Last-minute Web sites to save your holiday

’Tis the season to procrastinate, but the Internet is here to help 

Well, look at that, you’ve done it again. The holidays are here and you are behind in everything — gifts, cards and even coming up with a plan to deal with the season’s inevitable pitfalls and finding company for the winter blues. Never fear, the Internet is here to save you. Of course, when it comes to the inevitable nightmare that is the airline industry, you’re on your own, suckers. But the World Wide Web does offer easy solutions that, most importantly, don’t involve going to the mall. 

Amazon

www.amazon.com
Well, duh. One of the first e-shopping meccas is still one of the best when it comes to last-minute purchase. First, there’s the infinite selection. Why bother battling the shopping malls for that in-demand toy when you can doubtlessly find it on Amazon. Meanwhile, the shipping and delivery page lists the drop-dead holiday shipping deadlines and all applicable fees — no rude surprises at check out. And if you’re stumped on what to buy, Amazon’s gift guide is one of the most frighteningly accurate on the Web — well, at least if you’re shopping for a stereotype. Browsing categories include gender, age, relationship and price ranges. 

Etsy

www.etsy.com
They say the best gifts are the ones you make yourself. But if you haven’t got a creative bone in your body, why not buy that unique gift from someone who does? Etsy, “an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade,” offers an endless number of amazing crafts from all manner of craftspeople to fit any taste and price range, and gift guides to help you choose. From handmade soaps shaped like hoiday lights ($8 per set of 5) to a taxidermied "unicorn"
($975 or best offer), there is something for everyone. “But I’m running out of time!” you say? Etsy allows you to search its stores by ZIP code. If you’re lucky, you can sweet talk your local craftsperson into a quick ship or pick-up-in-person scenario.

 

Kodak Gallery

www.kodakgallery.com
If you’re like me, you have yet to order your customized holiday cards featuring your herd of rescue pugs (let alone line those little fat bags up for the photos). Kodak Gallery is an intuitive, easy-to-use, customized card site that allows you to upload your photos and design your cards using a large variety of templates covering a range of price points. While you’re there, why not slap those holiday photos on a mug or a T-shirt for a last-minute stocking stuffer? If you’re really cutting it close, the site offers both rush shipping (for an extra fee) and pickup from participating Target stores.

 

RetailMeNot.com

RetailMeNot.com
Avoiding the nightmare crowds isn't the only perk that comes with doing your holiday shopping online. You can also find a bevy of "hidden" discounts for many retail sites at your fingertips. Web sites that offer "coupon codes" - those numbers you place in the special offer field during checkout - have proliferated in the past few years, so much so that there is simply no reason to buy anything online without checking them first. RetailMeNot.com is one of the better organized of these sites, offering up-to-date discount information for major and minor retailers both online and off. There's also an active online community for those who love shopping so much, they want to talk about it too. Don't scoff -- a quick drop in in the forum chats can cue you into to a hot item you didn't even know you needed.  

 

Zipcar

www.zipcar.com
So you’re all grown up, with a college degree and a real job — but Mom and Dad still aren’t over the time you dinged the Monte Carlo back in high school. If you’re home for the holidays and you want to go out on your own but don’t want the hassle or expense of a full-on rental car, check out Zipcar. The service allows you to rent a car by the hour or day, and includes gas, insurance and reserved parking. You can even play the big shot by grabbing a BMW for the day. It’s not perfect — some users complain about restrictive policies — so as always, read the fine print before you hand over your credit card.

 

www.couchsurf.com

The CouchSurfing Project

www.couchsurfing.com
So you’re home for the holidays — but so is every annoying person to whom you’re related. Need a break from the crowd you know all too well? Check out the CouchSurfing Project, “a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit” and meet somebody new. This free hospitality network boasts more than 780,000 members in 232 countries and territories, so odds are pretty good there’s an open sofa in your hometown. The online commmunity features profiles, a vouching and references network and a credit card verification system. For the cautiously shy, the site offers extensive tip guides from couch surfing veterans — everything from tips for solo women (or men), families, gays and lesbians, vegans, and of course, how to be a good guest (hey, maybe you can share that one with your relatives).

Yelp

Yelp
Whether you need a last minute place to eat with out-of-town visitors, or just a destination to hang out with other humans when you're stuck in town alone, Yelp can help. Though it started in 2004 basically as shopping and services customer review site, Yelp has since expanded to include many local bar and restaurant listings, as well as entertainment suggestions for many major cities in the United States. The site is free to use and is available as a mobile phone application. Reviews and recommendations from Yelp's growing community will help guide your way to what's right (or isn't right) for your family, or just you.

