David Worthington

iPhome

A technology shift is under way. The PC’s promise to transform how learning happens in the classroom is being realized by Apple’s iPad. Students and teachers in grade school through higher education are using the iPad to augment their lessons or to replace textbooks.

I've often wondered why people who use their PCs for basic stuff-like checking e-mail and browsing the Web - are required to buy hardware that's far more powerful than what they really require. With that power comes the complexity of operating systems preloaded with applications and utilities that many people will never use, making PCs unapproachable for people who aren't tech savvy.

That's all changing-first, with the introduction of netbooks, and now even more so with the iPad. Apple's tablet brings appliance-like simplicity to light computing needs, and brought my mother, who is in her early 60s and had never used a computer before, onto the Web. I've documented her fresh perspective on the iPad in this interview.

Four New York University students have mobilized to produce a decentralized and open source alternative to Facebook called Diaspora that they say will give users full control over their privacy.

Today, Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) general counsel Karen Sandler told me that Diaspora was inspired by a lecture that Eben Moglen, director-counsel and chairman of the SFLC, gave in February. The organization provides legal services to open-source projects and organizations.

There is a lot of speculation about what the agreement announced last week between chip designer ARM and Microsoft actually means. Some pundits predict that it is a signal that Microsoft intends to deliver Windows or Windows Phone OS tablet and slate devices, while others foresee an overdue overhaul of the Xbox's architecture.

I'm keen on the idea of a tablet based upon Windows Phone 7. For too long, Microsoft has relied upon grafting Windows onto smaller form factors: "Oh wow, a stylus." The success of Apple's less feature-rich iPad proves that it was the wrong approach. Customers want an operating envrionment that works well for their devices, meaning it should be designed with the device in mind. A tablet-friendly version of Windows Phone 7 would fit the bill.

Secunia, a security service provider well known for tracking software defects, has ranked Apple as having the most reported vulnerabilities for its platforms during the first half of 2010. The majority of the flaws reside in OS X applications.

I’m not surprised. As malicious operating systems have become more hardened, exploiting vulnerabilities has required increasingly sophisticated attacks. End users are updating their systems, using antivirus programs–at least Windows users do–and have deployed firewalls. Hackers have to look for holes in applications.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down a long awaited decision on a patent case that could have changed how or whether software patents are granted. Ultimately, little changed, except that the Court’s decision was at odds with 150 years of patent law, says a legal expert.

The Court’s Bilski v. Kappos decision could have invalidated many software patents had it accepted a Federal circuit court’s “machine or transformation” test for what is patentable. Proponents of the lower court’s decision had hoped that the high court would finally bring an end to excessive patent litigation and eliminate questionable patents that they say can slow the pace of innovation in technology.

Windows enthusiast Francisco Martin got his hands on portions of a secretive “Windows 8″ presentation, and posted some of the slides on his blog today. Microsoft allegedly presented the slides to computer manufacturers to preview the next version of Windows.

Microsoft wants OEMs to build PCs that rapidly wake up from sleep mode and are aware of their surroundings. The PCs should leverage hardware including Webcams and proximity sensors to recognize users and sense when those users are nearby their machines. It’s a logical step–not an innovative one so much as a necessary one.

Sometimes it is difficult to discern whether complaints are coming from actual users or are a product of blogosphere hyperbole, as was the case yesterday when the iPhone 3G didn’t get all of the new features available in the iOS 4 upgrade. One thing is for certain: had those customers received those features there would be real cause for complaints.

iOS4 performance on the iPhone 3G is a mixed bag, according to tests compiled since its release. That’s without all of the bells and whistles such as backgrounds and multitasking. When a Gizmodo reader e-mailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking why backgrounds were not included in the update, Jobs replied, “The icon animation with backgrounds didn’t perform well enough.” If that’s the case, just imagine the performance hit that multitasking would take.

Verizon is in the early phases of deploying an Internet Protocol television (IPTV) system in a move to bring its FiOS brand to the Web, according to a well-placed source within the company. The service will extend beyond PCs to gaming consoles.

While I was was not given any timetable for the service’s arrival, Verizon is operating under a sense of urgency. “We are late to the game,” my source told me. Internal testers at Verizon are already using the service, including software for Sony’s PlayStation 3. A Verizon spokesperson said that the company did not comment on “rumor or speculation.”

Nearly two years ago, I reviewed internal documents about Microsoft’s plans to design and develop an entirely new operating system called Midori. While I am uncertain about the exact state of the project, bits and pieces of the Midori vision are emerging in the company’s latest technologies.

Owning a PC was once a big deal; now it’s common for multiple computers to reside under one roof. Today’s households are filled with PCs, Pads, and Pods–devices that are loosely synchronized and loaded with apps. Information and applications are getting distributed, with many pieces working in parallel. Midori is intended to support exactly that kind of distributed application architecture, and Microsoft assigned some of its top talent to support the project.

Social networking just became a little riskier to your privacy. Information from MySpace is now for sale to third parties ranging from academics and analysts to marketers.

The data will include any activity or information that is attached to an account. That includes blog posts, location, photos, reviews, and status updates--among others. Infochimps, an Austin, Texas, company that collects and sells structured data, is selling the data.

The Federal Communications Commission has begun to benchmark Internet service speeds across the United States to allow consumer to compare the real world performance of their ISP with its advertised speeds. I'd like to see some action.

The program is under the aegis of the National Broadband Plan, which was created with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to accelerate broadband deployment in the United States. The FCC is gathering data down to the level of home address.