Tech 101 - Episode 1

CourseCast of the Week

Episode 0058, 07/19/2008

Title/Description: Wireless Sensors Help Urban Parking, iPhone 3G Release, News Briefs

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 58, recorded July 19, 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 - Wireless Sensors Help with Urban Parking

Downtown San Francisco has major issues with parking. In 2006, a 19-year-old was stabbed to death in a fight over a parking space. The New York Times reports that Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, hopes to reduce parking stress using wireless technology. This summer, wireless sensors are being glued down to the pavement in 6,000 of San Francisco's 24,000 metered parking spaces. The sensors will alert drivers to available parking spots using displays on street signs and a map on the Internet accessible over smart phones. The city is also developing software that will allow drivers to pay for parking from their cell phones. The so-called smart parking system is expected to catch on in many large cities.

Sources:
Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone [New York Times]

Story 2 - Apple iPhone 3G One Week Later

Apple’s iPhone 3G launch was a huge success by any standard. One million phones were sold in the first three days and 10 million iPhone apps were downloaded over the same period. While some of the iPhone apps are free, most range in price from 99 cents to over $100, with most popular apps under $10.

Apple has apologized to MobileMe subscribers for technical difficulties that caused the online service to be unavailable for two days. Apple is providing a 30 day extension to users’ subscriptions to make amends.

Sources:
Apple Continues iPhone Hype at One Million Mark Apple Continues iPhone Hype at One Million Mark [NewsFactor]
Apple apologizes to MobileMe users [MercuryNews]

And that brings us to News Briefs:

Amazon has announced that it is launching a movie and TV streaming Internet service this summer, named Amazon Video on Demand. The service will offer instant access to over 40,000 videos to Internet-connected devices. [Ars Technica]
Microsoft has opened its Live Mesh services to all Microsoft users with a Windows Live ID. The service will compete head-to-head with Apple's MobileMe by allowing users to store files and data on Microsoft servers to be accessed from any Internet-connected device. Thus begins the battle for personal cloud computing dominance. [Computerworld]
A 27-year-old man responsible for blasting over a million AOL subscribers with 250,000 spam emails over a four-month period will be spending 30 months in prison and paying AOL $180,000 for the trouble. [PCWorld]
A new model of Amazon's Kindle eBook reader will arrive later this year according to a Computerworld article. The new model is reported to be smaller with a much improved interface. [Computerworld]
A new kind of malicious software has been discovered propagating across file sharing networks disguised as an MP3 file. Windows users should beware of an MP3 file that opens Windows Explorer to a Web site that prompts you to download a codec file. Don't do it! [InfoWorld]
Also, if you get an email that looks like it came from UPS informing you that your package cannot be delivered, do not open the attached invoice as instructed. It will infect your PC with a virus. [SC Magazine]
Research by the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) estimates that a Windows PC directly connected to the Internet without the latest security patches, and without a firewall, virus protection, and spyware protection will be attacked and infected in about four minutes. [Computerworld]
Juniper Research believes that making payments by swiping a mobile phone over a pad is about to take off. The technology behind it is called near field communications (NFC) and is expected to generate revenues of over $75 billion globally by 2013 according to the research firm. [vnunet.com]
Nearly three quarters of businesses in the U.K. have banned the use of instant messaging by employees due to security concerns. [Computerworld]
Second Life is working on technologies that will allow users to browse the Web and share files from within its virtual world. The company hopes that the technology will transform Web browsing into a three dimensional experience, and allow Second Life to act as a totally new type of Web browser. [Technology Review]
Following up on a story from last week, Viacom and YouTube have figured out a way to share YouTube download statistics in their legal proceedings without threatening the privacy of YouTube users. [Cnet]

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!