 

Google Trike is ready for your close-up

Not your grandpa's trike. Dan Ratner rides the Google Street Trike. The senior mechanical engineer on Google’s Street View team came up with the trike idea to help with mapping. “We wanted to keep all the same functionality that you can find on the Google Street View car, but put it on a smaller package."

Sure, it seemed creepy at first … maybe even creepy still. But there’s no denying that Google Street View, a function of Google Earth and Google Maps, is also wicked cool. Giving a whole new meaning to “I can see my house from here,” Google Street View provides 360-degree horizontal and 290-degree vertical views of streets all over the planet via a few clicks on your keyboard.

Until recently however, if your house — or any other location — happened to be located down an alley or street too narrow for a Google Street View car — those camera-equipped autos combing the globe for images — it remained out of the Internet's pictures. Thanks to the Google Street View Trike, introduced to the public via a pick-the-next-location contest, that could soon change.

“This mechanical masterpiece consists of three bicycle wheels, a mounted Street View camera and a specially decorated unit with imaging and GPS technology,” gushes Google’s press release announcing the contest. Users were invited to vote for nominees in six categories: parks and trails, university campuses, theme parks and zoos, pedestrian malls (e.g., outdoor shopping areas, boardwalks), landmarks and sports venues (e.g., golf courses, racing tracks, stadium grounds). The winners in each category, to be announced later this month, will be mapped by the Google Trike.

Craigslist exec: eBay CEO changed his mind

(AP) -- The CEO of Craigslist says he had decided not to do business with eBay in 2004 before being asked to meet with eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman.

James Buckmaster said Monday he changed his mind about eBay based on assurances Whitman gave him, and eBay went on to buy a 28 percent stake in Craigslist.
Buckmaster said Whitman eased his fears that eBay wanted control of Craigslist and said eBay was happy with a minority stake. He said Whitman, now running for California governor, also said she would find a graceful way to end the relationship if things didn't work out.
Buckmaster was testifying in an eBay lawsuit claiming that Craigslist officials improperly acted to dilute eBay's minority stake after a falling out in 2007.
©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Pandemic toolkit offers flu with a view

As communities brace for rising wintertime influenza cases, scientists are developing a mathematical and visual analytic toolkit to help health officials quickly analyze pandemics and craft better response strategies.

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have created a Pandemic Influenza Planning Tool to model the spread of a disease through various age groups and geographic populations. It also allows decision-makers to carefully assess the benefit of their decisions for different scenarios in advance.
"No single approach provides an optimal strategy when battling the spread of a pandemic," said Robert Brigantic, PNNL operations research scientist, "But, the use of this tool can allow health officials to more accurately predict how a disease might evolve when various mitigation strategies are applied."
These results could be valuable in developing an aggressive preventive strategy and deciding how best to use limited resources.
Brigantic's tool allows officials to easily evaluate potential response options by manipulating modeling parameters and running different simulations. For instance, officials could assess closing schools to decrease disease spread, initiate preventative media campaigns, or evaluate distributing antiviral medications to easily evaluate potential mitigation approaches.
In late September, PNNL demonstrated an early prototype of the tool during a Walla Walla County, Wash., Pandemic Influenza emergency exercise. Officials simulated an H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak and used the tool to predict resource needs and shortfalls, such as the loss of critical staff and lack of hospital beds.
"The tool illustrated how essential services can fail when critical employees became ill," said Gay Ernst, director of emergency management in Walla Walla County. "Visualizing possible disease progression enables us to consider how many critical personnel may be unavailable at one time and plan accordingly."
To help users also understand and visualize the effects of potential scenarios, PNNL teamed with Purdue University to add a visual analytic element to the toolkit called PanViz. It allows decision makers to visually track a simulation of spreading influenza on a video monitor. Users can toggle on and off various decision measures and visually see and examine the impact of those modifications and how they may alter the spread of the outbreak over time across counties in a state.

PNNL has demonstrated the planning tool during its development to Washington State Public Health as well as emergency officials in Los Angeles County and in Indiana. Researchers are improving the system's infectious disease modeling capabilities by making underlying algorithms more sophisticated and precise. Including more mitigation strategies and incorporating input from public health and emergency management experts is a priority as developers enhance the model.
This work was originally developed under a $50,000 subcontract with Purdue University to create the Pandemic Influenza Planning Tool for use by Indiana state as part of its pandemic influenza planning exercises. If additional funding is secured, Brigantic hopes to expand the model capabilities to see how additional social-distancing actions, such as telecommuting, cancelling social events and imposing quarantines might influence the virtual spread of a pandemic. He also envisions incorporating additional social modeling and behavioral responses.
Brigantic and his team are also conducting related modeling and simulation analysis for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish effective and efficient screening of passengers arriving on international flights for pandemic influenza.

