CourseCast of the Week

Episode 0057, 07/12/2008

Title/Description: iPhone Mania 2, The Visible Web

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 57, recorded July 12, 2008. This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

Story 1 - iPhone Mania 2

A little over a year ago, thousands of excited consumers lined up outside Apple and AT&T stores across the US waiting to get their hands on the new iPhone - the phone that went on to become Time Magazine's Invention of the Year. Last Friday, lines formed again, this time for the 2nd generation iPhone, the iPhone 3G - and this time, it wasn't just the US. Lines formed at Apple stores and wireless carriers around the world including in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. Twenty countries in all, with another 49 scheduled to receive the new iPhone over the next few months. Besides some minor snags with activation in some locations, the global release was a success with the new iPhone 3G receiving mostly positive reviews. The new phone features much faster data transfer rates for faster loading Internet and Web content and GPS technology.

While the iPhone 3G may be pretty big news, the iPhone 2.0 software and iTunes App Store should be getting the headlines. Released the same day as the new iPhone, the App Store provides over 500 software applications for use on the original iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the new iPhone 3G. The iPhone is the first cell phone platform to offer so many applications from which to choose. The applications include games, music, navigation, business, education, finance, news, photography, social networking, sports, and many other categories. A quarter of the applications are free to download; the rest run around ten dollars each. With the release of iPhone 2.0 software, cell phones have evolved to a new generation - a powerful communication, business, personal information management, gaming, navigation, and entertainment device. While the iPhone is the first device and platform to provide this flexibility and power, many more are soon to follow. Devices based on Google's Android platform due our later this year, are sure to give the iPhone 3G a run for its money.

It's not all good news for Apple this week. Apple's new Mobile Me Internet service was due to launch Thursday. Two days later, visitors to the site are still getting a message stating that the service is experiencing unexpected delays. The new service promises cloud computing for personal use. For a yearly subscription fee of $99 users can store much of their personal information and files on Apple servers and access them from any Internet connected device including Macs, PCs, and the iPhone. The delay in the launch is causing a serious embarrassment for Apple. It's likely that the company bit off more than it could chew with three big releases occurring in the same week.

Sources:
Apple's new iPhone snapped up [Reuters]
Faster, cheaper iPhone to draw crowds around globe [Reuters]
iPhone killer-app is letting users choose software [Reuters]
iPhone 3G review (updated) [Engadget]
First iPhone 3G reviews via the WSJ, USA Today and NY Times [AppleInsider]
Apple Web service falters on eve of iPhone launch [Wired]
iTunes activation servers go down, iPhone 3G customers being sent home unactivated, first-gen iPhone customers stuck with dead iPhones [Engadget]

Story 2 - The Visible Web

Browsing the Web can be a frustrating experience for blind or visually impaired users. While screen reading software can be used to read text aloud from the screen, much of Web content such as graphics, video, and menu buttons is visual rather than text-based. While mechanisms exist for Web developers to make all components of a Web site accessible to the blind and visually impaired, many Web developers do not take the trouble to use them.

IBM has released a new solution for the problem. Rather than working to get Web developers to write better code, IBM has set up a system that can turn bad code into accessible pages. The Social Accessibility Project provides software that can be downloaded and used to report inaccessible pages to IBM. Volunteers online can then translate the page and create an accessible version of the page available to those using the system. The next time the user visits the site, the content will be accessible.

Sources:
IBM makes web accessibility for blind users a social effort [Ars Technica]

And that brings us to News Briefs.

  • Lithuania, which was once under Soviet rule, was hit by cyber attack last week when several hundred of its Web sites were hacked and plastered with Soviet symbols of the hammer and sickle and the five-pointed star. [CNN Europe]
  • Seagate Technology has announced the production of the industry's first 1.5 TB hard drive. [Computerworld]
  • Samsung has started mass producing solid-state drives with a 128GB capacity, and will soon begin 256GB drive production. Many are wondering if and when SSD's will replace hard drives. [Computerworld]
  • After many hearings and an extended deliberation, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has stated that he will recommend Comcast be penalized for its slowing and blocking of Internet traffic over its network. [Computerworld]
  • A report from Nielson Mobile claims that the adoption of the mobile Web has reached critical mass and can now support "large-scale mobile marketing efforts" - watch for ads coming to your smart phone soon! [Ars Technica]
  • Getting ready to graduate? Checking the job market? The Better Business Bureau is warning job-hunters to watch out for "job search fraud" - fraudulent job sites designed to steal visitor's identity. [NewsFactor]
  • Google has released a 3-D online social environment for beta testing - try it out at lively.com [Computerworld]
  • MyYahoo! has been redesigned to provide customization and embedded Web apps. This is the first step in Yahoo's efforts to become a major player in Web 2.0 and social networking. [Ars Technica]
  • Japanese researchers claim to have created the world's first DNA strand from artificial bases - a key step toward creating biological computers. [Ars Technica]

That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at www.course.com/coursecasts. E-mail us with your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com. Until next time, have a great week, and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!