Quando as teclas falam, as palavras calam

A linha e a agulha

2009-12-10T11:03:00.000Z

Fonte: http://colunas.g1.com.br/paulocoelho/

Postado por Paulo Coelho em 10 de dezembro de 2009 às 01:18

Uma pequena história adaptada de um conto de Machado de Assis:

A agulha passa por vários estágios de sofrimento até aprender sua função: o forno abrasador da metalúrgica, o frio intenso da água em que é temperada, o peso esmagador da prensa que a faz atingir sua forma ideal.

A partir daí, precisa estar sempre dura, brilhante, e afiada.

Depois de todo este aprendizado, ela encontra sua razão de viver: a linha.

E faz o possível para ajudá-la: enfrenta os tecidos mais resistentes, abre os buracos nos locais certos.

Mas, quando termina seu trabalho, a misteriosa mão da costureira torna a colocá-la em uma caixa escura; depois de tanto esforço, sua recompensa é a solidão.

Com a linha, entretanto, a história é diferente: a partir deste momento, passa a ir a todos os bailes e festas.

Internet safety for children targeted

2009-12-09T10:42:00.001Z

Fonte: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8398763.stm

By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News

As the government launches a web safety code, Rory Cellan-Jones reports from an internet class at a primary school in Ealing, London.

Lessons in using the internet safely are set to become a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary schoolchildren in England from 2011.

The lessons are one element of a new government strategy being unveiled called "Click Clever, Click Safe".

Children will also be encouraged to follow an online "Green Cross Code" and block and report inappropriate content.

The measures have been drawn up by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety, a new body comprising 140 organisations.

Holden Lane School in Stoke has produced a video for School Report on how a filter system blocks sites

"We must ensure that this virtual world is safe for our children just as we try to ensure that the real world is," said Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the launch of the campaign.

"The internet is a wonderful and powerful tool that is changing the way we learn and the way we stay in touch," he added, "but unfortunately there are risks from those intent on exploiting its benefits."

The "Zip it, Block it, Flag it" campaign is intended for use by schools, retailers and social networks, although it will be up to individual sites to choose how they use it.

A large scale public information campaign based around the slogan will be mounted from February 2010.

"We hope that 'Zip it, Block it, Flag it' will become as familiar to this generation as 'Stop, Look and Listen' was to the last," said the Prime Minister.

It will encourage children to not give out personal information on the web, block unwanted messages on social networks and report any inappropriate behaviour to the appropriate bodies, which may include the website, teachers or even police.

"The digital code is the green cross code for the digital age," said Dr Tanya Byron, who headed a review into inappropriate material on the internet and in video games.

"Its about what the risks are in the online space," she said. "What can be done in order to help them learn to manage those risks and to get help if they become more than they can sort out themselves."

Government-appointed psychologist Tanya Byron on the new child safety online code

The Byron review saw the creation of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) which has drawn up the digital code.

"No one is saying it is scary stuff," said Dr Byron. "It's about the management of risk in the same way that we want children to understand and manage risk in the real world, in the offline world."

"No-one is saying there are huge massive dangers out there," said Dr Byron.

"18% of children have said they have come across inappropriate material," she said. "Its 18% too many but it's not as big as people believe based on the scare stories and fear-mongering."

Panic button

UKCCIS comprises organisations including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, which have pledged support for the campaign.

A Google spokesman said most of the websites represented by the group already had controls that "help users manage their personal information and block or report unwanted contact".

The curriculum is already massively overstretched. It's difficult for teachers to fit everything in

Anastasia de Waal Civitas

Can schools solve all problems?

"We're strong supporters of the 'Zip it, Block it, Flag it' educational campaign as another way to get this message out and help young people to remember how to stay safe online."

The 140 organisations are also updating a self-regulatory code of conduct governing online behaviour.

The rules will be published in 2010 and will act as a benchmark against which the government can review websites.

One measure that has been discussed by the group is the use of a "panic button" on social network sites to flag up inappropriate content.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) centre - the UK law enforcement agency tasked with tracing online sex offenders - already offers a report button for websites.

Clicking the button allows users to contact specially-trained Ceop officers for advice and Ceop says it receives 10,000 hits a month.

It is already used by social network Bebo and MSN Instant Messenger but the government will announce that all 270,000 computers provided under its Home Access scheme will now incorporate the button.

'Isolated cases'

A critical part of the government's plans are educating children about the potential dangers they face online.

Currently only secondary school pupils are taught about internet safety.

Under the new proposals, online safety would be taught to all pupils from the age of five in England as part of their personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), which includes drug awareness, bullying, sex education, healthy living and personal finance.

WHAT IS PSHE?

Personal, social, health and economic education

Topics include: alcohol, drug and tobacco awareness; bullying; sex and relationship education; sexuality; careers advice; personal finance; healthy living; body image and how the body changes; personal well-being

Taught in age-appropriate ways in both primary and secondary school

The government wants the subject to be compulsory from 2011

Teaching PSHE is not currently compulsory, but if legislation goes through it will become compulsory in England from 2011.

However, Anastasia de Waal, of think tank Civitas, questioned whether the measures would have much of an impact.

"The curriculum is already massively overstretched," she told BBC News. "It's difficult for teachers to fit everything in."

As a result, she said, teachers would "cover a lot with not much depth".

She said, it would be much better for teachers to talk about everyday situations, including websites, rather than teaching it in isolation.

Social networks and web services are coming under increasing pressure to show that they are doing something to tackle inappropriate content, cyber-bullying and grooming online.

In November, a poll of more than 2,000 young people by charity Beatbullying found that 57% had been harassed online while using Windows Live Messenger.

What Gaming Means to Business

2009-11-26T16:54:00.001Z

Fonte: http://blog.sherweb.com/what-gaming-means-to-business/

Imagine working in an environment where playing games was encouraged. If certain software companies have their way this will be a reality in the future office environment. New employees would receive their training through virtual scenario games. Information sharing would take place in a similar environment to Web 2.0. And employees would receive points based on their performance. Spending a day at the office has the potential to become more interactive. Why Games? Should games and work be mixed together at the workplace? This question was researched by IBM, Seriosity (a company that creates enterprise software that was inspired by multiplayer games), MIT and Stanford. It turns out that avid players of online mass-multiplayer games, like World of Warcarft (WoW), acquired qualities that would make them ideal managers. These skills included assessing strategic risks, gathering information from different sources, identifying problems and quickly taking on another challenge. During mass-multiplayer games it is common for a player to jump in to a leadership position to solve a problem. If this type of environment and project-oriented leadership were adopted in the business world more employees might be willing to try on the role of ‘leader’. Pieces of the dialogue between WoW gamers were also analyzed. The results showed that players who worked as a team advanced more quickly. Games could also aid in the development of qualities essential to successful teamwork amongst colleagues. Seriosity has listed more qualities that they believe gaming can enhance in the business world: incentive structures for long and short term motivation; virtual economies that design a marketplace for information and collaboration; transparency of capabilities and performance; recognition for work and; access to networks of communication for the organization. Perhaps gaming can exist side by side with work. Virtual Training in the Office Similar to how it works in the business world a gamer must undergo a series of tasks in order to advance and; since these two share qualities that are mutually beneficial; why not develop a system for virtual training? There are two types of virtual training, 3D and 2D. 3D virtual training could be used to develop interpersonal skills like those used by a salesman. Breakway has developed a game called “Virtual Training Bank” where players take part in banking scenarios. For example, for fraud detection the participant must detect discrepancies in staff members’ stories. 2D virtual training would use scenarios to spark group discussion on the subject. For example, HR staff could discuss conflict resolution scenarios in order to determine efficient methods to settle disputes. Blueline Simulations has developed “Executive Challenge” where teams compete to grow the most successful business. With this type of training staff members could take a trial run in the virtual business world before they took on the role in reality. Keep in mind that this type of training is not completely revolutionary; the military has had success with this type of training for years. Attent According to a survey conducted in 2006 by the Radicati Group, one-quarter of the average corporate worker’s work day is spent sorting through e-mails. This is due to the numerous CCs, FYIs and CYAs sent by colleagues. Seriosity has developed an e-mail system where employees would receive a limited amount of ‘serios’ each week. These serios are to be attached to an e-mail to indicate the level of importance. Outlook does have the red exclamation mark, but since there is no limit on how many times someone can use they become meaningless. In Attent there is a limited amount of serios, so the number of useless e-mails should be reduced. Workers will be able to arrange their e-mails by level of importance to ensure that urgent messages are dealt with promptly. Recipients of an e-mail can reply with a modified amount of serios. This way the sender can compare his level of importance to that of his co-workers. To continuously receive replies with more serios attached shows that this worker is adding value to the organization. To get a reply with less serios would demonstrate that your message was off target. Collaborative Environments Using “Super Groupware” David Jacobson of PrincewaterhouseCoopers would like to have gaming incorporated into everyday office life. Participation would be encouraged and the ‘gaming world’ would continue to operate even when some users were not active. This resembles the type of Web 2.0 environment that gyminee.com utilizes. Here members set individual fitness goals, check their progress and can motivate others in their group, creating a successful mixture of fun interaction with fitness coaching. Within a business “Super GroupWare” could create a collaborative environment to share all forms of information on one database. This would make sharing quicker since switching software to view certain documents would not be required. With this technology all forms of unstructured information could be digitized and made accessible. Communication between co-workers would also be simplified through instant messaging. Gartner (market researcher) predicts that 80% of internet users will have digital versions of themselves, or avatars, that they will use for recreation and the work place by 2011; and that by the end of 2012 50% of American companies will be using networked virtual office environments where they will have the capability for global communication, to train new staff members and have meetings. With the success of social media marketing in recent years and the increased productivity that the internet has introduced to the work world is it really that much of a surprise that the workplace is capitalizing on these forms of information sharing?

What happened to Second Life?

2009-11-23T11:28:00.000Z

Fonte: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm

Not long ago Second Life was everywhere, with businesses opening branches and bands playing gigs in this virtual world. Today you'd be forgiven for asking if it's still going.

Once upon a time Second Life had a Twitter level of hype. Even those without a cartoon version of themselves couldn't plead ignorance due to blanket coverage in newspapers and magazines.

Second Life is a virtual world started by the US firm Linden Lab in 2003, in which users design an avatar to live their "second life" online.

And everything about this world can be customised for a price - new outfits, drinks in a bar, even a luxury mansion can be bought with Linden dollars.

Mentions of Second Life first crept into the UK media mainstream in early 2006.

The Maldives were the first to open a virtual embassy in 2007

A year later, newspapers fell over themselves to cover it, devoting many column inches in their business, technology and lifestyle sections to profiles and trend pieces. By the end of 2007 Second Life had secured more than 600 mentions in UK newspapers and magazines, according to the media database Lexis Nexis.

IBM bought property in 2006, American Apparel opened a shop the same summer, Reuters installed avatar journalist Adam Pasick - also known as Adam Reuters - to report on virtual happenings, and countries established virtual embassies.

The number of people joining the site jumped from 450,000 to four million in 2007.

But just as quickly as it had flared, media interest ebbed away. References plummeted by 40% in 2008 and dropped further this year. And businesses diverted their resources back to real life.

American Apparel closed its shop just one year after opening. Reuters pulled its correspondent in October 2008. When asked about his virtual experience, Pasick says: "It isn't a subject we like to revisit."

So, what happened?

SECOND LIFE'S PRECURSOR

In Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson, a seminal sci-fi work of the 90s, one of the plots is that there was this whole metaverse exactly like Second Life, only cooler. You had a whole generation of people who read Snow Crash and were talking about this idea of the internet as a 3D world you could immerse yourself in

Ben Hammersley

Not much, says Wired UK editor-at-large Ben Hammersley, and that was the problem.

"You could go and open these stores and no-one would turn up," he says.

"They would have 20 to 30 people there when it opened, and after that no-one would bother going in there again. It just wasn't worth the spend."

The "spend" varied from business to business. A retailer like American Apparel might spend £10,000 on designers, as well as storage space from Linden Lab, to build a virtual store.

But at the peak of the hype, the cost of purchasing or building property was worth it.

"The first to go online would make the front page of the Guardian," Mr Hammersley says. "But when you're the 15th country who goes on Second Life, no magazine, no newspaper touches it."

Some businesses and users found it wasn't quite for them. The technology wasn't easily grasped and some computers couldn't handle it.

Second Life has had to temper its ambitions for the quality of graphics to extend its accessibility across varying speeds of broadband around the world, leading to complaints about the cartoony look and feel of the site.

And there is a fundamental question about whether Second Life is a game or a social networking site.

"It's not a really good social space," Mr Hammersley says. "Not as good as Facebook or any general online forum.

Avatars can walk, fly and teleport

Simon Gardner, a 23-year-old freelance social media marketer, believed the hype in 2007.

He signed on, created an avatar with a shock of red hair that vaguely resembled him, and jumped into what he found to be a lacklustre experience.

"It was a real pain. You have to learn how to control things and read manuals on how to get to islands and get off. Half the time you're just wandering around talking to weirdos."

After three months Mr Gardner became bored and left.

