Conexant Systems today announced the CX20865, its new high-performance Far-Field Voiceinput processor system-on-chip (SoC) designed specifically for Smart TVs. The CX20865 is the first dedicated Far-Field Voice solution with integrated Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine, optimized for telepresence and voice control applications. Conexant has integrated a third party ASR with the new low-power DSP to support stand-alone Wake-on-Voice functionality during Smart TV power-off state. Combined with Conexant's proprietary Far-Field Voice pre-processing algorithms and integrated high-performance 24bit ADCs, the CX20865 adds a differentiated Watch Live and Talk experience with popular VoIP applications, such as Skype TV, and delivers accurate voice control performance while the TV is blasting in high volume. The new Selective Source Pickup technology maintains speech recognition in the presence of random ambient interference, enabling live demos in the retail environment and tradeshows.
As the centerpiece of the living room, the Smart TV is becoming the new hub for the human interface to other digital appliances and the Cloud. Voice is the natural and ideal hands-free interface for consumers to access and interact with Smart TVs; from basic voice remote controls to advanced voice search, apps interaction, social networking, chat and gaming. However, in order for voice to deliver on the promise of Smart TV experience for users, ambient noise, TV playback volume and distance must be taken into consideration. A pioneer in Far-Field Voice processing technology, Conexant is working closely with leading TV OEMs to overcome these technical challenges.
The new CX20865 hardware features dual cores, high-performance 32bit DSP, processing multi-thread voice streams and a third party ASR. The integrated DC/DC provides advanced power management functions. The device has full-speed USB and I2S I/Os for voice data, and I2C and UART interface for control. The quad microphone input paths have been upgraded with high-performance pre-amp and 24 bit ADCs, delivering 106dB dynamic range full path. Further, each microphone path has dedicated microphone bias to prevent cross-talk.
The voice pre-processing performance is enhanced to deliver >97 percent ASR hit-rate when the TV is playing sound at high volume. The new echo-cancellation supports stereo, 2.1CH, and 2+2CH internal speaker configurations. The improved de-reverberation and true wideband processing has radically enhanced the perceptual voice clarity. To this end, Conexant is also working with leading regional ASR vendors to optimize hit-rates and reduce false detection with their local and Cloud-based ASR engines.
The featured Watch Live and Talk seamlessly blends voice conversation and TV entertainment into a single experience, allowing two parties to "share the moment" watching the same or different TV programs while carrying on a conversation. The experience also applies to voice-chat during multi-party game play on TV, without tethering to a headset.
At 10 o'clock on a Saturday night, the Mariana Grajales park in downtown Havana pulses with a thumping beat. Young men in drooping trousers and women in miniskirts dance, raise their hands in the air and grind pelvis to pelvis amid whooping, clapping and coarse jokes.
The risque dance style known as "perreo," which translates loosely as "dogging," is associated with reggaeton, an up-tempo mix of reggae, hip-hop and Latin rhythms that was popularized in Puerto Rico and has become a mainstay on Cuban TV and radio.
Now, the music finds itself squarely in the sights of critics who lament the genre's notoriously suggestive lyrics, steamy videos and sometimes misogynistic stereotyping.
Cuban authorities recently announced restrictions reportedly declaring state-run recording studios and broadcasts off-limits to songs with questionable lyrics. They also prohibit such music in performance spaces subject to government control.
The rules would theoretically apply to all genres, but it's reggaeton that leading cultural lights have singled out for criticism in official media while warning of new rules governing "public uses of music."
Legislators are also studying a bill to regulate the airwaves and performance spaces. Artists would face potential sanctions for lyrics and performances deemed too racy, although it's not yet clear who would be the official arbiters of taste or what penalties may be imposed.
"It has been decided," said Danilo Sirio Lopez, director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, in a December speech to lawmakers. "We will not play one more rude song, one more base song, one more song with offensive lyrics or videos that attack or denigrate the image of women."
