Everyone seems to have proclaimed that this was the “year of the tablet” at the Consumer Electronics Show. But while I certainly saw a whole lot of tablets at the show, what strikes me most, in retrospect, is just how unfinished nearly all the tablets were, reports Michael J. Miller for PC Magazine. I left intrigued by the possibilities, but more skeptical about the market than most of my colleagues. Partly, there were so many tablets because it seems like every vendor thinks they fit into their existing market. Phone makers think of tablets as large smartphones — with or without calling features. TV makers think of tablets just as smaller screens on which to watch video and other content. PC makers think of tablets as laptops without keyboards. Monitor makers think of them as portable monitors. Book sellers think of them as electronic book readers…
…Read MorePodcast Series: Innovations in Education
Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.
Blekko: The newest search engine
Blekko.com, a new search engine that uses human input to help it sort out the world, is getting a lot of press today, reports John C. Dvorak for PC Magazine, including a lot of “Another search engine, who needs it? Google is better.” send-offs. Yes, Google is the greatest search engine as of now, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be beaten by some new algorithm or a better idea. Blekko is going for a better idea. Blekko, in fact, adds so much weird dimensionality that out of all the recently hyped search engine ideas, such as www.cuil.com, I find it the most interesting. I do not say this often…
…Read MoreReport: 72 percent of adults now send text messages
Texting among adults is on the rise, with more than 72 percent of those over 18 using the technology—but their usage still pales in comparison to texting among teenagers, who send an average of five times as many texts as their adult counterparts, PC Magazine reports. Of the 2,252 people surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, about 72 percent of adults said they sent text messages in May 2010, compared with 65 percent of adults surveyed in September 2009. Adult texters are sending an average of 10 texts per day, while those ages 12 to 17 are sending about 50 texts per day. There are some prolific adult texters—about 5 percent of adults send 200 texts per day or more; about 15 percent of teens do the same. Gender is not a major factor when it comes to texting; men and women send and receive the same number of texts on a daily basis. The report also found that if you text often, it’s likely that you also make a lot of voice calls. The reverse also was true: A small number of texts also translated into a small number of calls. Broken down by race, Pew found that African Americans and Hispanics are “more intense and frequent” users of a phone’s capabilities than whites. Parents with children under 18 in the home are also more likely to own a phone than those without kids, Pew said…
…Read MoreMcAfee promises some customers refunds after update fiasco
McAfee on April 26 said it would reimburse “reasonable expenses” that were incurred after an incorrect malware alert last week caused computers running Windows XP Service Pack 3 to shut down and start on a continuous reboot cycle, PC Magazine reports. “If you have already incurred costs to repair your PC as a result of this issue, we’re committed to reimbursing reasonable expenses,” McAfee said on its web site. “Steps to process your reimbursement request will be posted in the next few days.” The company also said those whose computers were rendered inoperable or severely impaired as a result of the faulty file release would be eligible for a free, two-year extension of their existing McAfee subscription. McAfee said only a “small percentage” of its customers had permanent damage to their computers, and “our immediate priority is to get you back up and running.” Computers at Illinois State University and other schools were among those affected by the glitch…
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