Current CITE-ings from the popular and trade computing press

Current CITE-ings from the popular and trade computing press

Article Type: Current CITE-ings from the popular and trade computing press From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 25, Issue 10.

Editor's note: This ongoing column will provide capsule reviews of new hardware, software, and trends in computers and technology of potential interest to libraries.

Cloud computing: There is quite a bit of hype surrounding “cloud computing” and what it might bring to the enterprise. Cloud computing is computing which is hosted and delivered “as a service”. Whereas Software as a Service only involves applications, cloud computing can also include on-demand processing power, storage and connectivity which traditionally have only been associated with in-house IT operations. Issues for Cloud computing includes security, connectivity, offline access and performance. An area that is very conducive to cloud computing are collaboration tools such as video conferencing, remote file sharing and webinars. Because of these attributes, cloud computing is a good example of “green computing” as there are environmental gains in not having to travel to meetings and in the future, not having one's own IT operation (Stamper, 2009).

EBook readers: An analyst from Citi Investment, Mark Mahaney, has estimated that Amazon.com sold 500,000 Kindles in 2008. The Kindle eBook reader sells for $359, but Amazon has not released actual sales figures since it was released in late 2007. Mahaney based his sales findings from filings from Sprint Nextel, who downloads the book titles. There are 230,000 book titles for the Kindle. Amazon sold out of the devices after an endorsement by Oprah Winfrey. It is widely believed that Amazon will be releasing a new version of the Kindle soon. Mahaney estimates that the revenue from Kindle sales could reach $1.2 billion by 2010 (Metz, 2009).

Macintosh: It is hard to believe that it has been 25 years since Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh in 1984. Over the years, the Macintosh market share has grown from less than 3 per cent in 1997 to double-digits today. Some of the reasons for this rise are: better computers and software, seamless compatibility to Windows, great marketing and retail stores and problems with Windows Vista. Some of the highlights in the history of the Mac include the 1984 introduction of the Macintosh 128K “all in one” computer, the Mac Portable in 1989, followed by the Powerbook in 1991, the futuristic looking iMac in 1998, MacOS X in 2000, the PowerMac G5 in 2003, and the ultrathin Macbook Air in 2008 (Levy, 2009).

Mobile web and smart phones: Blackberrys, Treos, iPhones and the upcoming Google Android powered smart phones are transforming these telephony gadgets into fully functioning palm top computers. Android will include Eclipse and Java as components of its operating system. The first smartphone use of Google Android is the T-Mobile G1 (Cogswell, 2008). PC Magazine includes a first-look review of the G1 (PC Magazine, 2009).

Public Radio Tuner is a new application for the iPhone that lets one listen to live streamed audio from any public radio station. Another new application, also for the iPhone is NPR Mobile (national public radio) that allows the user to search through the NPR archives and then listen to individual broadcasts (Farivar, 2009). iStat for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch is a new product that lets one monitor a Macintosh computer on a Wi-Fi network. To use iStat, one needs to install a little server program on their Macintosh and buy the $2 application from the APP Store for the iPhone. Also, if you set up port forwarding through your router, you can monitor your Macintosh computers from anywhere (Delong, 2009).

There is a lot of buzz about WiMax vs long-term evolution (LTE) as next generation 4G wireless mobile broadband networks. Both Verizon Wireless and AT&T have shunned WiMax in favor of LTE, a cellular technology. WiMax offers faster mobile connectivity that can support real-time video communications, something that cellular transmissions like LTE cannot provide as they have relatively slower uplink speeds. WiMax, however, is more limited in terms of areas where it can be used and will only appeal to those who wish to access mobile applications between home and work in nearby locations. Some computer makers including Acer, Asus and Lenovo are offering laptops with WiMax connectivity. Nokia is coming out with a WiMax-enabled handheld device with a horizontal screen and keyboard. The WiMax enabled Nokia “mobile Internet device” will target the market now dominated by devices like the BlackBerry (Rysavy, 2008).