The proposal apparently falls short of an outright ban, but in a country where the government is the main patron of the arts and controls all airwaves, the threat of losing access to broadcasts, produ ction facilities and performance spaces sends a clear message to reggaetoneros: Clean up your act, or else.
The past year's hit song, "Quimba Pa' Que Suene," by Los Principales, translates gently as "Shake It So It Goes Off" and is a kind of homage to masturbation. The video was uploaded to YouTube and heralded as "the new hymn of Cuban youth," and for the last year it could be heard booming at top volume at private parties, school events and other get-togethers.
"I really like reggaeton. It has a beat that fires me up," said Yanet Perez, a 28-year-old Havana resident. "It's fun to dance to because of the way it gets you moving, although the lyrics sometimes can be bad or slimy."
Records with explicit lyri cs in the United States have carried parental warning labels since the 1980s, and last year the Rihanna video "S&M" was banned in at least 11 countries. In 2009, Jamaica prohibited songs and videos with explicit references to sex and violence from being broadcast on radio or TV.
The backlash against reggaeton has historical echoes in Cuba, where genres such as danzon, cha-cha, timba and salsa once scandalized older generations by pushing contemporary boundaries of sensuality. Today, they are firmly established in the musical mainstream.
In the 1960s the Beatles were banned from Cuban radio, and some fans were forced to cut their long hair, reprimanded at work or passed over for jobs. Now, a Havana plaza boasts a statue of John Lennon and the nearby Beatles-themed bar The Yellow Submarine is a thriving nightspot.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Rural doctors bring hope as they battle adversity
Arduous treks and difficult conditions must often be negotiated before patients in isolated areas get medical treatment, report Yang Wanli and Tang Yue.
Losong Gyaltsen left his home in the Tibet autonomous region on New Year's Eve and set off on his first trip outside the area.
Despite the title "village doctor", the 33-year-old doesn't actually hold a medical degree, but is licensed to provide basic services in rural areas.
He traveled to Beijing to receive one of the awards being presented to China's 10 most respected village doctors, and had already earmarked a number of places to visit in the capital.
Like many people, the young man was looking forward to seeing Tian'anmen Square, but one place he never imagined he would visit was his "biggest surprise" - Zhongnanhai, the residential compound for China's top leaders in downtown Beijing.
Although the January day was sunny, the wind was bitterly cold. Losong Gyaltsen recalled the moment Vice-Premier Li Keqiang entered the room. "I was too nervous to speak, so I just kept saying 'hello'," he said.
The vice-premier met with 18 village doctors from across the country. All work in rural areas, but Losong Gyaltsen was the only one from Tibet. In his 18 years in Shading county, in the east of the region, he has delivered more than 500 babies, many of whom had extremely difficult births.
Serving around 2,000 residents in 16 villages, 13 of which have no access to good roads, Losong Gyaltsen relies on his horse. A one-way trip to a village can take as long as seven days and he is accustomed to carrying supplies of food and water on his rounds.
He often crosses 5,000-meter-high mountains where the winter snow can reach as high as his knees and stones made unstable by the heavy flow of water crash into the ravines far below.
Losong Gyaltsen is among 1 million village doctors operating out of 648,000 health centers and providing treatment for isolated communities. However, low pay, harsh living conditions and a lack of new talent entering the field make life hard for many of Losong Gyaltsen's more senior colleagues, half of whom are aged 50 or older.
Those aged between 20 and 29 account for just 7 percent of the total, according to a 2012 report by the Ministry of Health. The poor working conditions and a negligible chance of promotion mean the younger generation looks elsewhere for more lucrative and easier ways of making a living.
"My grandmother died from an unspecified disease. She didn't receive any medical help because of the lack of village doctors. After she died, I decided to attend technicians' school, despite the fact that working in the villages is hard," said Losong Gyaltsen.