Mobile dilemma

And the online social network scene is a crowded one. "The key to anything online is to get a broader reach of people," says Jim Clark of market researchers Mintel. The learning curve required for Second Life prevents many general users from returning regularly.

As more people turn to smart phones, sites need a mobile presence to stay relevant.

"Mobile is the future of any activity online. This is something that Second Life will struggle to penetrate," says Mr Clark.

This is because the graphics require more memory than current smart phones can handle.

But Linden Labs isn't worried, because the number of users continues to rise.

"Monthly repeat login - a metric we use to gauge the number of users engaged with Second Life - grew 23% from September 2008 to September 2009," says Mark Kingdon, chief executive of Linden Lab.

In IBM's Virtual Green Data Center, avatars can seek IT advice

On average, a million people log in each month, he says. In October 2009, 75,000 of those were in the UK.

And the site continues to evolve, Mr Kingdon says. It launched a new product earlier this month geared towards businesses, and will soon be launching more user-friendly and intuitive software.

And many companies and organisations are still holding on to their virtual selves - 1,400 of them says Mr Kingdon. IBM continues to be an avid supporter of Second Life.

But for many others, the jury is out.

Intel: Chips in brains will control computers by 2020

2009-11-20T10:33:00.000Z

Fonte: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9141180/Intel_Chips_in_brains_will_control_computers_by_2020

Brain waves will replace keyboard and mouse, dial phones and change TV channels

By Sharon Gaudin

November 19, 2009 02:40 PM ET

Aprenda como usar o computador sem o mouse

2009-11-17T12:21:00.000Z

Fonte: http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Tecnologia/0,,MUL1381358-6174,00.html

Colunista ensina a usar as teclas de atalho para facilitar tarefas. Deixe suas dicas, dúvidas e sugestões na área de comentários.

Fernando Panissi*Especial para o G1

Tamanho da letra

A-
A+

O teclado sempre esteve presente na vida dos usuários de computador. Digitar comandos em telas pretas com um cursor verde (branco, laranja e etc) era comum e muita gente até hoje ainda acha isso muito prático. O mouse revolucionou a forma com que as pessoas usavam computador e foi a porta de entrada para o surgimento de sistemas como o MacOS e o Windows. A interatividade de interfaces com janelas trouxe a praticidade e a usabilidade à computação. Hoje o mouse já não é forma mais moderna de interação com a máquina. As telas touch screen – sensíveis ao toque – vêm se popularizando, principalmente em dispositivos móveis. PCs com essa tecnologia ainda não são para todos, mas se depender dos fabricantes e dos desenvolvedores de aplicativos isso irá mudar nos próximos anos. O fato do Windows 7 estar preparado para trabalhar com telas multitoques é um indício.

saiba mais

Quem – como eu – trabalha o dia inteiro em um notebook acaba comprando um mouse portátil pois usar o “touchpad” não é algo tão prático. Este fato corroborou com a manutenção de um antigo hábito: usar teclas atalho para realizar tarefas no computador. Parece um recurso retrógrado pensando no mouse e principalmente nas telas sensíveis ao toque, mas quando o assunto é produtividade nada é mais rápido do que não precisar tirar a mão do teclado para nada. Todos os programas e sistemas operacionais contam com teclas atalho. Alguns programas são totalmente manipuláveis por teclado, sendo inclusive mais fácil operá-los desta forma do que com o mouse. Vamos aos atalhos:

Windows 7 Tecla do Windows + Seta para cima: Maximiza janela Tecla do Windows + Seta para baixo: Minimiza a janela Tecla do Windows + Seta para esquerda: Fixa janela à esquerda (recurso do Windows 7 que fixa a janela nos cantos da tela). Tecla do Windows + Seta para direita: Fixa janela à direita Tecla do Windows + SHIFT + Seta para esquerda: Tecla para quem tem mais de um monitor – Esta ação move janela para monitor da esquerda. Tecla do Windows + SHIFT + Seta para direita: Tecla para quem tem mais de um monitor – Esta ação move janela para monitor da direita. Tecla do Windows + Home: Minimiza ou restaura todas as janelas com exceção da janela em uso. Tecla do Windows + Barra de espaço: Mostra a área de trabalho desktop (quando o Aero Peek está ativo) Tecla do Windows + G: Exibe os gadgets, quando não estão em primeiro plano Tecla do Windows +* (* = número de 1 a 5): Abre uma nova instância do programa correspondente ao número fixado na barra do iniciar. Tecla do Windows + 1 abre o primeiro programa e assim sucessivamente Tecla do Windows + (sinal de mais) / Tecla do Windows + - (sinal de menos): Controle de Zoom Tecla do Windows + TAB: alterna entre os programas abertos (Aero Flip) ALT + P (no Windows Explorer à Mostra/Oculta o painel de pré-visualização dos arquivos.

Para ver atalhos para versões anteriores do Windows (XP ou 2000) clique aqui. Microsoft Office 2007 O Office 2007 tem uma série de atalhos. Para acessar os menus do programa usando o teclado, aperte a tecla ALT uma vez e repare nos menus: letras indicativas dos atalhos surgirão.

Visão dos atalhos do Word 2007. Muitas vezes não usar o mouse deixa o trabalho mais rápido. (Foto: Reprodução)

Ao acionar um comando como, por exemplo, ALT + P (para abrir a aba de Layout da página) automaticamente o WORD mostra os atalhos para as ferramentas presentes na aba, como pode ser visto na parte inferior da imagem acima. Um exemplo: ALT + P + M aciona a ferramenta de Margens do Word. Desta forma é possível controlar todas as funcionalidades do Word.

A tecla de menu de contexto ajuda na rápida correção de erros de digitação, como no caso do Exceção apresentado na imagem. Em destaque qual é o botão do menu de contexto do Windows. (Foto: Reprodução)

Durante a digitação uma palavra ficou com aquela tarja vermelha indicando erro de digitação? Não tem problema, basta clicar com o botão de menu de contexto do Windows que – além de outras coisas – as opções de correção serão mostradas e podem ser acessadas usando as setas do teclado. Escolhida a correção mais coerente, basta teclar ENTER. Se você não quer usar a tecla de contexto do Windows, pode teclar SHIFT+F10 que terá o mesmo efeito.

Alguns atalhos do Office 2007: ALT + 1: Salvar ALT + A: Botão Office ALT + C: Menu Início ALT + Y: Menu inserir ALT + P: layout de página ALT + U: Menu Fórmulas ALT + S: Menu Dados ALT + V: Menu Revisão ALT + J: Menu Exibição

Use a tecla ALT e depois use as setas do teclado para navegar entre as abas à esquerda e à direita. Usando a seta para baixo é possível percorrer os itens internos da aba. Para abrir um item é preciso teclar ENTER, como, por exemplo, abrir as opções de margem.

Ah, claro que estas dicas valem para todos os aplicativos da família Office.

Para saber mais teclas de Atalhos do Microsoft Office (versão 2003) recomendo ler esta coluna

Para conhecer teclas atalho para o Microsoft Windows Live Messenger, clique aqui.

Outros aplicativos

Alguns aplicativos se destacam quando o assunto é teclas de atalho. Pessoas que têm o hábito de ouvir música no PC enquanto trabalham devem se incomodar com o fato de precisar usar o mouse para mudar de música ou mesmo pausar o som para atender ao telefone. O Winamppermite controlar tudo do tocador apenas usando o teclado.

Outro programa que possibilita customização das teclas de atalho é o comunicador instantâneoMiranda. Ele é simples, extremamente leve e totalmente usável pelo teclado. Estes motivos me fazem adotá-lo como padrão em meu computador de trabalho. Eu ignoro o fato dele ser visualmente bem pobre.

Uma dica importante para quem gosta de usar teclas de atalho é sempre verificar o menu de ajuda dos programas, eles trazem uma lista de atalho. Por exemplo, o Editor de ImagensPaint.Net possui esta lista de atalhos em sua documentação on-line. Quando o programa estiver em inglês, procure pela palavra shortcuts nos menus de ajuda do aplicativo.

E você leitor, que outros atalhos conhece? Deixe sua dica na área de comentários abaixo. Ela também está aberta para dúvidas sobre tecnologia e internet, além de sugestões de pautas. Até quinta (19), quando responderei as dúvidas deixadas aqui.

* Fernando Panissi é especialista em tecnologia e internet, formado em Sistemas de Informação com extensão em gestão. É professor universitário e ministra cursos de extensão em desenvolvimento de sistemas. Vive a internet e suas excentricidades desde 1995 e, nesta coluna, irá compartilhar suas experiências e conhecimentos sobre os mais variados temas ligados à internet, computação e tecnologia. Também tira as dúvidas deixadas pelos leitores na seção de comentários.

Qual o melhor caminho

2009-11-16T15:09:00.001Z

Fonte:http://colunas.g1.com.br/paulocoelho/

Postado por Paulo Coelho em 15 de novembro de 2009 às 00:21

Quando perguntaram ao abade Antônio se o caminho do sacrifício levava ao céu, ele respondeu:

- Existem dois caminhos de sacrifício. O primeiro é o do homem que mortifica a carne, faz penitência, porque acha que estamos condenados. Este homem sente-se culpado, e julga-se indigno de viver feliz. Neste caso, ele não chega a lugar nenhum, porque Deus não habita a culpa.

- O segundo é o do homem que, embora sabendo que o mundo não é perfeito como todos queríamos que fosse, reza, faz penitência, oferece seu tempo e seu trabalho para melhorar o ambiente ao seu redor. Neste caso, a Presença Divina o ajuda o tempo todo, e ele consegue resultados no Céu.

Alice Teaches Object Oriented Computer Programming To Kids

2009-11-16T10:02:00.001Z

Fonte: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/alice-teaches-object-oriented-computer-programming-to-kids/

Alice is one of the coolest programs that teach computer programming to kids. What is Alice? It’s an important tool schools and families can use to turn computer programming into a game-like experience to teach basic object-oriented programming to kids.

One of the coolest memories I have as a kid is when my brother and I would copy BASIC programs from the computer magazines of the day (1980’s) into the old Franklin 64 desktop computer with one floppy drive and a whopping 64k of RAM. I’ll never forget when we finished typing the last line of that first program and then entered the command to RUN – how the screen started flashing characters and the miniature speaker beeped through a pathetic rendition of “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.” Pure magic. I was only 9 years old, but at that moment I was hooked on computers for life.

For anyone who has never created an application, it’s hard to describe the feeling of creating something from nothing. Programming is a lot like any other form of art in that way, except instead of the canvas we’ve got the computer screen, and instead of the paint brushes we have the various programming platforms.

Here at MakeUseOf, we believe in the importance of simple learning tools that can teach complex skills, such as computer programming. For example, Guy covered how you can learn towrite a program with SmallBasic, and he also covered a cool application called Scratch that can teach kids how to program. Today, I’d like to cover another innovative software application called Alice that can teach kids how to program in object oriented languages.

Alice 3D Programming – What It Is & What It Isn’t

Alice 3D is a programming environment offered by Carnegie Mellon University. It’s provided for free as a public service, through the funding of various programming and computer giants, such as Electronic Arts, Sun Microsystems, the National Science Foundation and other major organizations.

Alice is not a scripting tutorial where students will learn about the correct syntax used in various programming languages. It isn’t about developing the best structured For Loop. Instead, Alice provides students with a virtual world – a 3D modeling environment where students can learn how putting together various components, which each individually have their own properties, can create a larger, working project. The 3D environment is meant to show students, in a simple way, how the concept of object-oriented programming works.

The software itself has a built in tutorial, which makes sense because it’s main purpose is to serve as a teaching tool. The first screen allows students to choose from one of the tutorials, open a recent world they created, see examples or open a world they’ve saved on the computer. The option I want to show today is how a student can start from one of the available templates and create their own 3D animation. For this example I’ll go with the space scene.

If you’re a programmer, the first thing you’ll notice are the panes on the left side of the screen where all of the objects and the associated properties, methods and functions are listed. The interface is so intuitive that students don’t even need to understand what objects and methods are, just by adding objects and using the interface to manipulate them, they’ll be slowly learning the concept of object oriented programming. Adding an object to the screen is as simple as pressing the green “Add Objects” button.

In the object gallery, students have dozens of very fun “objects” to choose from. These include characters, machines, vehicles and even special effects like fire and thunderstorms.

In this scene, I’ve added the moon surface, a lunar lander and an astronaut. As you can see in the upper left window, every object is made up of many components, each individual objects with their own properties, methods and functions. You can control any one of these by dragging and dropping the component into the programming area at the bottom of the programming interface.

When you do drag the object in, a pop-up screen shows you all of the available methods and functions you can use to program the behavior of that particular object. This is similar to how, in most object oriented programming languages, the programming platform typically offers this same feature. Once you drill down through the available functions and select the one you want, it gets inserted into the program.

The program itself can be as simple or as complex as you like. As you can see here, it’s possible to create intricate and highly functional programs by using If/Else statements, While loops and other standard conditional statements that are a part of most programming languages today. Within a few minutes of playing around with this addictive learning program, I created a 3D animation where the astronaut moved closer to his lunar lander and waves “goodbye.” The camera pans in closer, and then as the lunar lander launches without him on board, he says, “Uh-oh.”

