar codes and delivers similar pricing information.
But what makes the ESRB app so terrific, it seems to me, is that it provides parents with exactly the kind of nuanced information they need to properly choose the kinds of games they want to buy for their kids. Sure, the basic letter rating gives some context--if you're concerned about violence or racy content, you probably want to stay away from "M"-rated games--but within a single rating category, there is still a wide spectrum of content.
For example, the hottest game in the world right now is Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game has an "M" rating, but that just doesn't say all that much. Reading the summary, though, a parent can see much more: "Realistic gunfire, explosions, and cries of pain are heard during the frequent and fast-paced combat. The most intense depiction of violence occurs during a 'No Russian' mission where players take on the role of an undercover Ranger: Several civilians are gunned down at an airport as players are given a choice to participate in the killings (e.g., players can shoot a wounded civilian that is crawling on the ground), or walk by and observe without opening fire."
The app arms parents with the information to make informed buying decisions.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)That's a little more informative than "M," isn't it.
To be sure, kids are going to be able to get the games they want regardless of what their parents buy them. But given that games can cost $60 apiece--at least for the AAA console games--it may be that they don't quite have the means to sneak off with each and every first-person shooter they desire. They may still be dependent on Santa Claus, aka their parents, to get them the bulk of their games.
And, of course, those buyers who don't have an iPhone still will have to struggle to access these summaries, and it's unlikely that retailers will be providing them in any useful form.
But all in all, I find this precisely the kind of thing that puts the power over decisions about which video games to buy right back where it belongs: in parents' hands. We are in an age where so many pundits, politicians, and others are moaning and whining about the breakdown of society, and parents are complaining about the corruption of their children.
Well, complain no more: If you've got an iPhone--and I certainly hope the ESRB puts this app out for Android and other smartphones soon--you can do the research yourself. And then if you're still unhappy about the content in the games you buy your kids, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Corrected at 12:50 p.m. PST: This story incorrectly reported how many games rated by the ESRB would have summaries available through the iPhone app. It is more than 1,500.
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for iPhone.
OK, that's probably a little overly dramatic, but the new NASA iPhone app, which was released Friday, is pretty cool.
With NASA's iPhone app, space geeks can access all kinds of information about their favorite missions.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Designed to provide information, updates, and images on all current and scheduled NASA missions, the app--which can be found in Apple's App Store under the name "NASA app for iPhone--nicely allows you to search for any specific mission, say, Constellation, and then find information and images just for that project.
"Users can access NASA countdown clocks, the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image of the Day, online videos, NASA's many Twitter feeds," and more, the space agency said in a press release about the app. It also allows users to track where the International Space Station is at any moment, as well as other spacecraft orbiting the planet, in three different views: maps with labels and borders, available visible imagery of satellites, and satellite positions overlaid on maps with country labels and borders.
Already, NASA nuts--you know who you are--have had access to much of this information online. But now, having it all available in a free iPhone app is going to keep these people happily staring down at the screen of their devices no matter where they are.
And for NASA, anything it can do to get more people excited about its various missions and projects is a good thing as it struggles for public resources and attention in an era where the economy is in trouble and people are increasingly distracted by other things.
On September 9, the Beatles will release their entire catalog, digitally re-mastered for the first time, on CD. The same day, The Beatles: Rock Band will be released, and there is speculation of an Apple music-related event the same day. Could it be an entertainment perfect storm?
(Credit: The Beatles)What is it with the Beatles and nines?
As my colleague Caroline McCarthy pointed out in March when the launch date (September 9, 2009) for The Beatles: Rock Band was announced, the band's song "Revolution 9" ends with the words, "number nine, number nine, number nine."
So clearly, the date 09/09/09 has at least some symbolic significance for the band. And now, in addition to that date being the launch of the Rock Band title, it was announced Tuesday that on that same day, the Beatles will release a CD box set of their entire catalog, digitally re-mastered for the first time, re-confirming reports from months ago.
At the same time, many people have been talking about the high likelihood of an all-music-related Apple event around some unknown product announcement on September 9. So, with all these facts--and some informed speculation--in hand, one has to think seriously that we may get a star-studded event with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (who, you may remember, showed up at Microsoft's E3 press conference to promote The Beatles: Rock Band) and, of course, Steve Jobs, to announce the availability of that same digitally re-mastered catalog on iTunes.