Brussels welcomes Oracle's concessions in Sun bid

The European Commission, in a statement, said its discussions with Oracle had been "constructive."

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes "is optimistic that the case will have a satisfactory outcome, while ensuring that the transaction will not have an adverse impact on effective competition in the European database market," the EU's executive arm said in a statement.

"Today's announcement by Oracle of a series of undertakings to customers, developers and users of MySQL (open source database) is an important new element to be taken into account in the ongoing proceedings," the commission underlined.

The commission is particularly impressed by Oracle's extension for up to five years of the terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses.

"Oracle has engaged in constructive discussions with the European Commission regarding the concerns expressed by the Commission about the Oracle/Sun Microsystems transaction," the California technology firm told AFP.

"In particular the maintenance of MySQL as a competitive force in the database market."

MySQL is a data management system used in millions of business networks worldwide.

Oracle promised to continue to support, develop and provide MySQL technology.

"The geographic scope of these commitments shall be worldwide and these commitments shall continue until the fifth anniversary of the closing of the transaction," Oracle said in a response detailing specifics of the vow.

The 5.17-billion-euro (7.57-billion-dollar) deal for Sun, a one-time Silicon Valley star and developer of the popular Java programming language, was approved by Sun shareholders in July and the US Department of Justice in August.

(c) 2009 AFP

Computing with a wave of the hand (w/ Video)

The iPhone’s familiar touch screen display uses capacitive sensing, where the proximity of a finger disrupts the electrical connection between sensors in the screen. A competing approach, which uses embedded optical sensors to track the movement of the user’s fingers, is just now coming to market. But researchers at MIT’s Media Lab have already figured out how to use such sensors to turn displays into giant lensless cameras. On Dec. 19 at Siggraph Asia -- a recent spinoff of Siggraph, the premier graphics research conference -- the MIT team is presenting the first application of its work, a display that lets users manipulate on-screen images using hand gestures.

Many other researchers have been working on such gestural interfaces, which would, for example, allow computer users to drag windows around a screen simply by pointing at them and moving their fingers, or to rotate a virtual object through three dimensions with a flick of the wrist. Some large-scale gestural interfaces have already been commercialized, such as those developed by the Media Lab’s Hiroshi Ishii, whose work was the basis for the system that Tom Cruise’s character uses in the movie Minority Report.

But “those usually involve having a roomful of expensive cameras or wearing tracking tags on your fingers,” says Matthew Hirsch, a PhD candidate at the Media Lab who, along with Media Lab professors Ramesh Raskar and Henry Holtzman and visiting researcher Douglas Lanman, developed the new display. Some experimental systems — such as Microsoft’s Natal — instead use small cameras embedded in a display to capture gestural information. But because the cameras are offset from the center of the screen, they don’t work well at short distances, and they can’t provide a seamless transition from gestural to touch screen interactions. Cameras set far enough behind the screen can provide that transition, as they do in Microsoft’s SecondLight, but they add to the display’s thickness and require costly hardware to render the screen alternately transparent and opaque. “The goal with this is to be able to incorporate the gestural display into a thin LCD device” — like a cell phone — “and to be able to do it without wearing gloves or anything like that,” Hirsch says.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid36804639001?bctid=55998893001

The Media Lab system requires an array of liquid crystals, as in an ordinary LCD display, with an array of optical sensors right behind it. The liquid crystals serve, in a sense, as a lens, displaying a black-and-white pattern that lets light through to the sensors. But that pattern alternates so rapidly with whatever the LCD is otherwise displaying — the list of apps on a smart phone, for instance, or the virtual world of a video game — that the viewer never notices it.

The simplest way to explain how the system works, Lanman says, is to imagine that, instead of an LCD, an array of pinholes is placed in front of the sensors. Light passing through each pinhole will strike a small block of sensors, producing a low-resolution image. Since each pinhole image is taken from a slightly different position, all the images together provide a good deal of depth information about whatever lies before the screen. An array of liquid crystals could simulate a sheet of pinholes simply by displaying a pattern in which, say, the central pixel in each 19-by-19 block of pixels is white (transparent) while all the others are black.