The exciting thing about this fantastic free learning tool from Carnegie Mellon University is the fact that it can be a very simple learning tool for very young kids to learn basic programming skills, or it can be a useful tool for even high school kids to generate very intricate and ingenious programmed 3D worlds.

In either case, this is one of the best programs that teach computer programming to kids that encourages children to engage with their computers in ways that they may never have considered – with a depth of understanding kids just never really achieve when all they do is chat on IM and update their status on Twitter and Facebook. Alice helps kids understand the heart and soul of what makes computer technology and programming so cool.

Would you ever consider using Alice in your own school or as part of your curriculum? Is this a learning tool you would consider sharing with your own kids? Share your insight and experiences in the comments section below.

Orkin Design and Sony Show Off Roll-Up Laptop Concepts

2009-11-13T17:40:00.000Z

Fonte: http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2009-10/roll-laptops-future

By Jeremy Hsu

Posted 10.07.2009 at 12:32 pm13 Comments

Rolltop Computing Get ready to roll and go with this multi-touch laptop Orkin Design

Laptops keep getting thinner and lighter, but some concept laptops take portable to a new level. Orkin Design's Rolltop consists of an OLED display that can start as a rolled-up mat and deploy as a multi-touch 17-inch laptop. My beastly HP laptop just shed a tear of envy.

The Orkin laptop can also transform into a tablet PC operable with a stylus, or become a standup flat screen display. A power adapter and other features fit with the carrying canister that comes with a convenient holding strap.

Sony has also gotten in on the action with concept laptops, watches and MP3 players that take advantage of flexible OLED technology. All those went on display at CEATEC 2009 in Chiba, Japan.

This should get any ordinary laptop user excited. But people wondering if a lightweight laptop can still pack in computing power might check outPopSci's own explanation of how to beef up that small PC.

[Gizmodo via Gizmowatch]

O computador como parceiro: vem aí a interação ampliada

2009-11-12T16:54:00.000Z

Fonte: http://www.inovacaotecnologica.com.br/noticias/noticia.php?artigo=computador-como-parceiro-interacao-ampliada&id=010150091112

Baseado em artigo de Margaret Burnett - 12/11/2009

Tela do Whyline, uma ferramenta de debug que permite aos programadores a inserção de questões sobre a saída apresentada pelos seus programas.[Imagem: Margaret Burnett]

Trabalhar com humanos

"Eu adoro trabalhar com humanos e tenho relações muito estimulantes com eles." As palavras são do computador HAL 9000. No filme2010, o computador é novamente responsável por controlar a nave que tenta esclarecer o que deu errado na missão de 2001: Uma Odisseia no Espaço.

A menos de dois meses de 2010, parece que a ficção está bem à frente da realidade. Mas pesquisadores da Universidade do Oregon, nos Estados Unidos, parecem dispostos a tirar um pouco desse atraso.

Interação aprimorada

Os cientistas estão desenvolvendo o conceito de "interação ampliada," segundo a qual os computadores terão "vontade" de se comunicar com os humanos, aprender com eles e conhecer cada usuário como um indivíduo, com seus gostos e preferências.

Por trás dessa interação humano-computador mais cheia de significados está um dos últimos avanços no campo do aprendizado de máquina e da inteligência artificial.

A ideia é que o computador não se limite a aprender a partir de seus erros e de sua experiência - ele deverá ouvir o usuário e tentar combinar o que ele "ouve" com suas próprias "computações" internas para alterar seus programas de forma a completar suas tarefas de forma mais eficiente e mais agradável aos usuários.

Como falar com o computador

O desafio começa com a constatação de que "falar" com um computador - algo como dar-lhe um feedback - está longe de ser uma tarefa trivial.

Por isso, os pesquisadores estão se concentrando no desenvolvimento de ferramentas que permitam que um usuário não-especializado seja capaz de explicar diretamente ao computador qual falha ele, o computador, cometeu e por quê.

"Há limites para o que o computador pode fazer com base unicamente em suas observações e no aprendizado a partir de tarefas similares executadas anteriormente," explica a Dra. Margaret Burnett. "O computador precisa entender não apenas o que ele fez certo ou errado, mas por quê. E, para isso, ele precisa interagir com os humanos e efetuar alterações contínuas em sua própria programação, com base nos feedbacks que receber."

Além das respostas binárias

Um sistema no qual o computador aprende pela experiência é o filtro de mensagens indesejadas (spam) dos leitores de email. Os sistemas das lojas virtuais, que tentam recomendar produtos ao internauta com base nas suas compras anteriores e nos produtos que ele procura também funciona assim.

Esses sistemas funcionam com base em vários tipos de lógica, que incluem a estatística de palavras, regras de configuração, similaridades etc. Mas mesmo os sistemas mais avançados somente permitem que o usuário diga ao computador se ele está certo ou errado - esta mensagem é spam ou não é spam, tenho ou não interesse nesse produto, por exemplo.

Os programas não possuem sofisticação suficiente para que o usuário responda qualquer coisa parecida como "mais ou menos," "agora não," ou que simplesmente dê uma razão para o erro de avaliação do sistema.

"Em casos assim, nós queremos desenvolver algoritmos que permitam ao usuário perguntar ao computador porque ele fez algo, ler sua resposta e então explicar a ele as razões do erro," explica Weng-Keen Wong, outro membro da equipe. "Isso é como debugar um programa. Idealmente, o computador irá levar a resposta em conta e mudar sua programação para fazer melhor no futuro."

Personalização das interfaces

O mesmo enfoque está sendo adotado na personalização da interface do computador. Os sistemas operacionais apresentam sua interface de acordo com o usuário que logou em cada máquina, mas cada usuário deve alterar manualmente sua interface se quiser que ela atenda às suas necessidades.

"Cada um de nós tem experiências de vida muito particulares, preferências pessoais, formas de fazer as coisas, diferentes tipos de trabalho," diz Burnett. "Para que o aprendizado de máquina atinja todo o seu potencial, o computador e o usuário deverão interagir de forma muito mais significativa."

O maior desafio que os cientistas da computação estão encontrando é a criação de sistemas interativos que sejam fáceis de operar. Afinal, seu objetivo é que os novos sistemas sejam usados por usuários comuns, e não por programadores de computador.

Livrando-se dos professores ruins

Outro detalhe mencionado pelos pesquisadores é que os humanos nem sempre são os mestres. Em um estudo encerrado recentemente, os usuários discordaram de algo que o computador havia feito em 28% das vezes. Em cerca de um quarto desses casos, o computador estava de fato certo e o usuário estava errado.

Isso complica ainda mais as coisas, uma vez que o aprendizado precisa ser uma via de mão-dupla - um usuário teimoso pode simplesmente querer que o computador aprenda algo que está de fato errado, o que não resultará em benefícios para nenhum deles.

Computadores mais úteis

A era dos humanos como observadores passivos no campo da inteligência artificial, afirmam os cientistas, pode estar chegando ao fim.

"No futuro, nós acreditamos que os computadores deverão funcionar como um parceiro," afirma Burnett. "Você ajudará a ensiná-lo, ele aprenderá a conhecê-los, vocês aprenderão um do outro e, desta forma, o computador se tornará mais útil."

Gadget problems divide the sexes

2009-11-10T17:47:00.000Z

17% women and 9% men had nothing discernibly wrong with their appliances.

Fonte: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8346810.stm

Men and women have different approaches to dealing with technology problems, according to a gadget helpline.

The service found that 64% of its male callers and 24% of its female callers had not read the instruction manual before ringing up.

12% of male and 7% of female customers simply needed to plug in or turn on their appliance.

The company, Gadget Helpline, surveyed 75,000 calls received between 25 September and 23 October 2009.

The helpline has 120,000 subscribers in the UK, most of whom are over the age of 35. The average age of helpline staff is 21.

Women spent 32% longer on the phone to their helpers than men - but 66% of the helpline staff preferred speaking to them, the survey found.

"There is evidence of a gender divide in technology, although a lot of it comes down to interpretation," Joanna Bawa, chartered psychologist and editor of the Usability News website, told the BBC.

In general terms men treat technology as something to be understood and conquered while women are more motivated by appliances that benefit them, she added.

Sync stress

The helpline's busiest times are Monday mornings and Boxing day, said founder and chief executive Crispin Thomas.

Getting gadgets to communicate with each other was the subject of a large number of requests for help.

"Syncing one gadget with another causes problems," he said.

Newly released products also seem to cause teething problems - many of Mr Thomas' customers had difficulty setting up their Blu-Ray players in 2008 when they first became mass market.

He does not believe that appliances are becoming more complicated, but thinks that they are expected to do a lot more.

"Generally speaking, in a production run, 5% of appliances will contain a manufacturing fault," he added.

"But 15% - 20% get taken back to the shop for return."

Google Dashboard: Find Out What Google Knows About You

2009-11-10T15:56:00.000Z

Fonte:http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/11/05/google-dashboard-find-out-what-google-knows-about-you/

If you’re concerned that Google is starting to know a bit too much about you, you might be interested to find out that Google has released Google Dashboard, a window onto the data that Google stores about your accounts. All you need to do is go towww.google.com/dashboard and log into your account. You’ll be presented with a list of all of the Google services that you use, and the data that is stored in them.

It’s interesting just browsing through the dashboard to see the Google products that you use. More than 20 products are covered by the Dashboard, although my account lists several products that I use that aren’t yet supported (including Feedburner and Google Analytics).

Os 40 anos da Internet: os pioneiros da Internet em Portugal

2009-11-02T12:00:00.002Z

Fonte: http://www.publico.pt/Tecnologia/os-pioneiros-da-internet-em-portugal_1407629

Corria o ano de 1994. Mês de Abril. “A Lista de Schindler” tinha acabado de ganhar o Óscar de melhor filme. Nos Estados Unidos, os telespectadores já se andavam a rir com “Seinfeld”, mas em Portugal as televisões privadas ainda davam os primeiros passos. Eram tão recentes que o “Big Show SIC” ainda não tinha sido inventado. Paralelamente, no país que ainda não conhecia o Macaco Adriano, um grupo de académicos já andava a mexer na Internet, à revelia dos restantes milhões de portugueses.