If that were to come to pass, it would seem to me an entertainment perfect storm. Of course, as is always the case with these things, we have to temper our enthusiasm because the most exciting speculation could well turn out not to be true. But if it does happen like this, well, it would easily be worth the price of admission.
As for today's news, EMI Music and Apple Corps--the Beatles' publishers--said that it took engineers at the famed Abbey Road Studios four full years "of utilizing state of the art recording technology, alongside vintage studio equipment, to create these amazing re-masters."
Having talked to the folks behind both The Beatles: Rock Band and the Cirque du Soleil's Beatle-themed "Love" about the re-mastering processes, I know that this is something that those involved with the band have been putting a lot of effort into over the last few years. And assuming that there will be a digital distribution element to this whole 09/09/09 thing, it's nice that after being very strict for years and years about how their music got out into the world, the band may finally have agreed to loosen the reins a little bit.
Of course, it's not altruism. There will no doubt be massive amounts of money flowing into the coffers of everyone financially involved with the band. And that's because even for people like me who already own the entire catalog on old mono CDs or records, there may be a few extra dollars available for legitimate digital copies of songs like "Hey Jude," "Yesterday," and "A day in the life."
But, of course, as of today, we don't know anything for certain about the Beatles and iTunes. What we do know is that The Beatles: Rock Band will have 45 songs, and that the digitally re-mastered CD collection will comprise all 12 Beatles studio albums--in stereo, no less--as well as "Magical Mystery Tour" and a combined "Past Masters Volume I and II," for a total of 14 titles on 16 CDs. The whole thing will be available, along with a DVD set of Beatles documentaries in one--presumably pricey--stereo boxed set.
SAN FRANCISCO--We're driving through the heart of the city, cruising along at a nice clip, but just in case we hit a patch of rough traffic, I know which alternate route I can take to go faster.
That's because I've got an iPhone with Waze, a new app released Thursday that's designed to give drivers a wide range of crowdsourced road information including traffic flow, road reports, and even warnings about where the latest speed traps have been set up.
Waze gives users many different views of the road, including this one, in which users' avatars turn into a Pac-Man-type creature when going down previously undiscovered roads.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Waze, which has been out for some time on the Android platform, is new to the iPhone, and its developers clearly think that Apple's hit phone, complete with GPS and accelerometer, is a natural device for giving drivers a way both to inform each other about what's happening on the road in real time, and to learn from others about what's ahead.
The app begins as a standard turn-by-turn directions tool and then offers a slew of other features, many of which give drivers something fun to look out for as they make their way to wherever they're going.
"At the end of the day," said Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze's community geographer, Waze is "about a community of drivers helping to build this map."
And, to be sure, the map is the heart and soul of the Waze app. In the car I was in, there were three different iPhones running the application, and because of that, I was often able to see three different views of what Waze can do.
One of the most fun parts of it--and in some ways the most social--is that the app allows you to see the location of anyone else nearby who is also running Waze. And while there is no way to communicate directly with such drivers, or find out anything about them, it still feels gratifying to see them pop up on the map.
Nearly real-time
Eisnor explained to me that Waze is designed to offer drivers real-time information about the roads they commute on, generally with no more than a 30-second delay. And that's because most of the information that's available is being relayed from other Waze users.
To be sure, the app will require a critical mass of users to have real utility, and it certainly isn't there yet: In about 30 minutes of driving around, we saw no more than four or five other Waze users pop up. But Eisnor argues that it won't be long before that critical mass comes. In Israel, she pointed out, more than 20 percent of smartphone users have Waze on their devices, despite the service only being available since January.
One of the features that has the most potential is one that shows you the speed of traffic on roads near where you are. That's possible because the Waze service is constantly measuring your progress, thanks to GPS, and is reporting back about your movements.
Fear not about your privacy, Eisnor said. She explained that while there are some elements of the service that may eventually be able to tell users something about others, for now, Waze is making sure that everyone has complete anonymity.