The young man is not talkative, but recalling the first time he delivered a baby made him smile shyly. "The patient was in great pain and her family was very nervous. Her first baby had died during a difficult labor. I was scared, but I had to try," he said.
When the woman successfully gave birth to a boy, the family members gathered to offer a prayer of thanks. "I felt so proud. Nothing is more meaningful than a new life," he said.
Losong Gyaltsen made a strong impression on Zhong Jing, 30, a village doctor from the southwestern province of Guizhou who was selected to deliver a two-minute speech in front of the vice-premier at the meeting on Saturday.
"He didn't speak Mandarin very well and it took a few minutes for us to discover his name," said Zhong, recalling the moment she saw Losong Gyaltsen for the first time. "Chinese women are shy and embarrassed to be treated by a man. It is definitely much harder to persuade women from ethnic groups to be treated by a man, especially if he is helping them to deliver a baby."
Unlike Losong Gyaltsen, Zhong already had some experience of meeting high-level officials and had traveled to Beijing on a number of occasions. Last year, she went to the capital four times to receive awards, including that of "excellent young worker".
In 2008, she quit her job at a public hospital in Guizhou and went to serve the 4,000 residents of Longhe village. That came about because her husband had been relocated by his employer, but when he was sent to the provincial capital after just three months, Zhong chose to stay with the rural community.
She recalled the day after her husband left. "Scores of villagers waited outside my house in the early morning. They had prepared rice, chicken and vegetables as gifts, hoping to persuade me to stay. I was told that an 87-year-old villager often thought of me in her last few days. That rarely happens in big hospitals, but the relationship between villagers and village doctors is more like that between relatives," she said.
During the past four years in Longhe village, she has used some of her savings to buy new equipment for the local health center, including ultrasound equipment. About 40 percent of the women in the village have been helped by the equipment she bought.
"On Friday, I was asked to tell one of the 'top officials' about the difficulties we encounter in our work, but it wasn't until the next morning that I discovered the 'top official' was the vice-premier," she said. "I was very nervous. When the meeting started, my hands were sweating so badly that my list of points became a mass of soggy paper," said Zhong.
Zhong told Li that two problems needed to be addressed - a lack of medical insurance to cover potential claims for negligence or accident, and the dearth of opportunities to upgrade their working knowledge.
After working in public and private hospitals for many years, Zhong said village doctors are liable for their own insurance and compensation and one slip can easily bankrupt them. She told how one local village doctor paid tens of thousands of yuan in compensation when a patient died after undergoing acupuncture treatment.
"We dare not to provide a wide variety of services, such as injections. We prefer to give patients traditional Chinese medicine or basic check-ups because of the risks," she said.
Most village doctors in China have studied at technical schools rather than medical colleges, but in rural areas they perform the same duties as general physicians in urban areas. Their job is often demanding because they are often the only option for residents, even in the most severe cases, as poor transport links restrict access to hospitals.
"Village doctors need better training to meet the demand. But in many rural areas even running water cannot be guaranteed, let alone the Internet," said Zhong. "Villagers sometimes ask us to treat their sick chickens, but of course, we don't know how to deal with them."
Zhou Yuehua, a 43-year-old village doctor from Chongqing in Southwest China, has difficulty walking. However, despite suffering from poliomyelitis, an acute infectious disease that causes flaccid paralysis of the muscles, Zhou continues to visit her patients every day with the help of her husband, Ai Qi, who sometimes carries his wife on his back as she makes her rounds. According to Zhou, low pay is a common problem among village doctors.
There are no official data on village doctors' incomes, but some regional health reports suggest that the annual income of a village doctor in western China's rural areas, including the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, is less than $1,604, or sometimes lower than $802 in the remoter areas.
In the coastal province of Jiangsu, a county-level village doctor earns around $2,407 annually. They were once allowed to set their own prices for medicine, but the practice was regulated when China's National Basic Medicine System was introduced two years ago.