José Legatheaux é apontado como o "pai" da Internet em Portugal

A partir de Abril de 1994, as coisas começam a mudar: num seminário intitulado "Portugal na Internet", em Lisboa, foi mostrada ao público e aos jornalistas, pela primeira vez, a Internet em funcionamento. A partir desse dia, cada um de nós ficou um bocadinho mais perto do mundo que conhecemos hoje. “Esse seminário marcou claramente o aparecimento ao grande público da Internet em Portugal”. Quem recorda o evento é o homem apontado como o “pai” da Internet em Portugal: José Legatheaux, actual sub-director da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Mas em 1994 era o “homem do momento”. A Internet em Portugal passava, necessariamente, por ele. Em 1994 andava, portanto, o mundo académico português deslumbrado com a Internet, imerso num frenesim de oportunidades, apesar de o português médio, o típico “António Silva”, não fazer ainda ideia que os computadores se podiam ligar em rede e que era possível enviar uma mensagem para o outro lado do mundo e receber a resposta no próprio dia. Na própria hora. No próprio minuto. Pedro Ramalho Carlos, o homem que alguns anos mais tarde viria a fundar uma das primeiras empresas privadas de fornecimento de Internet (ISP), a IP, ainda se lembra bem da emoção que sentiu quando tomou o pulso a “isso” da Internet, quando enviou e recebeu os seus primeiros e-mails, ainda no final da década de 1980. “Era inacreditável enviar uma mensagem para o outro lado do mundo, na Califórnia, e poucos minutos depois ter uma resposta (...) Hoje este imediatismo é mais que natural”, mas na altura as coisas podiam arrastar-se, por correio normal, durante várias semanas. “Com a Internet e o e-mail tudo se passava em poucos minutos”. Alguns meses depois da “apresentação oficial” da Internet em Portugal, o deputado José Magalhães (actual Secretário de Estado da Justiça e da Modernização Judiciária e um dos primeiros “rostos” da Internet no nosso país) publicou o primeiro livro em Português sobre como usar a Internet e, a partir daí, a palavra começou a penetrar no léxico, embora só se generalizasse dois ou três anos depois. Mas a comercialização e acessibilidade da Internet ao grande público, isso só se verificaria a partir de 1999/2000. No início era o isolamento Começando, porém, o relato em Abril de 1994, fica por explicar como chegou, de facto, a Internet a Portugal. Para isso teremos que recuar quase uma década e meia, até 1978. Os verdadeiros pioneiros da Internet em Portugal tomaram contacto com ela por esta altura, definitivamente ainda na década de 1970. Pedro Veiga - presidente da Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN) - era então assistente do Instituto Superior Técnico, em Lisboa, e começou a ter contacto com o universo das redes de computadores, “embora apoiadas em tecnologias muito diferentes das da actual Internet”, explica. José Legatheaux teve o seu primeiro contacto com a Internet em França, enquanto fazia o doutoramento, entre 1983 e 1987. “Nessa altura só algumas universidades e alguns institutos de investigação estavam ligados à rede na Europa (muitos poucos). Nos EUA existiam mais universidades e empresas ligadas, mas tudo estava confinado no essencial ao mundo académico”, explica. “As principais aplicações eram o e-mail (a principal), a transferência de ficheiros por FTP (File Transfer Protocol) e o login remoto. A Internet era um campo de estudo e simultaneamente uma ferramenta de trabalho para a colaboração internacional e o acesso a informação e a computadores remotos”, indica ainda o professor universitário. Numa altura em que os “pioneiros” portugueses ainda só estavam a começar a tomar contacto com este “maravilhoso mundo novo”, nos Estados Unidos já era possível trocar, quotidianamente, e-mails entre computadores através da ARPANET, a rede precursora da Internet e que derivava de um programa militar chamado ARPA. Mas em Portugal a Internet continuava a ser uma coisa confinada apenas a um punhado de pessoas. “No meio académico português no final dos anos de 1980 já existiam alguns académicos que conheciam a Internet - visto que a tinham utilizado esporadicamente quando estavam no estrangeiro, ou ouvido falar nela - e que desejavam interligar as universidades entre si e estas com a Internet para potenciar o seu trabalho de investigação e contactos com o estrangeiro”, recorda Legatheaux. Paralelamente, uma nova geração de engenheiros informáticos começou a aprender o “bê-a-bá” do TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), desenvolvido nos EUA entre 1972 e 1973 por Vinton Cerf - e que, basicamente, punha os computadores a comunicar entre si de forma simples, fiável e flexível. Este é o protocolo sobre o qual ainda hoje assenta a Internet. “Na altura (finais da década de 1980) não havia nenhuma ligação de Portugal à Internet, mas comecei a utilizar essa tecnologia [TCP/IP] em vários projectos. Era um pouco como se aprendêssemos a falar uma língua de um país longínquo, mas apenas a falávamos entre os colegas, sem poder praticar com os ‘nativos’ pois não havia ligações entre os computadores portugueses e os do resto da Internet (que na altura era praticamente totalmente americana)”, recorda Pedro Ramalho Carlos. Universidades portuguesas ficam ligadas Só a partir de 1990 é que, finalmente, as universidades portuguesas puderam ligar-se à Rede. “O projecto de ligação das universidades portuguesas à Internet e o estabelecimento da primeira ligação internacional decorreu sob a minha coordenação entre 1990 e 1991”, explica José Legatheaux. “No final do projecto, que foi subsidiado pela Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional (FCCN), as principais universidades portuguesas passaram a ter acesso à Internet”. Minho, Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra, Instituto Superior Técnico, Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, e as Faculdades de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa e da Universidade Nova passaram a poder aceder à Rede das redes. “A maioria de nós queria estar ligado ao mundo e ter a informação na ponta dos dedos, era esse o sentimento dominante”, explica Legatheaux. Também o domínio “.pt”, passou a existir por volta desta altura, depois da invenção do Domain Name System, ou DNS (introduzido em 1984), que veio organizar o sistema de gestão de endereços IP (é, por exemplo, aquilo que transforma o URL www.publico.pt num endereço internet passível de ser usado por máquinas). Em 1990 o domínio ‘.pt’ passou a ser reconhecido internacionalmente”, recorda Legatheaux, que veio a assumir a tarefa de coordenar o “estabelecimento das ligações, o registo dos domínios abaixo de ‘.pt’, por delegação da FCCN, que mantém a gestão do domínio de Portugal”. Após a invenção da World Wide Web, no início da década de 1990, ainda baseada nosoftware desenvolvido no Centro Europeu de Física das Partículas (CERN), na Suíça, começam igualmente a ser desenvolvidos os primeiros browsers. “Quando a Web foi inventada lembro-me bem de realizarmos um seminário para universitários por volta do fim de 1992 ou 1993 onde se mostrou a Web a funcionar ainda baseada no software do CERN. A Netscape só apareceu com o primeiro browser em 1994/95, se bem me lembro. Depois a maioria das universidades começou a transformar os seus sites - que estavam a usar outras tecnologias - para a tecnologia Web”. Efectivamente, só após a institucionalização do www é que Internet se tornou apelativa para a maioria das pessoas. “Ainda na fase inicial, o surgimento da Web e dos browsers, enquanto aplicação que tira partido da Internet para partilhar e organizar informação de qualquer tipo, é que tornou a Internet acessível e interessante à maioria da população capaz de utilizar um computador”, comenta Pedro Carlos. A “World Wide Wait” No início da década de 1990, ainda não havia empresas privadas que fornecessem Internet aos cidadãos nacionais. Edifícios cobertos por wireless eram ainda do domínio da ficção científica. “As primeiras ofertas comerciais só apareceram no final de 1994 e, depois, com uma oferta mais diversificada, entre 1995 e 1996”, recorda José Legatheaux. Até 1994, quem se queria ligar à Internet a partir de Portugal, só tinha uma hipótese: fazê-lo através do INESC (Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores) e do PUUG (Portuguese Unix Users Group), a associação de utilizadores de sistemas operativos Unix que, em parceria, estabeleceram uma ligação internacional - na altura, a Amesterdão - “à estonteante velocidade de 19.2 kilobits por segundo (mil vezes mais lenta do que aquilo que hoje cada um de nós tem em suas casas)”, recorda Pedro Ramalho Carlos. “Essa ligação funcionou durante vários anos como a ligação de Portugal à Internet até surgirem os ISP [Internet Service Providers – operadores de serviço de acesso à Internet]”, explica. Para além de virtualmente inacessível aos cidadãos comuns, esta ligação era, cumulativamente, bastante cara. “Ter acesso ao e-mail (ainda não havia Web) custava 40 contos nessa altura [200 euros] mensais (...) Não havia outros ISP”, recorda Mário Valente, que, querendo colmatar esta falha, resolveu criar, ainda em 1994, o primeiro ISP privado português: a Esotérica. Recém-estreada no mercado luso, a Esotérica cobrava dez contos (cerca de 50 euros) por trimestre, o que dava cerca de 16 euros por mês, com a vantagem de não cobrar por tráfego. Ou seja, o preço era fixo e o acesso era ilimitado. A Esotéria, a IP e a Telepac foram os três primeiros fornecedores privados de Internet em Portugal. Quem tem hoje pelo menos 30 anos lembrar-se-á com certeza destas empresas, mas quem não cresceu com isto deve achar implausível o facto de um utilizador, tomado pela esperança mas receando o pior, se encolher diante dos “ghrrrr” e dos “biiiiiiiiiiiiips” até que, finalmente, o ecrã do seu computador ganhava vida. Era a “World Wide Wait”, no trocadilho jocoso proposto por Pedro Ramalho Carlos, que, por seu lado, resolveu fundar a IP em Julho 1995, com mais quatro sócios. Nessa altura, recorda Pedro Carlos, chegou a ir propor à Portugal Telecom (nessa altura ainda Telecom Portugal) a criação de uma empresa que fornecesse o acesso de Internet ao mercado em geral - isto ainda em 1993/94, e de o responsável pelo departamento de operação de dados da empresa lhe ter dito que não estava interessado em parcerias, porque “isso da Internet é uma coisa de académicos”. À velocidade da luz A partir de 1999/2000 tudo muda, em grande medida devido à liberalização do mercado das telecomunicações. O acesso também deixa, por esta altura, de se fazer exclusivamente viamodem, passando-se a fazer via cabo ou ADSL. “Começámos pela velha linha telefónica, passámos no início dos anos 2000 com a banda larga always on, e mais recentemente com a mobilidade e a ultra-broadband. Tudo isto induzido pela concorrência entre operadores, em benefício dos consumidores. Infelizmente a concorrência nesta área em Portugal foi sempre muito desnivelada, o que fez com a maioria dos pequenos operadores já tenha desaparecido”, recorda Pedro Carlos. “Por volta do ano 2000, o panorama do acesso à Internet estava totalmente mudado. A maioria dos acessos era providenciada de forma pública por operadores de telecomunicações de grandes dimensões nacionais ou estrangeiros. Todas as empresas pioneiras tinham sido compradas pelos operadores internacionais”, resume Legatheaux. O futuro é amanhã, ou terá sido ontem? Chegados aos dias de hoje, estamos já na idade madura da Web 2.0, a das redes sociais, dos blogues, da comunicação interpessoal em tempo recorde, do Twitter e do Facebook, do iTunes e do YouTube. Dos chats, mensagens instantâneas, Net no telemóvel e wireless no café. Questionados sobre se conseguiriam adivinhar que, em apenas uma década e meia desde a sua apresentação aos portugueses, a Internet se transformaria naquilo que é hoje - praticamente um bem de primeira necessidade -, as respostas dividem-se. “Quem disser que sim [que conseguia adivinhar], deve estar a mentir. Era difícil de imaginar a generalização e extraordinária descida dos preços por bit transferido”, argumenta Legatheaux. Mário Valente assume, porém, sem falsas modéstias, a sua antevisão: “Não só imaginei como exigi! Numa conferência em 1995, onde estava presente José Magalhães, disse que aquilo que queria era, daí a uns anos, poder estar na praia a aceder à Internet com o meu portátil. Parecia ficção científica e, na altura, as pessoas riram-se muito. Mas aconteceu”. Pedro Ramalho Carlos corrobora: “Tive a certeza que com a Internet estava ‘em cima’ de algo que ia mudar a maneira como trabalhávamos, como nos divertíamos e como nos organizávamos enquanto sociedade. Confirmou-se e estou certo que a Internet vai continuar a ser uma peça fundamental no progresso da Humanidade”. Sobre o futuro da Internet e sobre os saltos qualitativos que a Rede ainda dará, quase todos os “pioneiros” são unânimes: a Rede vai estar em todo o lado, vai antecipar as nossas chegadas a casa, dizer-nos o que falta no frigorífico e ajudar-nos a circular pela cidade: “É a Internet das Coisas, aquela que vai permitir ligar à Rede muitos dispositivos domésticos, pessoais e objectos do dia-a-dia”, vaticina Pedro Veiga. Mário Valente partilha da mesma opinião: “outro salto que terá grandes consequências é a ligação de tudo à Internet. Semáforos, luzes, paragens de autocarro, carros, portas, edifícios, televisores, etc.; tudo o que é objecto com o qual interagimos. Isso vai ter enormes repercussões na forma como o mundo funciona. Especialmente quando isso for ligado ao factor localização (GPS). Eu posso estar numa cidade, apontar para um monumento, e obter uma descrição falada do mesmo, por via da identificação da imagem e por via do posicionamento GPS”. E não esquecer “a facilidade com que trataremos de coisas que dantes exigiam ir pessoalmente para filas”. “Será um facto marcante”, assinala Legatheaux. Por outro lado, quase todos coincidem no mesmo: haverá Internet cada vez mais rápida e para mais pessoas, a partir de terminais móveis. Outros grandes saltos qualitativos que se espera que a Internet venha a apresentar nos próximos tempos são a generalização do vídeo e da televisão através da Rede e a banalização do cloud computing (o armazenamento das informações pessoais em servidores online, independentemente dos terminais usados por cada utilizador). Acerca dos riscos e das ameaças que o futuro da Internet poderá vir a trazer, quase todos os “pioneiros” concordam: por um lado haverá cada vez maiores problemas de segurança e de fiabilidade na Rede e, por outro, “crescerão também, e muito, os problemas de privacidade”, indica Legatheaux. “Este problema está a ser desprezado e vai custar caro às liberdades individuais que conhecemos”, alerta. E, em última análise, imaginando um futuro em que passe a existir uma “fusão da maioria das tecnologias de acesso a redes numa grande rede gigantesca, omnipresente, de alta velocidade, com base na tecnologia da desenvolvida na Internet”, há o risco de as coisas fugirem ao controlo das instituições. “Há a possibilidade de se criarem empresas e organizações tentaculares a nível mundial completamente fora do controlo das leis que conhecemos”, alerta o “pai” da Internet em Portugal. Convém, porém, não esquecer, que Portugal continua a ter mais de metade da sua população “desligada”. De acordo com os mais recentes dados do Bareme Internet da Marktest, só perto de 4,5 milhões de portugueses acedem regularmente à Internet. Apesar deste indicador, o número de utilizadores em Portugal Continental aumentou dez vezes nos últimos 13 anos e cerca de 2,95 milhões de utilizadores estavam ligados, no final do segundo trimestre de 2009, através de banda larga móvel, segundo a ANACOM.

Como surgiu o primeiro e-mail?

2009-10-29T14:25:00.001Z

Fonte:http://openmap.bbn.com/~tomlinso/ray/firstemailframe.html

The First Network Email

Ray Tomlinson

During the summer and autumn of 1971, I was part of a small group of programmers who were developing a time-sharing system called TENEX that ran on Digital PDP-10 computers. We were supporting a larger group working on natural language. Earlier, I had worked on the Network Control Protocol (NCP) forTENEX and network programs such as an experimental file transfer program called CPYNET.

I was making improvements to the local inter-user mail program called SNDMSG. Single-computer electronic mail had existed since at least the early 1960's and SNDMSG was an example of that. SNDMSG allowed a user to compose, address, and send a message to other users' mailboxes.