And that's probably good, since many drivers probably don't want anyone to know that they're sending out warnings about the whereabouts of police or the location of speed traps and speed cams.
But other users will no doubt be eager for such alerts, just as they might well want to get photographs showing traffic conditions just ahead of where they are.
Ultimately, the point of the application is to offer users "actionable" information. In other words, information that they can use to change a route, avoid an accident, or stay away from a potential speeding ticket.
Eisnor explained that Waze's maps come from the U.S. government and have large amounts of incomplete information. Many roads, for example, are displayed as "unconfirmed" and are depicted by lines of small, gray dots. But instead of treating that as a problem, Waze instead presents it as an opportunity for users to be the first to drive unconfirmed roads and earn points for being the first to confirm them.
Similarly, you can be the first to create a new road, one that isn't shown at all, an action that is rewarded with a nice, solid red line on the map as you drive.
Data about drivers' actions is fed back to Waze, but it's a series of local area managers--sort of like Wikipedia administrators--who do much of the local map administration. Users can get new access to the maps, and the ability to serve as local area managers by building up a large number of the points that they collect by being the first to confirm roads.
For now, Eisnor said, that's the extent of what Waze plans to do with points, but she hinted there would be something more interesting in the not-too-distant future.
Licensing the road data
The Waze app is free, and so I wondered what the company's business model is. Eisnor said that the goal is to get the app in enough people's hands that there is a steady flow of new road data to add to the Waze database. Then, she said, the company plans to license that raw data to other companies to do with as they please and, in the process, grab as much of what it thinks is a $4 billion market as it can. But to users, such goals may well be unimportant, so long as they can continue to get the very latest information about what's ahead of them as they drive.
One flaw in the plan is that, since Waze is dependent on AT&T's network to provide access to the Internet, the service is also heavily dependent on connectivity over that network. And during my half-hour tour around San Francisco--a notorious bad AT&T city--we constantly lost the signal.
For me, losing the signal might end up being incredibly frustrating. And for that, or for any other reason a driver might become upset or angry, Waze offers the ability to change your avatar's mood. Then, anyone in your vicinity can see the new mood when they see your avatar as it drives nearby, whether you're angry, happy, sad, or something else.
Much of that is window dressing, however. The main point of the app is to give users the important, indispensable information they need when trying to commute from point A to point B, be it map data, road information, traffic updates, or the location of the police.
"When using it every day," Eisnor said, "you're providing value to other drivers and other drivers are providing value to you.
To my mind, Waze is an app that has a lot of potential and could well become a truly crucial application. But until there is a critical mass of users, it's only a fun toy.
That said, there's no doubt that Waze is a lot of fun, especially because you get to be part of what could well end up being a wide network of users, each of whom is willing to showcase their location at any time.
For the moment, however, seeing the occasional angry face or noticing that there are several other Waze users in your vicinity may have to suffice. But if critical mass becomes a reality, look out.
Twitter users are urging each other to change their location settings to confuse censors in Iran.
(Credit: Twitter)Yesterday, I got an e-mail from a reader who had seen my story about Twitter users slamming CNN for its initial absence on the post-Iranian election protests, urging me to remove an image in the story.
The rationale? The image was of Twitter results and included users' account IDs, and the reader was worried that the Iranian government might seek out and punish any users who were employing Twitter for potentially subversive purposes.
We decided not to remove the image, in part because it had been up for more than 24 hours, and also because we suspected that the Iranian government knows how to use Twitter and how to find people in that country using the microblogging service as a way to spread news about the protests.
But now, Twitter users across the world are attempting to turn that dynamic on its head. The best way that the Iranian government could discover which tweets were from Iranians is to look and see whose accounts are registered to people who identify themselves as being from that country. That's possible because users' profiles allow people to define which city they're from and which time zone they're in.
There's a new thread spreading quickly across Twitter--I found more than 1,300 such posts--urging people around the world to change those settings in order to make themselves appear to be in Tehran.
Under the profile setting, the plea goes, people should change their location to Tehran, and their time zone and home city to GMT +03:30 Tehran. The idea--and it's not entirely clear if this would work--is that this will simply overwhelm the censors with people who look like they're posting potentially subversive tweets from Iran, and hopefully, protect the actual Iranians who are doing so.