The problem with pinholes, Lanman explains, is that they allow very little light to reach the sensors, so they require exposure times that are too long to be practical. So the LCD instead displays a pattern in which each 19-by-19 block is subdivided into a regular pattern of black-and-white rectangles of different sizes. Since there are as many white squares as black, the blocks pass much more light.

The 19-by-19 blocks are all adjacent to each other, however, so the images they pass to the sensors overlap in a confusing jumble. But the pattern of black-and-white squares allows the system to computationally disentangle the images, capturing the same depth information that a pinhole array would, but capturing it much more quickly.

LCDs with built-in optical sensors are so new that the Media Lab researchers haven’t been able to procure any yet, but they mocked up a display in the lab to test their approach. Like some existing touch screen systems, the mockup uses a camera some distance from the screen to record the images that pass through the blocks of black-and-white squares. But it provides a way to determine whether the algorithms that control the system would work in a real-world setting. In experiments in the lab, the researchers showed that they could manipulate on-screen objects using hand gestures and move seamlessly between gestural control and ordinary touch screen interactions.

Of the current crop of experimental gestural interfaces, “I like this one because it’s really integrated into the display,” says Paul Debevec, director of the Graphics Laboratory at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, whose doctoral thesis led to the innovative visual effects in the movie The Matrix. “Everyone needs to have a display anyway. And it is much better than just figuring out just where the fingertips are or a kind of motion-capture situation. It’s really a full three-dimensional image of the person’s hand that’s in front of the display.”

Indeed, the researchers are already exploring the possibility of using the new system to turn the display into a high-resolution camera. Instead of capturing low-resolution three-dimensional images, a different pattern of black-and-white squares could capture a two-dimensional image at a specific focal depth. Since the resolution of that image would be proportional to the number of sensors embedded in the screen, it could be much higher than that of the images captured by a conventional webcam.

Enlarge

Darkening all but the central pixel in a 19-by-19 block turns an array of liquid crystals into a pinhole camera; but a pattern of black-and-white rectangles of different sizes passes much more light while providing a way to computationally disentangle overlapping images. Diagrams: Matthew Hirsch, Douglas Lanman, Ramesh Raskar, Henry Holtzman

Raskar, who directs the Media Lab’s Camera Culture Group, stresses that the work has even broader implications than simply converting displays into cameras. In the history of computation, he says, “intelligence moved from the mainframe to the desktop to the mobile device, and now it’s moving into the screen.” The idea that “every pixel has a computer behind it,” he says, offers opportunities to reimagine how humans and computers interact.

“It’s kind of the hallmark of a lot of Ramesh’s work,” says Debevec. “He comes up with crazy cameras with the guts hanging out of them and strange arrangements of different mechanics in something that at first you’re wondering, ‘Well, why would you do that?’ No one quite does things the way that he does because no one else thinks the way he does. Then you start to understand it and you realize that there’s actually a very interesting new thing happening.”

 

Philips electronic skin technology enables new chameleon-like ambience designs

The technology has the potential to be used in the future for larger area ‘e-wallpapers’ where you can adjust the color of your wall or smart windows to regulate the daylight coming through your window.

Philips’ e-skin technology is based on its previous work with electronic paper (e-paper). E-paper looks like conventional paper and the bright wash of color it generates uses the ambient light for rendition, just like conventional paint, so no backlight is needed. Which means that the vividness of the color is maintained, even in bright outdoor conditions.

Enlarge

Philips e-skin technology features a gradient of grey levels from a highly transparent optical state (left) to full black (right). This enables future applications like smart windows. Photo: Philips

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Similar to paper, Philips e-skin has a paint-like appearance. Photo: Philips

Recently, Philips successfully realized a simplified, yet advanced version of its e-paper technology: e-skin. Since it is less complicated and less expensive to realize, it enables new applications. And because e-skin makes use of the ambient light, it is an inherently energy-efficient system, making it particularly suitable for application in portable devices as well.

“The first applications using the technology could be e-skins for small devices such as MP3 players or cell phones. However, the technology is highly scalable,” says Kars-Michiel Lenssen, Principal Scientist at Philips Research. “In the future it will be possible to use e-skins to bring new color and a new aura or ‘vibe’ to much larger equipment.

Philips Research will present its work at the International Display Workshops 2009 in Japan, which is held from December 9-11. IDW '09 will integrate thirteen workshops and a topical session in specialized fields playing important roles in information display activities.