A mailbox was simply a file with a particular name. It's only special property was its protection which only allowed other users to append to the file. That is, they could write more material onto the end of the mailbox, but they couldn't read or overwrite what was already there. The idea occurred to me that CPYNETcould append material to a mailbox file just as readily as SNDMSG could. SNDMSG could easily incorporate the code from CPYNET and direct messages through a network connection to remote mailboxes in addition to appending messages to local mailbox files.

The missing piece was that the experimental CPYNET protocol had no provision for appending to a file; it could just send and receive files. Adding the missing piece was a no-brainer -- just a minor addition to the protocol. I don't recall the protocol details, but appending to a file was the same as writing to a file except for the mode in which the file was opened.

Next, the CPYNET code was incorporated into SNDMSG. It remained to provide a way to distinguish local mail from network mail. I chose to append an at sign and the host name to the user's (login) name. I am frequently asked why I chose the at sign, but the at sign just makes sense. The purpose of the at sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was "at" some other host rather than being local.

The first message was sent between two machines that were literally side by side. The only physical connection they had (aside from the floor they sat on) was through the ARPANET. I sent a number of test messages to myself from one machine to the other. The test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them. Most likely the first message was QWERTYUIOP or something similar. When I was satisfied that the program seemed to work, I sent a message to the rest of my group explaining how to send messages over the network. The first use of network email announced its own existence.

These first messages were sent in late 1971. The next release of TENEX went out in early 1972 and included the version of SNDMSG with network mail capabilities. The CPYNET protocol was soon replaced with a real file transfer protocol having specific mail handling features. Later, a number of more general mail protocols were developed.

The First Email Computer

The first email was sent between the two machines shown in this photograph. They were (obviously) side-by-side, but the only connection between them was through the ARPANET. In the foreground is BBN-TENEXA (BBNA for short). Host names in 1971 had no .com or dot anything; DNS came along later. BBNA was the machine on which the first email was received. In the background is BBN-TENEXB (BBNB) from which the first email was sent. On the left, foreground, is the Teletype KSR-33 terminal on which the first email was printed. Immediately behind and largely obscured is another KSR-33 on which the first email was typed.

Photograph courtesy of Dan Murphy

BBNA was a Digital Equipment Corporation KA10 (PDP-10) with 64K (36-bit) words of (real magnetic) core memory. In modern measure, that's 288 KBytes. BBNB was smaller with only 48K words. Both machines ran the TENEX time-sharing monitor.

Did you send the first network email?

As far as I know, yes. However, there are a few qualifications. Network should be included because there were many earlier instances of email within a single machine. Computer networks, in any real sense, didn't exist until theARPANET was built starting in 1969. Dick Watson proposed a form of email in July 1971 (RFC 196). I don't think that was ever implemented. It differed in that the mail was directed to numeric mailboxes. RFC 196 also suggests that the final product would be a printer output (i.e. ink on paper). SNDMSG sent messages to named individuals (computer users).

Why did you do it?

Mostly because it seemed like a neat idea. There was no directive to "go forth and invent email". The ARPANET was a solution looking for a problem. A colleague suggested that I not tell my boss what I had done because email wasn't in our statement of work. That was really said in jest because we were, after all, investigating ways in which to use the ARPANET.

Why did you choose the at sign?

The primary reason was that it made sense. at signs didn't appear in names so there would be no ambiguity about where the separation between login name and host name occurred. (Of course, this last notion is now refuted by the proliferation of products, services, slogans, etc. incorporating the at sign.) The at sign also had no significance in any editors that ran on TENEX. I was later reminded that the Multics time-sharing system used the at sign as its line-erase character. This caused a fair amount of grief in that community of users. Multics used IBM 2741 terminals which used EBCDIC character coding. They did not have a "control" modifier key and didn't have many (any?) non-printing characters beyond space, backspace, tab, and return. The designers of Multics were constrained to using printing characters for line-editing.

What was the first message?

The first message of any substance was a message announcing the availability of network email. The exact content is unknown, but it gave instructions about using the at sign to separate the user's name from his host computer name.

Did you receive any rewards, patents, etc.?

Not unless you consider the current interest in the origins of email a reward.

What were the early uses of email?

The early uses were not terribly different from the current uses: The exceptions are that there was only plain text in the messages and there was noSPAM.

As cinco diferentes atitudes

2009-10-29T10:42:00.000Z

Fonte: http://colunas.g1.com.br/paulocoelho/

Postado por Paulo Coelho em 29 de outubro de 2009 às 00:13 O texto a seguir é adaptado de uma história de Portia Nelson: 1 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu estou distraído, pensando em mim, e caio lá dentro. Me sinto perdido, infeliz, incapaz de pedir ajuda. Não foi minha culpa, mas de quem cavou aquele buraco ali. Eu me revolto, fico desesperado, sou uma vítima da irresponsabilidade dos outros, e passo muito tempo lá dentro. 2 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu finjo que não vejo, aquilo não é meu problema. Eu caio de novo lá dentro. Não posso acreditar que isto aconteceu mais uma vez, devia ter aprendido a lição, e mandado alguém fechar o buraco. Demoro muito tempo para sair dali. 3 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu o vejo. Eu sei que ele está ali, porque já caí duas vezes. Entretanto, sou uma pessoa acostumada a fazer sempre o mesmo trajeto. Por causa disso, caio uma terceira vez; é o hábito. 4 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu dou a volta em torno dele. Logo depois de passar, escuto alguém gritando - deve ter caído naquele buraco. A rua fica interditada, e eu não posso seguir adiante. 5 - Eu caminho pela rua. Existe um buraco na calçada. Eu coloco tábuas em cima. Posso seguir meu caminho, e ninguém mais tornará a cair ali.

Gamer evolution

2009-10-28T16:19:00.003Z

Sid Meier bringing Civilization to Facebook

2009-10-23T11:49:00.000+01:00

by Don Reisinger

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Civilization Network is coming to Facebook in 2010.

(Credit: Firaxis Games)

Famed video game developer Sid Meier, best known for the Civilization franchise, announced on a Civilization Facebook page Thursday that a new title called Civilization Network is on its way to the social network.

According to Meier, he has been "looking at ways of expanding the Civilization gameplay experience to include solo, competitive, and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks." Civilization Network will allow users to join with friends to "create the world's most powerful, richest, smartest, or just plain coolest civilization," Meier said.

Like so many of its predecessors, Civilization Network will welcome users into a life-like world. Players will be able to take on others in battle, share technological innovations, form a government, win elections, manage growing cities, and more. Meier also said that users can "spy on enemies and work with friends to create the great Wonders of the World." He didn't say how users will control elements of the game.

Civilization fans will be happy to know that users can play as often as they'd like in the game's "fully persistent environment" for free.

Meier wrote on the game's Facebook page that he'll be looking for beta testers, once the closed beta is ready. Civilization Network will launch in 2010 on Facebook.

If you want to stay up-to-date on Civilization Network happenings, join its Facebook fan page here.

Fonte: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10381071-2.html

Using the Internet makes people smarter, study finds

2009-10-21T18:20:00.000+01:00

Fonte: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139632/Using_the_Internet_makes_people_smarter_study_finds

UCLA research finds that online searching can increase brain activity in older adults

By Sharon Gaudin

October 20, 2009 01:33 PM ET

Welcome to the world of sci-fi science

2009-10-20T17:54:00.000+01:00

Fonte: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8310420.stm

One of these devices may actually send things through time

By Ian Stewart

Teleportation, time travel, antimatter and wireless electricity. It all sounds far-fetched, more fiction than fact, but it's all true.

Everybody is used to science fiction featuring science that seems, well, not very scientific.

But you might be surprised at the way some things that seem fantastical have a solid grounding in actual science.

TIME TRAVEL

Actual Tardis-style time travel won't be materialising any time soon

The theory: Build a machine that lets you change the past or visit the future.

The science fiction: The Time Machine by HG Wells, where the Time Traveller visits humanity's far future and doesn't like what he finds.

In practice: Einstein's relativity allows time travel in extreme circumstances. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics permit particles to travel backwards in time. Two physicists recently suggested that the Large Hadron Collider may have malfunctioned because a Higgs boson particle, travelling back in time from a future experiment, wrecked the machine.

The layman's explanation: Time travel seems paradoxical - what happens if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather? But current physical theories do not forbid it.

In relativity, particles can travel along "closed timelike curves", going round a time-loop from past to present to future and back to the same past. One theoretical method uses a wormhole, which is a black hole linked to its time-reversal by a tube. If you pull the black hole around near the speed of light, you get a time machine. However, you need a special kind of matter to keep the wormhole open, and we don't yet have any.

Quantum mechanics involves a fundamental symmetry in nature. If you swap positive and negative charges, reflect the universe in a mirror, and reverse the flow of time, then the laws of physics don't change. So a Higgs boson travelling backwards in time is the same as an anti-Higgs travelling forwards.

Coming to a shop near you?: In about 15,000 years at this rate, assuming new laws of physics don't rule it out.

WIRELESS ELECTRICITY

This wireless electricity would probably not charge your mobile.

The theory: Plug your gadgets into the mains without using a cable.

The science fiction: Isaac Asimov's 1941 story Reason is about a solar power station run by robots that transmits energy to Earth.

In practice: Electricity and magnetism are "fields" in space, and can be converted into each other. Electromagnetic radiation is a wave, and can travel from one place to another. So in principle wireless transmission of electrical power should be a doddle. Edison thought about it in 1875.

The layman's explanation: If you move a magnet, it creates an electrical field. If you move an electrical field, it creates a magnetic one. The two are different aspects of one basic force of nature - electromagnetism. In particular, electrical currents can be transported from one gadget to another over a distance, a process called induction. Electrical generators and motors use this.

Microwaves, which are effectively light with a very long wavelength, are a practical way to transport electrical power. It is also possible to turn electricity into light, using a laser, and then reverse the process at the other end.

Coming to a shop near you?: In 1975, an American team showed that it's possible to transmit tens of kilowatts of power using microwaves. A few months ago a Japanese consortium announced a plan to build a $21bn facility in space to beam solar power to Earth - within 30 years it could supply 300,000 homes with electricity. This year, at the TED conference in Oxford, the company Witricity demonstrated a wireless power system that can recharge mobile phones and TV sets. In Tesco in time for Christmas.

ANTIMATTER

These three thought of antimatter as we think of super unleaded

The theory: There is a special kind of matter which explodes violently on contact with ordinary matter, producing more energy than a hydrogen bomb.

The science fiction: Star Trek uses antimatter to power its warp drives.

In practice: Paul Dirac should have predicted antimatter using quantum mechanics in 1928 but he fluffed it. Carl Anderson spotted the first antiparticle, the positron, in 1932. In 1995, the CERN particle accelerator facility in Geneva created atoms of antihydrogen.

The layman's explanation: Matter is made of extremely tiny particles, which have various masses, electric charges, spins, and so on. Associated with each particle is an antiparticle with the same mass but opposite charge. If the two collide, they annihilate in a burst of energy. A small mass produces a lot of energy thanks to Einstein's famous equation - energy = mass times the square of the speed of light. The Big Bang somehow produced a billion and one particles of matter for every billion particles of antimatter. No one really knows why, but if it hadn't, we wouldn't be here because there wouldn't be a here for us to inhabit.

You might think of antimatter as a compact source of almost unbounded energy. Put some in a magnetic bottle, a magnetic field that confines the antimatter in a cavity so that it doesn't touch any normal matter - the only way known to be able to contain it - and then release it very slowly, allowing it to react with normal matter. It would make fusion power seem like a car battery.

Coming to a store near you?: Positrons are very ho-hum. They occur in radioactive decay and are used routinely in medical PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanners. Beyond those, it gets hard. Expect a few thousand atoms of antihydrogen within the next 50 years, costing the GNP of a small country, and an atom or two of heavier elements. Mass production looks like a long shot.

TELEPORTATION

The theory: Going from here to somewhere else without passing through anywhere in between.

The science fiction: Beam me up, Scotty.

In practice: Take two particles of light and entangle them - now you can teleport quantum information - such as what their spin is - from one to the other, instantaneously.

The layman's explanation: Photons, particles of light, have a property called "spin". This can be up, down, or a mixture of the two. Alice has a photon, and she wants Bob to have one with the same spin. She can't send him hers because the Post Office is on strike, and she can't measure her spin and phone him, because the measurement can change the spin.

Fortunately, the last time she met Bob she gave him one photon from an entangled pair, and kept the other. "Entangled" means that the two photons were prepared so that their states were related in a special way. Alice lets her photon interact with her other photon from the entangled pair. This instantly teleports information about the spin to Bob's half. However, he can't "read" that information until a message arrives by more conventional means. A quick call on Alice's mobile, telling him some measurements she has made, now puts his entangled photon into the desired state.

Quantum "teleportation" destroys the original state and can't be used to send messages faster than light. It doesn't actually teleport matter - just quantum information.

Coming to a store near you?: In 1998, the quantum optics group at Caltech used "squeezed light" to teleport the state of a photon in a laboratory. It's now been done with atoms, too. In 2004 Austrian physicists teleported the state of a photon across the Danube river. Within another century it will be an amoeba. But be warned: when you are teleported, your body will be ripped to shreds and rebuilt at the other end.