Twitter, of course--as well as other social media services, has been the front line for news about the massive protests--perhaps the biggest in Iran since the revolution in 1979 that toppled the Shah. The service's users--using the hashtag "#IranElection"--have consistently been ahead of the news media on the story. And Twitter convinced its host, NTT America, to delay scheduled downtime in order to keep the service up and running so as to continue to give users a way to spread and receive news about what's going on in Iran.
The question has come up, again and again, about what would have happened in China in 1989 if protesters in Tiananmen Square had had Twitter at their disposal. I think China is more adept at censorship than Iran, but it seems clear that where there's a will, there's a way. And users of the Internet are a lot more clever than bureaucratic censors. I think the word would have gotten out.
On Thursday, NASA announced it has released a set of 3D photo collections of the International Space Station and its Mars rover. The photos were created using Microsoft's Photosynth technology, which automatically stitches together hundreds of images from standard digital cameras.
(Credit: NASA)NASA said on Thursday that it has released a collection of 3D photographs of the International Space Station and its Mars rover.
The photos, which were created using Microsoft's Photosynth tool, show both internal and external views of the space station, as well as a model of the rover.
Because the images were prepared using Photosynth, users can zoom in or out of any of the images, allowing them to see "details of the space station's modules and solar arrays or...a more global view of the complex."
At the same time, the Mars rover images depict the latest iteration of the hardware being crafted at NASA's Mars Science Laboratory. The rover, NASA said, is expected to be launched to Mars in 2011.
Both collections are made up of hundreds of photos taken with standard digital cameras that have been stitched together automatically using Photosynth.
And this isn't the first time NASA has used Photosynth to present images of its various projects. In 2007, it employed the Microsoft Live Labs technology to showcase a 3D view of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman's in-laws peruse the Internet via a Wi-Fi connection at their mountaintop, off-the-grid house.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.
For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning fast, and over time, it should be interesting to see how much progress they make, and how they make it.
Over the few days that we just spent on the mountain with them, these are many of the things (in no particular order) we talked to them about, showed them on their new MacBook, and explained that they might want to investigate in the future:
• Undo/Control-Z. They wanted to know if there was any way to undo a mistake on their computer, and we explained that Control-Z (Command-Z on a Mac) is the way to do that.
• Pandora. They haven't used it yet, but we explained how this free service makes it easy for anyone to create a totally custom Internet radio station based on their musical interests. They asked how Pandora makes money. I couldn't answer that very good question.
• Rotten Tomatoes. We explained that this service is among the very best for crowd-sourced movie reviews.
• IMDB. They watch a lot of movies, and often want to know more about the actors involved. We explained that IMDB is the only site they needed to go to get fully cross-referenced information on actors and filmmakers.
• Skype. For my in-laws, Skype will be key in helping them save money on their cell phone bill. We showed them voice calling and Skype instant messaging.
• iTunes Store. Tyler was looking for a specific song by an artist, and I showed him how he could use the iTunes Store to listen to short clips of artists' songs.
• Downloading photos from digital camera. We recently gave them a Canon PowerShot G2, and now that they have a new MacBook, we showed them how to easily download photos onto the computer.
• iPhoto. After downloading photos, we showed them how to organize the pictures in the Mac's built-in photo management software.
• Printing wirelessly. Now that they have a Wi-Fi network (running on an old AirPort Extreme) I talked to them about setting up wireless printing to their HP DeskJet printer.
• Connecting the Mac to a TV. I bought them the connectors for linking their MacBook to their TV. At first they didn't see the value of doing this, but they eventually saw that as their vision gets worse, a larger screen will make computing easier.
• NeoOffice versus OpenOffice. They've been using OpenOffice on their Windows computer, and we loaded NeoOffice onto their Mac. I haven't used it, but I explained that my research concluded that NeoOffice is better on Macs than OpenOffice.
• Second Life. My wife and I are both longtime Second Life users, and we talked to them about whether they'd want to use the virtual world. However, their download limits (200 megabytes per day) would likely make it difficult for them to use such services.