"I earn just enough for the basic living requirements of two people, my husband and me. Sometimes, we don't charge senior patients with no wages. Our income would make raising a child almost impossible," said Zhou.
Losong Gyaltsen left his home in the Tibet autonomous region on New Year's Eve and set off on his first trip outside the area.
Despite the title "village doctor", the 33-year-old doesn't actually hold a medical degree, but is licensed to provide basic services in rural areas.
He traveled to Beijing to receive one of the awards being presented to China's 10 most respected village doctors, and had already earmarked a number of places to visit in the capital.
Like many people, the young man was looking forward to seeing Tian'anmen Square, but one place he never imagined he would visit was his "biggest surprise" - Zhongnanhai, the residential compound for China's top leaders in downtown Beijing.
Although the January day was sunny, the wind was bitterly cold. Losong Gyaltsen recalled the moment Vice-Premier Li Keqiang entered the room. "I was too nervous to speak, so I just kept saying 'hello'," he said.
The vice-premier met with 18 village doctors from across the country. All work in rural areas, but Losong Gyaltsen was the only one from Tibet. In his 18 years in Shading county, in the east of the region, he has delivered more than 500 babies, many of whom had extremely difficult births.
Serving around 2,000 residents in 16 villages, 13 of which have no access to good roads, Losong Gyaltsen relies on his horse. A one-way trip to a village can take as long as seven days and he is accustomed to carrying supplies of food and water on his rounds.
He often crosses 5,000-meter-high mountains where the winter snow can reach as high as his knees and stones made unstable by the heavy flow of water crash into the ravines far below.
Losong Gyaltsen is among 1 million village doctors operating out of 648,000 health centers and providing treatment for isolated communities. However, low pay, harsh living conditions and a lack of new talent entering the field make life hard for many of Losong Gyaltsen's more senior colleagues, half of whom are aged 50 or older.
Those aged between 20 and 29 account for just 7 percent of the total, according to a 2012 report by the Ministry of Health. The poor working conditions and a negligible chance of promotion mean the younger generation looks elsewhere for more lucrative and easier ways of making a living.
"My grandmother died from an unspecified disease. She didn't receive any medical help because of the lack of village doctors. After she died, I decided to attend technicians' school, despite the fact that working in the villages is hard," said Losong Gyaltsen.
The young man is not talkative, but recalling the first time he delivered a baby made him smile shyly. "The patient was in great pain and her family was very nervous. Her first baby had died during a difficult labor. I was scared, but I had to try," he said.
When the woman successfully gave birth to a boy, the family members gathered to offer a prayer of thanks. "I felt so proud. Nothing is more meaningful than a new life," he said.
Losong Gyaltsen made a strong impression on Zhong Jing, 30, a village doctor from the southwestern province of Guizhou who was selected to deliver a two-minute speech in front of the vice-premier at the meeting on Saturday.
"He didn't speak Mandarin very well and it took a few minutes for us to discover his name," said Zhong, recalling the moment she saw Losong Gyaltsen for the first time. "Chinese women are shy and embarrassed to be treated by a man. It is definitely much harder to persuade women from ethnic groups to be treated by a man, especially if he is helping them to deliver a baby."
Unlike Losong Gyaltsen, Zhong already had some experience of meeting high-level officials and had traveled to Beijing on a number of occasions. Last year, she went to the capital four times to receive awards, including that of "excellent young worker".
In 2008, she quit her job at a public hospital in Guizhou and went to serve the 4,000 residents of Longhe village. That came about because her husband had been relocated by his employer, but when he was sent to the provincial capital after just three months, Zhong chose to stay with the rural community.
She recalled the day after her husband left. "Scores of villagers waited outside my house in the early morning. They had prepared rice, chicken and vegetables as gifts, hoping to persuade me to stay. I was told that an 87-year-old villager often thought of me in her last few days. That rarely happens in big hospitals, but the relationship between villagers and village doctors is more like that between relatives," she said.