Ian Stewart's latest book is Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures, published by Profile.

Below is a selection of your comments.

NiKola Tesla patented a method of "broadcasting" electrical power wirelessly in the early 1900s. It was proved to the point of building a number of transmission buildings/aerials in the US. I've had a look at a number of Mr Tesla's patents but not, I admit, this one. I'm an engineer by training and they do seem to hold water. I rather suspect that "free" electrical power in the US wasn't an idea that would be welcomed by some of the power generation companies at the time. However, one of his patents, a non-silicon and very cheap solar panel, would certainly be worth looking into. Martin, Henley

Brill! We shouldn't get hung up on practicalities; there are plenty of political and commercial filters that will stop us wasting all of our GDP on making antimatter in fuel-like quantities anytime soon. But it's great to dream of possibilities, and to keep alive the sense of exploration. Today's problems are horribly real and need solving, of course, but these far-off futurescopes are the ideas that will inspire people to study, research, develop and invent. Paul Staples, Honley, West Yorkshire, England

In Nikola Tesla's experiments in Colorado over a century ago, he successfully transmitted sufficient power by wireless to light 10,000 watts of electric light bulbs at a distance of 26 miles. See The Man Who Invented The Twentieth Century by Robart Lomas. Peter, Nottingham, England

Tesla could easily have transmitted electricity... it's how a radio works after all. The problem is that if he received 10,000 watts he must have broadcast about a million watts. Hardly eco-friendly and in a world where you can't put up a phone mast near a school not very popular. I wonder what radio or TV reception would be like during the experiment too. Peter, Notts

I have been already fascinated by inventions or events once imagined by writers like Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clarke. As I read through my dad's collections of sci-fi books, ideas like time-travel and "anything to everything converter" are etched in to my mind. These are what I think before I fall in to sleep everyday even now. Science is surely one of my religions. David P Shenba, Chennai, India

I don't understand any of it, but I can't be the only person who is awaiting the implementation of wireless electricity with anticipation; imagine how much more space we'd have behind things like computers and televisions. Kate, Oxford, UK

You can already buy shavers and the like that charge with wireless electricity. It's just over longer distances where the (many) problems start Alex, Southampton

As a teacher of physics none of these are worthy, as they are either wasteful of energy or far too embroiled in unimaginable complexity and unproven theory. Even "charge your mobile phone without a lead" uses more energy than if you plugged it into the mains. As a keen follower of sci-fi, I would love for teleportation to become a reality, but can you imagine putting all our atoms and molecules back in the right order after beaming from the Earth to the Moon. Furthermore, which nutcase would volunteer to be the first? Alan Jones, Lee on the Solent, UK

Why cant we leave sci-fi for the movies and comic books? These inventions etc will not bring anything good out of them, radiation, worm-holes, microwaves and the cost implications will be ridiculous, do we not have better things to solve such as curing diseases and making life more bearable in times like these? Jamie McLeod, Aberdeen

James McLeod, science does have its uses. Antimatter, in the form of positrons, is used in PET scanners. Radiation is used to cure certain cancers. One of the major spin-offs from the space race is cheap water purification. Pushing the boundaries of science produces countless benefits for everyone, often in unexpected areas. If we didn't experiment with new ideas, we'd still all be living in caves. Glyn, Derby

All very interesting, but not much hope here. What about fusion? Cold fusion would be comparable to this list, and fusion (any sort) may be one significant real hope for the future. And I'd be interested in some recent scientific evaluation of it. Kevin Pudney, Nottingham

"Quantum mechanics involves a fundamental symmetry in nature. If you swap positive and negative charges, reflect the universe in a mirror, and reverse the flow of time, then the laws of physics don't change". That was the layman's explanation? Liz, Belfast

It makes me laugh when people cling on to the likes of Einstein. Yes time travel is possible - it's a fundamental principle of relativity. This is totally different to how the layman sees time travel. It is totally impossible to send me, you or anyone back to the 1920 like in Back to the Future - end of. Moving clocks run slowly, that pretty much sums up time travel. Gareth Mangnall, Bolton

If time-travel were possible, wouldn't someone have come back from the future and told us by now? Lee, Manchester

The "Black and Decker Pizza Hydrator" is what we're all waiting for as seen in Back To The Future II. Andrew, Swindon

I loved this article, it's just so funny, from the reason why the Hadron Collider didn't work to the descriptive words of what will happen to your body when we can eventually teleport something bigger than an atom. Thanks, that's brightened my Friday. Sarah Arrow, Essex

I am still waiting for flying cars which, by the way, were supposed to be in service by 2010. Kaleem Khan, Toronto, Canada

Imagine the food problems we could solve in the world with a Star Trek style replicator. That one next please. Tea, Earl Grey, hot. Steve Beck, Northampton

Confira dicas simples para deixar seu computador mais rápido

2009-10-20T11:47:00.000+01:00

Fonte: http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Tecnologia/0,,MUL1346400-6174,00.html

Colunista ensina como fazer 'faxina' em PCs com Windows. Procedimentos simples podem ser realizados mensalmente.

Fernando Panissi*Especial para o G1

Tamanho da letra

A-
A+

Olá, leitores. O desempenho do computador sempre foi um dos grandes motivos de reclamação dos usuários, seja em empresas ou em casa. Essa queixa frequentemente é acompanhada da expressão: “quando eu comprei não era lento assim”. A afirmação tem seu fundo de verdade, pois o computador vai acumulando “lixo”, que compromete seu desempenho. Por isso dedico a coluna a dicas válidas para Windows XP e Windows Vista de como deixar seu PC mais rápido, apenas com ajustes e limpeza no sistema.

>>> Faxina geral

Com o passar do tempo, o computador começa a ficar lento por uma série de fatores: arquivos temporários em excesso, resquícios de softwares instalados e depois removidos nos registros do Windows e muitos programas iniciando juntamente com o computador, por exemplo. Veja abaixo como resolver. 1) Faxina no registro O registro do Windows é responsável por armazenar uma série de parâmetros indispensáveis para que o sistema operacional e muitos aplicativos funcionem. À medida que instalamos programas, algumas informações são armazenadas no registro e nem sempre são removidas quando os programas são desinstalados. O MVRegClean faz uma varredura completa, procurando registros fantasmas e oferecendo a possibilidade de limpeza. Na interface do aplicativo existe um botão de backup -- recomendo que ele seja usado antes da limpeza. A imagem abaixo mostra um PC depois de muito uso sem qualquer limpeza no registro. Repare na quantidade de problemas.

MVRegClean em ação: programa encontra diversos problemas no registro do Windows, que certamente deixam o Windows mais devagar. (Foto: Reprodução )

Se você não quiser usar o MVRegClean , pode optar pelo RegSeeker, que também é gratuito e tem opção de idioma em português. 2)Faxina no PC A eliminação de arquivos temporários e outros arquivos que podem deixar o PC lento pode ser executada manualmente. Porém, a tarefa fica mais fácil se usarmos alguns programas para desempenhar essa função, como o CCleaner.

Ele é completo e possui diversas configurações interessantes, como a opção de remover os desinstaladores de pacotes de atualizações, que retira do HD (disco rígido) os programas responsáveis pela remoção das atualizações do Windows.

Que fique claro: remover esses pacotes impossibilita que qualquer atualização do sistema seja desfeita. Desde que o risco seja entendido, essa é uma pratica que recomendo em sistemas que não apresentam instabilidades após uma atualização.

O CCleaner é uma ferramenta bastante útil para a faxina do PC. (Foto: Reprodução )

Outros programas com essa mesma função são o Glary Utilities e o Advanced Systemcare. Por fim, não posso deixar de falar de uma ferramenta interessante e da própria Microsoft, oWindows Live OneCare. Para realizar a instalação dele é preciso usar o Internet Explorer, pois o aplicativo roda on-line diretamente do navegador. 3) Remoção de programas e componentes do Windows Ao abrir o painel de controle (clique em iniciar > configurações > painel de controle) abra o atalho para Adicionar e Remover Programas e siga os passos abaixo: - Clique em adicionar e remover componentes do Windows e desmarque os programas que você não usa. Recomendo remover o Outlook Express (caso não use) o Windows Messenger (versão antiga para o atual Windows Live Messenger) e, se estiver habilitado, recomendo também remover o serviço de FAX e o Internet Information Services. Clique em avançar e siga os passos apresentados na tela. - Finalizada a remoção, será necessário reiniciar o PC. Quando o PC reiniciar, o próximo passo é remover programas que você não usa. - Veja na lista de aplicativos o que não usa no PC e remova. Muita atenção com programas antivírus e principalmente o Java e o Microsoft.NET Framework. Esses programas são básicos para que diversos outros softwares venham a funcionar. - Após remover os programas é importante realizar novamente o rastreamento e limpeza do registro do Windows. 4)Desfragmentação do disco Apesar de o Windows ter um desfragmentador de disco próprio, recomendo usar o Defraggler, que é simples e executa a desfragmentação de forma rápida a eficiente. Após a instalação do programa, basta clicar no botão analisar para que ele verifique o disco do PC. Em seguida, clique em desfragmentar. Sugiro que não use o PC durante esse processo. O computador ficará sensivelmente mais lento, pois o acesso ao HD será muito intenso.

Defraggler é do mesmo desenvolvedor do CCleaner e cumpre bem seu papel na hora de desfragmentar o disco. (Foto: Reprodução)

Todos esses procedimentos irão remover os lixos do PC e trará uma sensação de melhor desempenho. Recomendo que eles sejam executados pelo menos uma vez por mês, evitando que o constante uso venha a prejudicar o desempenho do PC.

>>> Sistema mais leve e rápido

Mesmo o sistema estando limpo não é garantido o máximo desempenho do PC. Existem dicas e macetes que podem deixar o computador mais rápido, como explico abaixo. Indico o programa TweakNow PowerPack, uma ferramenta completa para refinar o sistema Operacional. Na verdade, essa ferramenta agrupa diversos tipos de configuração que ficam alojadas em lugares não tão triviais do sistema, deixando tudo a mão para o usuário.

O TweakNow PowerPack agrupa diversas configurações do Windows em uma única tela. (Foto: Reprodução )

Após a instalação, a primeira coisa a fazer é conferir a aba startup manager para retirar programas desnecessários da inicialização do computador. Observe a lista de aplicativos que iniciam com o PC e deixe marcado apenas aquilo que julgar essencial. Eu costumo deixar a lista vazia, reduzindo ao máximo o tempo gasto com a inicialização do sistema. Outra ferramenta interessante do TweakNow PowerPack é o Quick TuneUp, que faz uma varredura do PC para deixar seu desempenho mais satisfatório. Basta clicar no botão analyze e depois no botão fix and clean. A aba Windows Secret tem diversas configurações do Windows, como, por exemplo, as configurações do menu iniciar (startup menu), onde é possível diminuir a quantidade de itens exibidos no menu. Aspectos visuais são determinantes no desempenho do sistema. Por isso é sempre bom pesar o que vale mais: um computador rápido, mas com visual prejudicado, ou um PC lento com visual rebuscado. Se você tem um hardware mais limitado pode abrir mão de efeitos visuais para deixar o sistema mais rápido. Para isso, faça o seguinte. - Clique em Iniciar > Configurações > Painel de Controle > Sistema. - Na janela que se abrirá, selecione a aba Avançado. - Na opção Desempenho, clique em Configurações. - Na aba Efeitos visuais, desabilite os efeitos que você considera menos importantes — se preferir desabilitar todos, basta selecionar ajustar para o melhor desempenho. - Desabilite também o recurso de Desktop Offline - Clique em Iniciar > Configurações > Painel de Controle > Vídeo. - Clique na aba Área de Trabalho e, na sequência, no botão Personalizar Área de Trabalho. - Clique na aba Web e, em seguida, no botão Propriedades. - Desabilite o item Tornar esta página disponível offline. - Clique em OK. - Volte na aba Geral. - Aproveite para desabilitar o campo Executar o assistente para limpeza a cada 60 dias, que também consome recursos de seu PC. Para melhorar o desempenho do PC é imprescindível entender como funciona a memória virtual. Para isso, clique aqui e leia uma coluna sobre o tema.

>>>Considerações finais

Não posso deixar de dizer que é imprescindível manter o sistema operacional sempre atualizado com um programa antivírus rodando e também atualizado. Também é importante ficar atendo à idade do hardware. As peças sofrem desgaste natural com o passar do tempo e podem apresentar mau funcionamento ou lentidão. HDs antigos podem ficar lentos, começam a falhar e o risco de perder os dados passa a ser grande. Você tem dúvidas sobre tecnologia ou internet? Use o espaço de comentários abaixo. * Fernando Panissi é especialista em tecnologia e internet, formado em Sistemas de Informação com extensão em gestão. É professor universitário e ministra cursos de extensão em desenvolvimento de sistemas. Vive a internet e suas excentricidades desde 1995 e, nesta coluna, irá compartilhar suas experiências e conhecimentos sobre os mais variados temas ligados à internet, computação e tecnologia. Também tira as dúvidas deixadas pelos leitores na seção de comentários.