• PayPal. They hope not to buy very many things over the Internet, but they do understand that having a PayPal account will make it easier for them to do transactions on services like eBay.
• Amazon.com. We walked in on them looking at prices for tarps on Amazon.com. My reaction was "hide the credit card."
• Facebook. While social networking is likely something they won't deal with for some time, we talked about how many people have used Facebook to connect with friends from past lives.
• Twitter. They have heard a lot about Twitter, and we showed them how the microblogging service is a great way to see what people around the world are thinking about things in near-real-time.
• YouTube. Among other things, I showed Tyler how he could use YouTube to find obscure songs he might be looking for.
• Netflix. We've managed a Netflix account for them (they would pick up the DVDs at their P.O. box) for some time, since they didn't have an Internet connection. Now that they do, they've taken over management of the account. I had high hopes they would be able to watch Netflix streaming movies, but their download limits may prevent them from doing that.
• Google Earth. We showed them Google Earth and used the service to locate their house, a process that took even them some time, given the remote location in which they live.
• Gmail. They are using Gmail for e-mail, and we set them up to be able to send and receive their Gmail messages using the Mac's Mail application.
• Control on PCs/Command on Macs. We explained that anything that uses the control key on a PC (Control-C to copy, or Control-Z to undo) would utilize the command key instead on a Mac.
• Windows Security patches. I uploaded Service Pack 3 and six Windows security patches on their PC.
• WhiteHouse.gov. They were excited to be able to send messages to the president and to be able to watch his weekly video addresses. They also were happy to be able to easily e-mail many other government officials.
• Instant messaging. We explained that instant messaging is a terrific way to carry on informal conversations, and we discussed some of the etiquette of IM.
• Commenting on Web sites/blogs. We talked at length with them about how comments are implemented on various Web sites and blogs, and how people use them for different purposes.
• Wi-Fi. We set them up with an Apple AirPort Extreme and made it so their new MacBook could be connected to the Internet throughout their house. They were more excited by this than by anything else.
• USB hubs. Tyler wanted to know how to print wirelessly and I explained that he would need to get a USB hub to split the cable coming from his printer.
• Bookmarks. We provided them with a long bookmarked list of Web sites, and showed them how to add new bookmarks so they don't have to type in entire URLs for sites they hope to visit a lot.
• Delicious. We want to see what kinds of sites they are interested in and encouraged them to use Delicious.com to share their discoveries with us.
• Safari versus Firefox. I explained that Firefox is generally considered the best Web browser for the Mac, but told them how to use Safari is they were so inclined.
• Never using Internet Explorer again. I said that because of its many security holes I would never let them use Explorer on their PC again.
• Registering for Web sites. They were interested in why people would provide their e-mail address and/or other information to register for Web sites, and we explained the many reasons people are willing to do it, and why sites want it.
• Adding an AirPort Express to extend the Wi-Fi network's range. We told them that by adding an AirPort Express to their wireless network set up, they could extend the range of their Wi-Fi connectivity to a metal shed near their house. It also happens that that is where my wife and I sleep when we visit during cold months.
• Google News. I showed them Google's clearinghouse for news stories. They didn't seem particularly interested in it, but I'm guessing that will change as they realize the site's utility.
• Using wireless keyboards and mice. If they do decide to connect their Mac to their TV, we explained, they would likely want to add a wireless keyboard and mouse so they could have more freedom of movement in their living room.
• eBay. We explained that this service would be a fantastic way for them to find the kinds of supplies that their local merchants often don't have, or charge too much for.
• iPhone (for the future). We touted our beloved iPhones, and tried to get them excited about the devices as well. This is clearly something for another time.
• Blogrolls. They asked what blogrolls were, and we showed them how many blogs offer lists of other sites they endorse and suggest readers look at.
• Using the trackpad on the Mac instead of a mouse. Having only previously used their desktop PC, they weren't familiar with laptop trackpads. So we spent some time explaining how they work, including how to use two fingers on the MacBook to scroll up and down pages.
• Wikipedia. I had already been touting Wikipedia, but now I explained how anyone can edit any page, and how it is possible to see the entire history of changes for a page.