During the past four years in Longhe village, she has used some of her savings to buy new equipment for the local health center, including ultrasound equipment. About 40 percent of the women in the village have been helped by the equipment she bought.
"On Friday, I was asked to tell one of the 'top officials' about the difficulties we encounter in our work, but it wasn't until the next morning that I discovered the 'top official' was the vice-premier," she said. "I was very nervous. When the meeting started, my hands were sweating so badly that my list of points became a mass of soggy paper," said Zhong.
Zhong told Li that two problems needed to be addressed - a lack of medical insurance to cover potential claims for negligence or accident, and the dearth of opportunities to upgrade their working knowledge.
After working in public and private hospitals for many years, Zhong said village doctors are liable for their own insurance and compensation and one slip can easily bankrupt them. She told how one local village doctor paid tens of thousands of yuan in compensation when a patient died after undergoing acupuncture treatment.
"We dare not to provide a wide variety of services, such as injections. We prefer to give patients traditional Chinese medicine or basic check-ups because of the risks," she said.
Most village doctors in China have studied at technical schools rather than medical colleges, but in rural areas they perform the same duties as general physicians in urban areas. Their job is often demanding because they are often the only option for residents, even in the most severe cases, as poor transport links restrict access to hospitals.
"Village doctors need better training to meet the demand. But in many rural areas even running water cannot be guaranteed, let alone the Internet," said Zhong. "Villagers sometimes ask us to treat their sick chickens, but of course, we don't know how to deal with them."
Zhou Yuehua, a 43-year-old village doctor from Chongqing in Southwest China, has difficulty walking. However, despite suffering from poliomyelitis, an acute infectious disease that causes flaccid paralysis of the muscles, Zhou continues to visit her patients every day with the help of her husband, Ai Qi, who sometimes carries his wife on his back as she makes her rounds. According to Zhou, low pay is a common problem among village doctors.
There are no official data on village doctors' incomes, but some regional health reports suggest that the annual income of a village doctor in western China's rural areas, including the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, is less than $1,604, or sometimes lower than $802 in the remoter areas.
In the coastal province of Jiangsu, a county-level village doctor earns around $2,407 annually. They were once allowed to set their own prices for medicine, but the practice was regulated when China's National Basic Medicine System was introduced two years ago.
"I earn just enough for the basic living requirements of two people, my husband and me. Sometimes, we don't charge senior patients with no wages. Our income would make raising a child almost impossible," said Zhou.
Rugged Full HD models among Panasonic’s new camcorders
Along with a bunch of new digital cameras, Panasonic introduced seven video camcorders. One is a POV action cam and the others are full-featured video makers, including a waterproof edition.
The HX-A100 Wearable Camcorder is a bit different than the typical POV camcorder. The camera sits on an included ear hook so you can shoot hands-free without mounting it to a helmet, for example. A “Multi-Mount” option, however, is available for attaching the camera to a helmet or backpack if you’re not feeling so adventurous. It’s waterproof, too, and has built-in Wi-Fi to broadcast live video on UStream with simultaneous Full HD recording. You can upload recorded images to social networks by connecting through a smartphone or tablet.
The A100 features a waterproof design for outdoor shooting in water depths down to 5 feet for up to 30 minutes, plus it’s dustproof. Recording formats are 1920 x 1080/60 fps, 1280 x 720/120 fps, and 640 x 360/240 fps (for taking slo-mo and straight-ahead videos). It has Level Shot for automatic correction of tilting images, an image stabilizer to cut down the shakes, and 140 minutes of battery life.
Although Panasonic introduced five “classic” full-featured camcorders at the show, there are some differences from last year’s models. For 2013, far fewer have onboard flash memory, so you’ll have to use SDXC cards to save your footage. This really isn’t a big deal – it just allows the company to sell the camcorders at reduced costs.