Youth 'cannot live' without web

2009-10-15T10:37:00.000+01:00

Fonte: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8305731.stm

A survey of 16 to 24 year olds has found that 75% of them feel they "couldn't live" without the internet.

The report, published by online charity YouthNet, also found that four out of five young people used the web to look for advice.

About one third added that they felt no need to talk to a person face to face about their problems because of the resources available online.

The findings were unveiled at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday.

Despite high-profile examples of internet security breaches, such as the recent incident of phishing email scams, 76% of the survey group thought the internet was a safe place "as long as you know what you're doing".

"Probably the middle-aged are the most vulnerable," said Open University psychologist Graham Jones.

"I think children, teenagers and people under their mid-20s have grown up with technology and they understand it deeply," he said.

Charlie McDonnell is a 19 year old video blogger on YouTube - With 200,000 subscribers and more than 20 million hits overall, he is the third most subscribed to on the site.

He started in April 2007 while "procrastinating over exam revision". He amassed around 150 viewers until he made a tongue-in-cheek film called "how to get featured on Youtube".

His mother had no interest in the internet until he got started. Now he has shown her everything and she uses his hand-me-down old kit to make her own Youtube video logs.

Video blogger Charlie McDonnell uses blogs to find news

His use of the net illustrates how sophisticated young consumers are.

"I never really look for news, I find out about stuff that interests me from blogs. I use them as a filter to find news that I find interesting.

Twitter's not very accurate - it's one person saying they saw something on one website - but it's good for getting information straight away," he said.

Mr Jones thinks it is the parents who need to become more sophisticated.

"One of the biggest problems for children is not that they are vulnerable but that their parents don't know what they're doing," he said.

It is a point Mr McDonnell agrees with.

"It's important that parents have full understanding of the internet and its risks - younger people need parental direction," he said.

'Digital natives'

The survey, funded by the Nominet Trust - a charity that encourages the safe use of the internet - looked at how the web influences the well-being of people aged between 16 and 24.

Its author, Professor Michael Hulme of Lancaster University, names this age group "digital natives" as they have grown up in an environment rich with computer and mobile technology.

"For young people the internet is part of the fabric of their world and does not exist in isolation from the physical world," he said.

Youthnet, set up by the broadcaster Martyn Lewis in 1995, runs websites offering advice, information and volunteering opportunities to young people.

"The need for a safer, trusted [online] place has never been greater," said Fiona Dawes, Youthnet's chief executive.

"Youthnet will be taking the insights of this report to heart as we plan the future of our services."

The Internet. Who says you can't take it with you?

2009-10-14T16:18:00.000+01:00

October 13, 2009, 01:25 PM —

Fonte: http://www.itworld.com/mobile-amp-wireless/80823/the-internet-who-says-you-cant-take-it-you

My first reaction to the new WikiReader device, which houses the entire Wikipedia on disk and enables you to browse it, was "huh?" My second reaction was "wow." Let's face it. If you travel, you'll find yourself with long stretches of un-connected time. If you had only one Internet resource available to you, the Wikipedia would probably be it.

A company called Openmoko announced the WikiReader today. They say it's the creation of a former Apple designer. It runs on two AAA batteries, which power the device for months, according to the company. The gadget has "instant on," and uses an Amazon-Kindle like black-and-white screen.

The WikiReader costs $99 at Wikireader.com and amazon.com. For $29, you can buy an annual subscription for updated microSD cards.

The WikiReader appears to be targeted at children and luddites. But I think the WikiReader is probably a really great gadget for most digital nomads who travel internationally. Not only will it enable you to do real research (which you can verify against other sources later), but it will also give you a ready reference useful with travel.

For example, when I was in Greece last year, I placed a large number of Wikipedia articles into my Amazon Kindle, which I carried around and used almost every day. But I could never had anticipated the Wikipedia entries I would have liked to have referenced. A WikiReader could give you a world of information without a connection.

It's also nice that it uses AAA batteries. If you're doing extreme traveling, where even outlets are scarce, lug-along batteries are nice.

The WikiReader also gave me an idea. The netbook market is struggling for a business plan. The devices tend to be commodity gadgets with razor-thin or non-existent margins. Why not create one with a massive hard drive that holds the entire Wikipedia, a dictionary, and other major reference works. Writers would love such a device. Better still, add software that makes it auto-update the resources when you do find a connection.

What do you think? Do you find yourself without a connection long enough to justify a stand-alone gadget that gives you access to part of the Internet?

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Microsoft, Apple and Xerox

2009-10-13T17:38:00.000+01:00

Fonte: http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html

The History of the Graphical User Interface

There is an ongoing myth that Microsoft is justified in ripping off the Macs User Interface, because Apple had ripped off the MacUI from Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Many go on to further say that Apple took the UI from the ALTO or STAR. Of course the people that say this have never used a Mac and an Alto or a Star, or they would know how silly these claims are.

I want to point out that philosophically and morally, theft by one does NOT justify the theft of another. If Apple did steal their UI from Xerox (which they did not), that would not forgive Microsoft of the same crime -- that would only make Apple guilty of a crime as well. So using this as a rationalization for Microsofts theft from Apple is void of any merit.

Apple and Xerox

Apple did not "rip-off" the Macs UI from Xerox. Apple had hired some people from Xerox (like Jef Raskin, Bruce Horn) who believed in concepts of a Graphical User Interface. These concepts are pretty broad -- like making a computer easier to use by using graphics (icons), using menus, windows and making a consistent interface to do things. The work on these concepts predates Xerox PARC -- in fact it was many of these peoples individual work on those concepts that got them hired at PARC. So Xerox (PARC) brought them together to refine them.

Apple's work on GUI's predates Steve Jobs visit to Palo Alto Research Center. Apple had already had the same broad goals of offering an easier to use computer, and possibly using some of the same concept (like menus, icons, and graphics).

Remember the following: Icons were not new, we had been using them for years for international street signs and so on -- they were only new on computers. Menus were not new, text based menus were being used and had been for a while. Graphics weren't new, though how much they were relied upon was new. The concepts of User Interface (Human Factors) was not new, it was just a little newer in applying it to computers.

Jef Raskin had worked at Xerox, and he was tooting the "easier to use" trumpet, with his vision of what that meant. He brought some of those ideas from Xerox, but he had brought some of those ideas TO Xerox as well. Later, he convinced Jobs to visit Xerox PARC, and Jobs became an immediate convert (for ease of use).

What Jobs saw at Xerox was a prototype Smalltalk development system. He did not see either a working ALTO or Star (which was developed much later).

Apple paid

Jobs was so hot on the concepts of UI, and the living Demos he say, that he, later, negotiated a deal with Xerox. He gave Xerox a large sum of stock in Apple (worth Millions) if he could come back, and bring some programmers -- to inspire them more on the concepts of GUI. This was like a one-day tour. This was agreed to by Xerox, and so by no stretch of the imagination could this be called "ripping-off".

PARC was a research center -- meant to inspire development. But they did not really develop products (in the commercial sense), they developed ideas. Saying that Apple learning some of the base concepts and then applying them was "ripping-off" is like saying that Air-Bags are ripping off Newton -- because Air Bags work because they adhere to some of the laws of physics first expressed by Sir Isaac. A silly silly argument. Knowledge builds on knowledge. Xerox didn't see Apple as competition, that is why they let them in -- but they charged Apple, since Xerox believed that their research had value.

Apple was creating a product, and so they hired some of the same researchers from Xerox, to be brought to Apple to work on the Mac and Lisa projects. Those researches state quite clearly that the goals and implementation were quite different between Xerox and Apple. The following is an exchange between two of those researchers, and should give you an idea of how much the Mac contributed to the concepts of UI -

The letters do seem to agree that the Macs UI was created at Apple, by Apple and for Apple. And that little if any Xerox work was taken, and the Mac was in a completely different universe. Some broad concepts were in common, but that is about it. Apple furthered those concepts, developed their own, and had totally different implementations.

The differences in UI between the Xerox UI and Apples' Mac were startlingly different. Years ago I saw a demo of a Alto. From my memory (which may not be flawless), it had a 3 button mouse (which you operated with your right hand), and a chording keyboard (for the left hand). There were overlapping windows, but there was no direct manipulation of those windows. To move the window you selected an option, from the one Menu that you had for each window, and you entered the new size or location of the window into a dialog (using numerical coordinates).There were icons, but icons were not associated with files -- they were more actions (buttons). They were using icons as verbs (do this, or do that) -- Apple made them into nouns, objects (that each represented data) that you manipulated. There wasn't that much direct manipulation, and most of the usage of the multiple windows was so that you could have multiple character terminals (like DOS) open at the same time. Contrast this with a Mac and you see that Apple went way way beyond what they saw.

Xerox extended their developments over time as well, but this is not ripping off. After Apple was far along into the Lisa and Mac project, Xerox had the Star. The Star used many more Mac-like concepts. But many were parallel developed, and some was cross over -- but both machines were developed at the same time but for different goals. I also beleive the Mac is easier to use and has the better interface.

Contrasts

Jobs kept beating on the Mac people that "Real Artists Ship!" - and that they were making a product. That is not anything like the research atmosphere at Xerox.

The Mac was 128k based personal computer, based on a Motorola 68000 processor - the MacOS was designed around Pascal with lots of assembly language for size/speed.

The Xerox machines were anything but personal computers -- they did not use microprocessors (closer to mini-computers), they had no real resource constraints as the Mac did, they ran slower (in real use), were far less elegant, were very immature (yet had some brilliant concepts) and were not really products -- they were research tools. The Xerox Machines were built around SmallTalk (a very resource wasteful language, for the time, but dynamic and powerful).

The two machine use completely different code and architectures -- which requires completely different software designs. The Mac and the Alto are about as related as a Motorcycle and a Semi-truck -- sure they both have wheels, both are transportation, and both run on roads -- after that it gets pretty divergent.

Note: There is not a single line of code that Apple got from Xerox, nor could have since the languages and designs of the system were so radically different.

Apple and Microsoft

Now what happened with Microsoft?

Well it starts out that Microsoft was one of the first Application Developers for the Mac. Apple (Jobs) knew that the Mac needed Software to be commercially viable, and Jobs learned that Microsoft was trying to break in to the Application market (1).

(1) Few remember that MS made languages. Then later stole OS's (DOS). And it wasn't until the Mac that they started making Applications. The Mac was Microsoft's chance to break into the lucrative Application markets. (Microsoft had made a few feeble attempts before the Mac, but it was the Mac that made them successful in the application area. They knew that a new computer meant new opportunities.

Jobs showed Microsoft the early Mac prototypes. Gates liked the ideas and agreed to write Mac applications.

Gates later threatened to pull their apps at the last minute before release unless Jobs agreed to -

A) Apple had to license some of the MacUI for MS-Applications on the PC. This Application suite later grew into Windows 1.0 and Office. Remember, Windows started off as an Application Suite, not an OS-Shell (2).
(2) Because Apple had licensed some concepts to Microsoft (under coercion), it weakened their case later against MS when MS started more blatantly ripping off the Mac. Contrary to popular myth that Apple lost their lawsuit against MS because it wasn't a rip-off, the real reason was that they had been to vague in their licensing of some technologies, and the benefit of the doubt was given MS.
B) Apple had to drop their MacBasic project which was completed and better than MS Basic. MacBasic had many concepts that MS ripped off to create VisualBasic. What few ideas for VB that MS didn't rip off from MacBasic they got from HyperCard -- which Bill Atkinson wrote because the Mac didn't have a good simple programming environment, because MS had dropped their basic for the Mac and had forced MacBasic to canceled as well.

Later MS decided that the GUI was just too cool not to use. So they started on an Application Suite that would use the Macs concepts of Windows, a Mouse, and direct manipulation to achieve its ends. This became Windows 1.0, and evolved into the Windows we know and hate today. The lead programmer for the Windows project was the same guy who had been a lead programmer for writing the Mac Application projects.

This sequence of events (Microsoft "borrowing" the Mac interface) is not the same as taking rough concepts and adding to them to create your own system -- this is much more intimate than that. Microsoft took their best Mac Programmer, and had him making almost every design decision for early windows. He was told, by Bill Gates, to make a PC look and work, "JUST like a Mac" -- this is a direct quote from Gates! Contrast that sequence of events, to Apple and Xerox sequence of events, and you get an idea for the difference in philosophy and implementation. Microsoft stole, Apple expanded.

This similarity was (of Windows to MacOS) is not just in design, there are whole toolboxes/API that are almost identical (in interface). Microsoft stole data structures and many routines, and the names and concepts for many things are the same as well. If it wasn't for the fact that they had to hack their stuff on top of DOS, they likely would have just stolen all the same code (and they did get sued for that later as well). If you look at many of the older Windows routines you see names and structures that are identical to the Mac. But MS is smart enough to avoid (or win) lawsuits -- they changed one name out of 10, or re-ordered a few things, all so they could say it wasn't identical. MS also had to make some design changes to get it to run on a PC. But as far as real design work for Windows, there was none -- the Mac was a living design document.

At first, MS only ripped off the design and implementation, but stayed away from Apple's look and feel. They knew that Apple would only tollerate so much theft. Later MS crossed this line as well, and Apple sued. It was when they started to steal the desktop metaphor (folders, trashcan, etc.) that Apple had enough. No matter what the legal decisions are, ethically Microsoft ripped off the Mac.