On June 22, Geek Gestalt will kick off Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South and North Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.
March revenues for the video game industry dropped 17 percent from a year ago, the NPD Group reported Thursday, the first time in the current recession that the business has seen sales fall.
For the month, the analyst firm reported that the industry turned in total sales of $1.43 billion, down 17 percent from $1.72 billion a year earlier. Hardware sales were down 18 percent, while software was down 17 percent.
But while the numbers look poor, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said she attributed some of the drop to the vagaries of the calendar.
"While it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the sky is starting to fall on the video games industry given this month's results, it's important to remember that two very big things are different this year than last," Frazier wrote in a note accompanying NPD's report. "First, Easter fell in March last year whereas it fell in April this year, and last March included the release of Super Small Bros.: Brawl, which went on to become the fourth best-selling game in 2008."
Perhaps, but one game's fortunes are unlikely to be enough to turn around an entire industry, especially given that hardware sales dropped about the same as overall revenues.
Overall sales were also down 2.7 percent from February's $1.47 billion, and each of the six hardware platforms NPD tracks--Sony's PlayStation 3, PS2 and PSP, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii and DS--had lower sales in March than in February. The PS3 and Wii led the drops, with 21.0 percent and 20.2 percent lower sales, respectively.
By comparison, the Xbox saw its sales fall between February and March, but less than the PS3 and Wii, and Frazier reported that Microsoft's console was the only one with good year-over-year news.
"While it's not unusual for March hardware sales to be lower than February," Frazier wrote, "I thought we'd see higher unit sales on most platforms. The Xbox 360 was the only platform to achieve a year-over-year sales increase."
Frazier also said Nintendo's numbers were noteworthy, given the effect of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl on the company's March 2008 sales.
"Wii and NDS hardware sales remained brisk, taking the top two spots for (March 2009) in hardware unit sales," she wrote. 'It's important to keep in mind that the (game's) effect from last year impacted hardware sales as well, so while the year-over-year comps are down for the Wii, the sales are still impressive."
Still, the Wii--the darling of the video game industry media since its surprise success became almost institutionalized--has seen some negative press recently.
In March, for the first time, the PS3 outsold the Wii in Japan, and many observers wondered if that milestone indicated that Nintendo's console's dominance had finally come to an end.
The Chicago Tribune listed its top executives and editors by their Twitter IDs Thursday instead of by their real names.
(Credit: Chicago Tribune)According to the masthead of the Thursday print edition of the Chicago Tribune, the paper's publisher is @twhunter.
No, the publisher's parents weren't playing a funny joke on him. And nor were the parents of the paper's other top executives and editors, all of whom were listed on the Thursday masthead with Twitter IDs instead of their names.
The editor? @GerryKern. The editorial page editor? @BruceDold. The managing editor? @jjhirt. And so on.
So what's going on?
"I've been on Twitter a couple of years, since it first emerged from South by Southwest, and so I've been on it for awhile, as you would hope that the digital editor of the Tribune" would be, said Bill Adee, the paper's digital editor. "And in the last month or so, we've really tried to get our reporters and editors on (Twitter) to show them how it could make them better reporters and editors."
He added that, "If you're a reporter or an editor, Twitter is a great way to get in touch with your audience in real time, and if you do it right, if you follow the right people in your sphere of knowledge, you will get a lot out of it."
And, in an experiment to show the many Twitter users among the paper's audience that the Tribune gets the microblogging service, and to make it easy to get in touch with the top editors and executives, the publication decided to publish, for one day only, the Twitter-friendly masthead.
"We were talking at dinner," Adee said, "and maybe we had too many glasses of wine...but we were just all talking, and we were like, 'Hey, let's do it.' Tomorrow, it's back to normal, but you never know when it will spring up again."
Adee explained that as part of its Twitter initiative, the Tribune gave reporters interested in taking part some education about the microblogging service in hopes of showing them how to sign up and how to get value out of it. But he said he had to make clear to the journalists taking part in the program that they shouldn't look at Twitter as a way of building instant new audiences.
"One thing I always warn people" about Twitter, Adee said, "is that it's not a way to generate page views. It's a way to share knowledge and learn what your audience is really interested in."