Netbooks: Netbooks are the hottest thing to hit the mobile computing scene in years, They typically have an 8-10 display and weigh no more than 3 lbs. Netbooks also come with several USB ports, a webcam, media card reader, built in Wi-Fi, integrated speakers and 1 GB of system memory. Netbooks rarely come with optical drives. Keyboards of netbooks can take some getting used to but some models now reach 90 per cent of full-sized laptops. They also differ from typical laptops by the processing platform they run on. Most netbooks use the Intel Atom chip and a few of the original ones use the slower VIA technologies platform. Several companies are now offering netbooks: MSI Wind, Lenovo Ideapad S10 and the HP Mini 1000. Netbooks are not necessarily a replacement for laptops but are great for small workloads and internet access (Cheng, 2009).

News on the net: Charles Sennot, formerly a foreign news reporter with the Boston Globe, has started a niche website called globalpost.com. Recognizing that foreign new reporting in newspapers is shrinking, he has assembled 65 veteran foreign news reporters to report news for his website. Sennott's recruits include seasoned journalists who now freelance because of cutbacks at US news organizations. GlobalPost will report news on 50 countries to an American audience (Jesdanun). According to a Nielsen report, leading US newspaper websites such as those from the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post are getting more online visitors with visits increased by 16 per cent over the previous year. So far, online ad revenues have not offset the losses from print. A bright spot is that newspapers are now reaching readers who might not have purchased the print in the past and which will eventually increase sales from advertising (AP, 2009).

Legitimate news websites and those of public organizations are often censored by the Chinese government, which some have called the “great firewall of China”. To experience this censorship firsthand, there is a free Firefox extension called the China Channel (http://chinachannel.hk/); a proxy system that runs behind a Chinese IP address (Rapoza, 2008). It can be difficult to determine when network providers sometimes filter and block information. To ensure net-neutrality, Google, the New America Foundation and the Planetlab Consortium have unveiled a new software tool called Measurement Lab (M-Lab) to monitor this phenomenon. M-Lab aims to bring transparency to the net by allowing researchers to use internet measurement tools and share their data. Google has provided three servers to the project, and within six months, Google will provide researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations around the globe. All data collected will become publicly available (Condon, 2009).

Social computing: Twitter.com is a new form of communication popular with 18-25 year olds. In 140 characters, users can send messages (also known as tweets) to the web from computers or mobile phones. Twitter messages often describe what a person is doing or thinking. A college professor has noted that twitter communication has changed some of the dynamics in the classroom by empowering students to get to know each other more easily, resulting in a greater level of connectedness. Twitter also can serve as a means of analysis for discussions. Another benefit of twitter is that it forces students to be concise and to the point due to its limited number of characters (Briggs, 2008a).

Campus services are embracing web2.0 technologies such as Facebook, MySpace and Friendster to facilitate connections with students. Campus bookstores are able to leverage store events and promotions and can use social networks as a way of gathering customer feedback. On the net there are also social textbooking sites such as Campus Book Swap (www.campusbookswap.org) that facilitate the buying and selling of textbooks among students and Flat World Knowledge (www.flatworldknowledge.com) which provides an open source text book site of free textbooks written by experts with rigorous reviews. GreenNote (www.greennote.com) helps students get low-interest loans for school and Lifetopia (www.lifetopia.com) and RoommateClick (www.roommateclick.com) help students with housing (Gullon and Villano, 2009).

Windows 7: PC Magazine took a look at a pre-beta version of Windows 7. The new operating system includes major user interface updates, will work much better with third party hardware and software, and with a lighter footprint, it may provide enhanced computing performance. Some new features will be Homegroup, a simplified way of home networking for sharing media files and printers. Device stage is a single page giving access to all the capabilities of a device, such as a phone, MP3 player, printer or camera. It will also offer Windows Touch for mouse free PC interaction on touch sensitive screens (Muchmore, 2009).