Later (post 1995) Microsoft has started to put some money into R&D, and they may try to innovate. Up to this point, they did not innovate -- they may rework others ideas, or add features to, but that's not "true" innovation.

Conclusions

Apple did not rip-off the Alto (Xerox-Parc) -- how could they? Apple was a product oriented company that produced a computer on their own. That computer had a few similarities in concept (user interface) with stuff Xerox was doing, but almost NOTHING in common design or implementation. Apple's metaphors went way way beyond what Xerox was doing (though there are other areas where Xerox was beyond Apple). They were trying to achieve different goals -- and from different points of view. Apple was creating the ultimate personal computer. Xerox was doing research tools, and later tried to make a big client-server type document distribution systems. These are about as similar as a motorcyle and a commuter Bus.

Microsoft on the other hand did rip-off Apple. The concept of making a computer easy to use is way to broad to protect, and Apple didn't complain about that. Windows, icons and menus are not ripping Apple off either -- these are broad concepts. Microsoft got sued because they stole design, implementation and finally metaphors (look and feel). They stole the way you manipulate things on the computer -- as well as almost everything underneath. I sometimes swear that if Microsoft had an original thought the company would immediately implode in suprise. Almost Everything good in Windows can be traced directly to the Mac (which the Mac had years before) -- and almost everything bad in Windows can be traced directly to where MS tried to do things different than the Mac and proved they don't know what they hell they are doing.

Why Email No Longer Rules…

2009-10-13T17:03:00.000+01:00

Fonte: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203803904574431151489408372.html

And what that means for the way we communicate

By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO

Getty Images (4 on the left); Google Wave

Services like Twitter, Facebook and Google Wave create a constant stream of interaction among users—for better or worse.

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

Journal Community

“I'll stick with e-mail -- write when I want, as often (or not ) as I want, to whom I want privately. No interest in letting the world know that I overcooked the spaghetti.”

—--Don Brazier

We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.

Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging? Thanks to Facebook, some questions can be answered without asking them. You don't need to ask a friend whether she has left work, if she has updated her public "status" on the site telling the world so. Email, stuck in the era of attachments, seems boring compared to services like Google Wave, currently in test phase, which allows users to share photos by dragging and dropping them from a desktop into a Wave, and to enter comments in near real time.

Little wonder that while email continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.

"The whole idea of this email service isn't really quite as significant anymore when you can have many, many different types of messages and files and when you have this all on the same type of networks," says Alex Bochannek, curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

So, how will these new tools change the way we communicate? Let's start with the most obvious: They make our interactions that much faster.

Into the River

Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we'd complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. Today, we gripe about it taking an extra few seconds for a text message to go through. In a few months, we may be complaining that our cellphones aren't automatically able to send messages to friends within a certain distance, letting them know we're nearby. (A number of services already do this.)

The Journal Report

Read the full Technology report .

These new services also make communicating more frequent and informal—more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted email sent to one person. No need to spend time writing a long email to your half-dozen closest friends about how your vacation went. Now those friends, if they're interested, can watch it unfold in real time online. Instead of sending a few emails a week to a handful of friends, you can send dozens of messages a day to hundreds of people who know you, or just barely do.

Consider Twitter. The service allows users to send 140-character messages to people who have subscribed to see them, called followers. So instead of sending an email to friends announcing that you just got a new job, you can just tweet it for all the people who have chosen to "follow" you to see. You can create links to particular users in messages by entering @ followed by their user name or send private "direct messages" through the system by typing d and the user name.

Facebook is part of the trend, too. Users post status updates that show up in their friends' "streams." They can also post links to content and comment on it. No in-box required.

Dozens of other companies, from AOL and Yahoo Inc. to start-ups like Yammer Inc., are building products based on the same theme.

David Liu, an executive at AOL, calls it replacing the in-box with "a river that continues to flow as you dip into it."

But the speed and ease of communication cut both ways. While making communication more frequent, they can also make it less personal and intimate. Communicating is becoming so easy that the recipient knows how little time and thought was required of the sender. Yes, your half-dozen closest friends can read your vacation updates. But so can your 500 other "friends." And if you know all these people are reading your updates, you might say a lot less than you would otherwise.

Too Much Information

Another obvious downside to the constant stream: It's a constant stream.

That can make it harder to determine the importance of various messages. When people can more easily fire off all sorts of messages—from updates about their breakfast to questions about the evening's plans—being able to figure out which messages are truly important, or even which warrant a response, can be difficult. Information overload can lead some people to tune out messages altogether.

Such noise makes us even more dependent on technology to help us communicate. Without software to help filter and organize based on factors we deem relevant, we'd drown in the deluge.

Enter filtering. In email land, consumers can often get by with a few folders, if that. But in the land of the stream, some sort of more sophisticated filtering is a must.

On Facebook, you can choose to see updates only from certain people you add to certain lists. Twitter users have adopted the trend of "tagging" their tweets by topic. So people tweeting about a company may follow their tweet with the # symbol and the company name. A number of software programs filter Tweets by these tags, making it easier to follow a topic.

The combination of more public messages and tagging has cool search and discovery implications. In the old days, people shared photos over email. Now, they post them to Flickr and tag them with their location. That means users can, with little effort, search for an area, down to a street corner, and see photos of the place.

Tagging also is creating the potential for new social movements. Instead of trying to organize people over email, protesters can tweet their messages, tag them with the topic and have them discovered by others interested in the cause. Iranians used that technique to galvanize public opinion during their election protests earlier this year. It was a powerful example of what can happen when messages get unleashed.

Who Are You?

Perhaps the biggest change that these email successors bring is more of a public profile for users. In the email world, you are your name followed by a "dot-com." That's it. In the new messaging world, you have a higher profile, packed with data you want to share and possibly some you don't.

Such a public profile has its pluses and minuses. It can draw the people communicating closer, allowing them to exchange not only text but also all sorts of personal information, even facial cues. You know a lot about the person you are talking to, even before you've ever exchanged a single word.

Take, for example, Facebook. Message someone over the site and, depending on your privacy settings, he may be a click away from your photos and your entire profile, including news articles you have shared and pictures of that party you were at last night. The extra details can help you cut to the chase. If you see that I am in London, you don't need to ask me where I am. They can also make communication feel more personal, restoring some of the intimacy that social-network sites—and email, for that matter—have stripped away. If I have posted to the world that I am in a bad mood, you might try to cheer me up, or at least think twice about bothering me.

Email is trying to compete by helping users roll in more signals about themselves. Yahoo andGoogle Inc. have launched new profile services that connect to mail accounts. That means just by clicking on a contact, one can see whatever information she has chosen to share through her profile, from her hobbies to her high school.

But a dump of personal data can also turn off the people you are trying to communicate with. If I really just want to know what time the meeting is, I may not care that you have updated your status message to point people to photos of your kids.

Having your identity pegged to communication creates more data to manage and some blurry lines. What's fine for one sort of recipient to know about you may not be acceptable for another. While our growing digital footprints have made it easier for anyone to find personal information about anyone online if they go search for it, new communications tools are marrying that trail of information with the message, making it easier than ever for the recipient to uncover more details.

A Question of Time

Meanwhile, one more big question remains: Will the new services save time, or eat up even more of it?

Many of the companies pitching the services insist they will free up people.

Jeff Teper, vice president of Microsoft Corp.'s SharePoint division, which makes software that businesses use to collaborate, says in the past, employees received an email every time the status changed on a project they were working on, which led to hundreds of unnecessary emails a day. Now, thanks to SharePoint and other software that allows companies to direct those updates to flow through centralized sites that employees can check when they need to, those unnecessary emails are out of users' in-boxes.

"People were very dependent on email. They overused it," he says. "Now, people can use the right tool for the right task."

Perhaps. But there's another way to think about all this. You can argue that because we have more ways to send more messages, we spend more time doing it. That may make us more productive, but it may not. We get lured into wasting time, telling our bosses we are looking into something, instead of just doing it, for example. And we will no doubt waste time communicating stuff that isn't meaningful, maybe at the expense of more meaningful communication. Such as, say, talking to somebody in person.

—Ms. Vascellaro is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. She can be reached at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com

How Dangerous Could a Hacked Robot Possibly Be?

2009-10-09T16:01:00.001+01:00

Fonte: http://www.cio.com/article/504405/How_Dangerous_Could_a_Hacked_Robot_Possibly_Be_

It seems like a question ripped from the back of a cheap sci-fi novel: What happens when the robots are turned against us?

Comments (1)

By Robert McMillan

THU, OCTOBER 08, 2009 — IDG News Service — It seems like a question ripped from the back of a cheap sci-fi novel: What happens when the robots are turned against us?

But researchers at the University of Washington think it's finally time to start paying some serious attention to the question of robot security. Not because they think robots are about to go all Terminator on us, but because the robots can already be used to spy on us and vandalize our homes.

Robots have emerged as popular consumer devices over the past few years -- primarily as toys, but also as household chore robots such as iRobot's Roomba vacuuming machine.

In a paper published Thursday the researchers took a close look at three test robots: the Erector Spykee, and WowWee's RoboSapien and Rovio. They found that security is pretty much an afterthought in the current crop of robotic devices.

"We were shocked at how easy it was to actually compromise some of these robots," said Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington assistant professor, who co-authored the paper.

The researchers aren't so much worried about the scenario depicted in James Cameron's movie Terminator, where machines develop self-awareness and decide to wipe out humanity. They're afraid of a world where hackers can take control of the robots we've brought into our homes.

Some of today's robots operate as wireless access points, and Kohno's team found that a nearby attacker could connect to someone else's robot quite easily. Robots such as the Rovio can also be controlled over the Internet, meaning that if a hacker could somehow sniff the victim's user name and password, he could turn the robot into a remote-controlled spy machine.

"We think that consumers should at least be aware that there is the possibility that someone would listen in on their robot and take over their robot and have mobile eyes and ears in their home," said Tamara Denning a PhD student who also worked on the paper. "They're little computers."

The University of Washington team says that as more sophisticated robots come online -- especially future generations of powerful household robots -- they could be misused in ways that their designers have not foreseen.

In their paper, they discuss ideas such as "robot vandalism" -- even weak robots can push something fragile down a flight of stairs -- and "robot suicide." Robots could be used to eavesdrop on conversations or frighten small children too, the researchers said.

The attacks that they can actually pull off may sound more creepy than scary, but Kohno said that robot makers will serve their customers best by thinking of these issues from the start, rather than having to patch machines after they get compromised. "Let's think about security and privacy as one of the initial design goals," he said.

Hotmail hacks easy as 123456

2009-10-08T11:02:00.001+01:00

Fonte: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/hotmail-hacks-easy-as-123456-20091008-go3f.html

ASHER MOSES

October 8, 2009 - 11:49AM

Comments 8

The Hotmail hack attack this week has laid bare the woeful password choices of web users, as reports emerged that up to 1 million web email accounts could have been compromised.

The most common password was "123456", while many users had names or dates of birth - all easy pickings for the determined password cracker.

Password security was thrown into the spotlight this week after it was revealed that 10,000 Hotmail user names and passwords had been leaked online. A day later, a separate list of 20,000 addresses and passwords for Gmail, Yahoo and AOL were found on the web.

The size of the lists, one of which contains only email addresses beginning with A and B, have led security experts to fear that thousands more accounts have been compromised.

Hackers frequently target email accounts because from there they can obtain passwords to other more important accounts such as internet banking. Often, the same password is used for multiple online accounts.

Hijacked email addresses are also used to conduct spam campaigns and targeted phishing attacks on the victim's contacts. Security firm Websense reported that some of the addresses compromised this week were already being used for this purpose.

A security researcher was able to obtain the list of 10,000 Hotmail account details before it was removed from the web and found the passwords used were alarmingly simple.

Bogdan Calin, of Acunetix, found "123456" and "123456789" were the most common, appearing 82 times, while 12345678, 1234567 and 111111 also appeared in the top 10.

Furthermore, 42 per cent of the passwords used only lower case letters from a to z. Just 6 per cent mixed letters and numbers.

The longest password was 30 characters - lafaroleratropezoooooooooooooo - but this still evidently did not prevent the user's account from being hacked. The shortest password was one character: ")".

"A big majority of users still use very poor passwords," Calin concluded.

Security experts say people should always use a combination of letters and numbers in their passwords and avoid those that are easily guessed such as names, dates of birth or words from the dictionary.

F-Secure is even advising people to write down their passwords and put them in their wallets, arguing that people use weak passwords because they can't remember strong ones.

Neil O'Neil, a digital forensics investigator at The Logic Group told Computerworld the security breach was likely to spread even further.

"Making the breach public so soon after the attack occurred has allowed unethical hackers to access the passwords very easily, even though they were deleted a couple of days ago at the request of Microsoft," he said.

"The list went through A and B, so you would think whoever released these has more. And if you do the maths, they could have more than a million passwords."

The BBC reported that Google is already aware of a third list, but it is not clear how many names are on it.

Users of web email accounts are being advised to change their passwords immediately.