As it typically does, Panasonic hits a number of bases, from the film student to new parents and grandparents. The 2013 lineup includes the HC-X920, HC-V720, HC-V520, HC-V210, and HC-V110. The HC-X920 has a new 3MOS System PRO with BSI (Back Side Illumination) sensor to enhance the three MOS sensors for excellent shooting performance, even in dim lighting situations. The use of the BSI sensor reduces noise to 50 percent of previous models, according to the company.
The X920, V720, and V520 all feature the new Level Shot function, which automatically adjusts tilting images, in addition to 5-Axis Correction Hybrid O.I.S. (image stabilization), which suppresses blurring. The camcorders also offer built-in Wi-Fi functions that allow live view control from a smartphone and enable real-time broadcasting via UStream.
The X920 is the star here, and caters to seasoned videographers. Along with the 3-chip system, it has a manual ring to control zoom, focus, iris, shutter speed, and white balance. A Level Gauge detects the horizontal and vertical angle of view with its internal level working with an acceleration sensor. This function corrects even slight tilting that is difficult to see with the naked eye, per Panasonic. Along with a 1,152,000-dot 3.5-inch touch-capable LCD it has an electronic viewfinder (EVF) rated 263,424-dots. Other nice features are the 29.8mm wide-angle lens and 5.1-channel surround recording.
Lastly, the HX-WA03 is a new rugged Full HD camcorder. In case you’re wondering why this product bears a resemblance to the old Sanyo Xacti cameras, we’re going to theorize that it probably has something to do with Panasonic’s acquisition of Sanyo. Designed for one-handed shooting, it’s waterproof down to 16 feet, dustproof, and freeze-proof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The camcorder can handle almost everything other than a drop onto rocks or concrete – don’t expect the durability like those in many rugged digicams. It has an 11.9MP MOS sensor so it not only takes Full HD movies, but 16MP stills using interpolation. The camcorder has nine filters to add some creative touches to your productions including One Point Color, Old Movie, Fish-eye Effect, HDR Paint, Soft Skin, Monochrome, Sepia, Vivid, and Soft. It has a new Active Digital Image Stabilizer and although there’s no Wi-Fi, it’s compatible with Eye-Fi cards.
It is illegal to talk or text on a handheld cell phone or similar device while driving under legislation passed by the 2011 Nevada Legislature.
As of Jan. 1, 2012, fines of up to $250 are being imposed for any driver using a handheld phone or similar device to talk, read or type.
Not only is cell phone use while driving banned in Nevada, but you are four times more likely to crash when driving while talking on a cell phone. In fact, driving while talking or texting can delay your reaction time as much as driving legally drunk, even if it is by Bluetooth or other hands-free method.
There are more than 3,500 distraction-related crashes in Nevada every year, and more than 60 deaths in the past five years. Across the nation in 2009, nearly 5,500 people died and half a million were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. The number is believed to represent only the tip of the iceberg because police reports cannot always document whether distraction was a factor in vehicle crashes.
Superintendent Mike Folks reported Monday that this year has been “a real challenge” to find people certified to teach driver’s education. Typically the district has two instructors and offers classes at Wakefield and Clay Center.
Lloyd Tiffany, who is certified and willing to teach driver’s ed., classes, proposed an idea to offer virtual classes through the Greenbush Consortium for up to 60 students at Clay Center. For students at the Clay Center location, Tiffany would proctor and teach the driving portion of the class that follows once they complete the final for classroom or online portion.
A traditional option taught by Lynn Wait will be offered for district students at Wakefield School, including the driving requirement.
This proposal would allow the district to offer the class to 26 more students than it has in the past. Folks reported that “many more kids would like to take driver’s ed.,” than what the district has been able to offer in the past -- 30 in Wakefield and 40 in Clay Center.
The district offers driver ed. classes for $150 per student, “a real bargain,” Folks said, because private lessons range from $350 to $400. Greenbush charges $120 per student for the online portion, and for that reason the district may have to adjust the fee schedule in upcoming this years.