Enlarge

A full-color e-skin could be created from two layers, each with two colors of ink. Here, only the yellow and magenta inks are showing making the pixel appear red. Photo: Philips

Source: Philips

Texting, tweeting ought to be viewed as GR8 teaching tools, scholar says

The impact of text messaging on the decline of formal writing among teens has been debated in pedagogical circles ever since cell-phone ownership became an adolescent rite of passage in the mid-2000s. But according to a University of Illinois expert in media literacy, not only are critics who argue that texting is synonymous with literary degradation wrong, they also often overlook the bigger role that texting and its distant cousin, "tweeting," could play in education and research.

Carol L. Tilley, a professor of library and information science at Illinois, says that schools and libraries should consider embracing texting and tweeting as a means of engagement rather than simply outlawing it.

"I think if you're an educator or librarian looking for new ways of to reach out to teens and tweens, then texting is one possibility," Tilley said. "Over 70 percent of teens have a cell phone, so I think it's a viable alternate means of engaging with that age group."

When used as a tool for ubiquitous learning, text messaging and tweeting wouldn't be tools of distraction, but a means of engagement for this generation of gadget-obsessed teens.

"Teachers could send reminders about assignments, links to study guides or updates on their progress grading major projects by text or by tweet," Tilley said. "If they're away at a conference or need to use a sub for a day, they could use Twitter to stay in contact with their class without having to physically be there."

Students could text reference questions to school librarians without having to ask for a hall pass or having to wait until lunch, Tilley said, and librarians might tweet about new materials added to their collections.

Texting and tweeting could be seen as continuing the tradition of play and economy in language, which Tilley argues is good preparation for more formal writing assignments - provided, of course, that the use of emoticons and text-speak don't spill over into their final drafts.

"Young people learn about the importance not only of argumentation but also how to deliver a certain message to an audience, especially given the limitations of the medium itself," she said. "From an educational standpoint, that helps students become more in tune with language."

Tilley said that Twitter, the popular micro-blogging site that lets users tweet
text-based messages that can't run longer than 140 characters, is actually easier to integrate into instruction than text messaging because "you can broadcast tweets to a wider audience than texts."
"In terms of strategies for creative or critical writing, having a limited number of characters to work with opens up all sorts of cool ways to play with the medium," she said.

For example, an English teacher could take a famous character from a novel and ask students to tweet from that character's perspective.

"It's a good way to get into the psychology of the character," she said.

Teachers could also challenge students to craft micro-stories complete with a climax and a denouement in 140 characters. Tilley noted that the flash-fiction genre has a distinguished lineage: the famously laconic Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story using just six words - "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" - and is said to have called it his best work.

Tilley argues that most educators make the faulty assumption that text messaging and tweeting are akin to formal writing. According to a recent Pew survey, teens view texting not as writing or as a distraction from "real" communication, but on par with informal conversation.

"People have always spoken informally in short-hand codes," she said. "With text messaging, you're using your thumbs to tap out letters on a device you ordinarily use to talk to someone else with. So it's obviously more conversation than formal correspondence, especially since it allows for that almost instantaneous back-and-forth volley of messages."

Since texting can be thought of as closer to a dialogue than a formal piece of prose, Tilley said you can't expect the same level of polish and grammatical correctness to texts or tweets.

"Texting is also dependent on context, interpersonal dynamics and how you construct your messages, rather than the actual content, in some cases."

In their efforts to turn cell phones into contraband, Tilley said that teachers and librarians might be fighting a losing battle.

"Texting can be a lot more surreptitious than an actual phone call, where you have to hold the phone up and speak into the receiver," Tilley said. "So just because you can't have cell phones in a lot of schools and libraries doesn't mean students won't try to text on the sly."

Despite the pervasiveness of cell phones among teens, Tilley said the statistics are mixed as to whether adolescents are actually using Twitter. One of the reasons could be a lack of access to a computer.

"I see an increase in the number of teachers who expect word processed assignments even though they may not provide in-class time for students to use a computer," she said. "If a student doesn't own a computer, where are they going to go? They may be able to go to the public library, but there's often a wait and then a time limit for computer usage."

Although teachers and librarians have to be aware of the varying levels of access that students have to technology, Tilley said educators should also proactively seek new avenues of access for those vulnerable populations.

"If teachers and librarians can help students be a part of that social context, students will benefit because it keeps the digital divide from widening even further," she said.

But there's also the "cool" factor to consider: By the time teachers get around to bringing something new into the classroom, it's already passé.

"There's always that danger when embracing something in a school setting that you kill it for the students," Tilley said. "But helping kids understand the social and contextual role that texting plays in their lives I think is one possible justification. If there are ways educators can incorporate it in providing homework support or building dialogue out of school hours, then I think it could be a useful communications tool."