Web browsers: Firefox 3 includes many new powerful features such as the ability to duplicate tabs with drag and drop, minimizing the toolbar, the use of smart bookmarks using keywords of one's choosing, and email defaults for Yahoo! Mail or Gmail. One can also change the behavior of the “awesome bar”; Firefox's address bar, to have it make recommendations based on recent history and tagged bookmarks. Firefox 3 also allows one to search any site with smart keywords to represent any past web search (Kugler, 2009).

Competition to Firefox 3 has come from Internet Explorer 8 and the new browser from Google, Google Chrome. Just a few years ago, IE had almost the entire browser market but Firefox has garnered an 18 per cent market share and Apple's Safari has 6 per cent. Some predict that Google Chrome will emerge with 20 per cent of the market. For website developers, it creates new challenges in the way webpages display and perform on each of these platforms. A major characteristic of all these new browsers is a focus on web applications and a move from similar desktop applications, or what is also known as cloud computing. Web developers will need to pay closer attention to approaches that focus on their customer's browser preferences, and performance testing and benchmarking to enhance both the user's experience with their websites as well as speed and consistency (Mouline, 2008).

Web conferencing: The California Community College System chose Elluminate Live! (www.elluminate.com) as its statewide conferencing system. Besides saving expenses in travel time for meetings, this system offers additional features specific to teaching. For the classroom, Elluminate Live! includes a notepad, a meeting clock, synchronous video from a web camera, application sharing, and a whiteboard (Briggs, 2008b).

Lois Trapasso

Further reading

AP (2009), “Nielsen: newspapers getting more web visits”, 27 January, available at: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090127/ap_on_hi_te/tec_techbit_newspaper_sitesBriggs, L. (2008a), “Teaching twitter”, Campus Technology, December, pp. 12-13.Briggs, L. (2008b), “Meeting up virtually”, Campus Technology, December, p. 38.Cheng, C. (2009), “Do you need a Netbook?”, PC Magazine, January, p. 211.Cogswell, J. (2008), “Androids development difference”, eWeek, 3 November, pp. 32-8.Condon, S. (2009), “Google-backed tool detects net filtering, blocking”, CNET News, 28 January, available at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10152117-38.htmlDelong, D. (2009), “Monitor your Mac from your iPhone”, Macworld.com, 27 January, available at: www.macworld.com/article/138456/2009/01/monitor_my_mac.htmlFarivar, C. (2009), “Getting public radio on your iPhone now a bit easier”, Macworld.com, 28 January, available at: www.macworld.com/article/138490/2009/01/getting_public_radio_on_your_iphone_now_a_bit_easier.htmlGullon, M. and Villano, M. (2009), “Student services go social”, Campus Technology, February, pp. 24-9.Jesanun, A. (2009), “Web startup to offer foreign news as papers cut”, AP, 9 January, available at: www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95JQ4B80Kugler, L. (2009), “Make the most of Firefox 3”, PC Magazine, January, pp. 75-6.Levy, S. (2009), “All grown up”, Wired, January, pp. 90-3.Metz, R. (2009), “Analyst estimates Amazon sold 500K Kindles in 2008”, Associated Press, 3 February, available at: www.physorg.com/news152884456.htmlMouline, I. (2008), “Browser war fallout: will your web site survive?”, Website Magazine, November, pp. 38-40.Muchmore, M. (2009), “Sneak peek inside Windows 7”, PC Magazine, January, pp. 57-9.PC Magazine (2009), “T-Mobile G1: a solid first try for Google android”, January, p. 44.Rapoza, J. (2008), “Censoring the internet: the China channel sheds light on information control”, eWeek, 1 December, p. 47.Rysavy, P. (2008), “No need to wait on 4G”, InformationWeek, 1 December, available at: www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/3G/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212501054Stamper, J. (2009), “Collaboration on a cloud”, CBR (Computing Business Review), 8 February, available at: www.cbronline.com/magazine/collaboration_and_cloud_computing