But because there is enough carry-over in the driver’s ed. fund, about $80,000, the district will be able to offer the virtual classes without raising the fee this year. With more student fees collected and more in driver’s education reimbursement, the district would end up with about $90,000 in the driver’s ed. fund at the end of the year. That ending balance is a “projected” amount “but that could change based on enrollment, salaries and whether we purchase a vehicle out of that fund,” Folks said.
For that kind of forecast – or "nowcast" – you need a lot of data, and downloads of the app were slow for the first year. Then Superstorm Sandy started heading for the U.S. Users in the Northeast posted online, asking others with Android phones to help track the storm. Sheehy said active users doubled to around 2,000 in just a few days.
"I think the combination of people desiring to help and learn about science, and help researchers, along with this sort of unprecedented event, just drummed up a lot of enthusiasm and excitement," Sheehy said.
Now, new Android phone roll-outs, online mentions and media coverage have helped boost the number of active users to about 6,000 by Tuesday afternoon, according to Sheehy.
Phillyweather.net editor and occasional Newsworks.org contributor Tom Thunstrom said barometers used in forecasting now are typically just at airports and weather stations, often 10, 20, even 30 miles apart.
"If you've got 300 users that are within two to three miles contributing data, that's going to provide a lot more relevant and real time data, especially if it comes to thunderstorm aspect of it," Thunstrom said. "Thunderstorms can be very small scale. You can have a thunderstorm in the summer pop up over Center City while in South Philly, it's sunny."
The HX-A100 Wearable Camcorder is a bit different than the typical POV camcorder. The camera sits on an included ear hook so you can shoot hands-free without mounting it to a helmet, for example. A “Multi-Mount” option, however, is available for attaching the camera to a helmet or backpack if you’re not feeling so adventurous. It’s waterproof, too, and has built-in Wi-Fi to broadcast live video on UStream with simultaneous Full HD recording. You can upload recorded images to social networks by connecting through a smartphone or tablet.
The A100 features a waterproof design for outdoor shooting in water depths down to 5 feet for up to 30 minutes, plus it’s dustproof. Recording formats are 1920 x 1080/60 fps, 1280 x 720/120 fps, and 640 x 360/240 fps (for taking slo-mo and straight-ahead videos). It has Level Shot for automatic correction of tilting images, an image stabilizer to cut down the shakes, and 140 minutes of battery life.
Although Panasonic introduced five “classic” full-featured camcorders at the show, there are some differences from last year’s models. For 2013, far fewer have onboard flash memory, so you’ll have to use SDXC cards to save your footage. This really isn’t a big deal – it just allows the company to sell the camcorders at reduced costs.
As it typically does, Panasonic hits a number of bases, from the film student to new parents and grandparents. The 2013 lineup includes the HC-X920, HC-V720, HC-V520, HC-V210, and HC-V110. The HC-X920 has a new 3MOS System PRO with BSI (Back Side Illumination) sensor to enhance the three MOS sensors for excellent shooting performance, even in dim lighting situations. The use of the BSI sensor reduces noise to 50 percent of previous models, according to the company.
The X920, V720, and V520 all feature the new Level Shot function, which automatically adjusts tilting images, in addition to 5-Axis Correction Hybrid O.I.S. (image stabilization), which suppresses blurring. The camcorders also offer built-in Wi-Fi functions that allow live view control from a smartphone and enable real-time broadcasting via UStream.
The X920 is the star here, and caters to seasoned videographers. Along with the 3-chip system, it has a manual ring to control zoom, focus, iris, shutter speed, and white balance. A Level Gauge detects the horizontal and vertical angle of view with its internal level working with an acceleration sensor. This function corrects even slight tilting that is difficult to see with the naked eye, per Panasonic. Along with a 1,152,000-dot 3.5-inch touch-capable LCD it has an electronic viewfinder (EVF) rated 263,424-dots. Other nice features are the 29.8mm wide-angle lens and 5.1-channel surround recording.
Lastly, the HX-WA03 is a new rugged Full HD camcorder. In case you’re wondering why this product bears a resemblance to the old Sanyo Xacti cameras, we’re going to theorize that it probably has something to do with Panasonic’s acquisition of Sanyo. Designed for one-handed shooting, it’s waterproof down to 16 feet, dustproof, and freeze-proof to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The camcorder can handle almost everything other than a drop onto rocks or concrete – don’t expect the durability like those in many rugged digicams. It has an 11.9MP MOS sensor so it not only takes Full HD movies, but 16MP stills using interpolation. The camcorder has nine filters to add some creative touches to your productions including One Point Color, Old Movie, Fish-eye Effect, HDR Paint, Soft Skin, Monochrome, Sepia, Vivid, and Soft. It has a new Active Digital Image Stabilizer and although there’s no Wi-Fi, it’s compatible with Eye-Fi cards.
It is illegal to talk or text on a handheld cell phone or similar device while driving under legislation passed by the 2011 Nevada Legislature.
As of Jan. 1, 2012, fines of up to $250 are being imposed for any driver using a handheld phone or similar device to talk, read or type.
Not only is cell phone use while driving banned in Nevada, but you are four times more likely to crash when driving while talking on a cell phone. In fact, driving while talking or texting can delay your reaction time as much as driving legally drunk, even if it is by Bluetooth or other hands-free method.
There are more than 3,500 distraction-related crashes in Nevada every year, and more than 60 deaths in the past five years. Across the nation in 2009, nearly 5,500 people died and half a million were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. The number is believed to represent only the tip of the iceberg because police reports cannot always document whether distraction was a factor in vehicle crashes.
Superintendent Mike Folks reported Monday that this year has been “a real challenge” to find people certified to teach driver’s education. Typically the district has two instructors and offers classes at Wakefield and Clay Center.
Lloyd Tiffany, who is certified and willing to teach driver’s ed., classes, proposed an idea to offer virtual classes through the Greenbush Consortium for up to 60 students at Clay Center. For students at the Clay Center location, Tiffany would proctor and teach the driving portion of the class that follows once they complete the final for classroom or online portion.
A traditional option taught by Lynn Wait will be offered for district students at Wakefield School, including the driving requirement.
This proposal would allow the district to offer the class to 26 more students than it has in the past. Folks reported that “many more kids would like to take driver’s ed.,” than what the district has been able to offer in the past -- 30 in Wakefield and 40 in Clay Center.
The district offers driver ed. classes for $150 per student, “a real bargain,” Folks said, because private lessons range from $350 to $400. Greenbush charges $120 per student for the online portion, and for that reason the district may have to adjust the fee schedule in upcoming this years.
But because there is enough carry-over in the driver’s ed. fund, about $80,000, the district will be able to offer the virtual classes without raising the fee this year. With more student fees collected and more in driver’s education reimbursement, the district would end up with about $90,000 in the driver’s ed. fund at the end of the year. That ending balance is a “projected” amount “but that could change based on enrollment, salaries and whether we purchase a vehicle out of that fund,” Folks said.
For that kind of forecast – or "nowcast" – you need a lot of data, and downloads of the app were slow for the first year. Then Superstorm Sandy started heading for the U.S. Users in the Northeast posted online, asking others with Android phones to help track the storm. Sheehy said active users doubled to around 2,000 in just a few days.
"I think the combination of people desiring to help and learn about science, and help researchers, along with this sort of unprecedented event, just drummed up a lot of enthusiasm and excitement," Sheehy said.
Now, new Android phone roll-outs, online mentions and media coverage have helped boost the number of active users to about 6,000 by Tuesday afternoon, according to Sheehy.
Phillyweather.net editor and occasional Newsworks.org contributor Tom Thunstrom said barometers used in forecasting now are typically just at airports and weather stations, often 10, 20, even 30 miles apart.
"If you've got 300 users that are within two to three miles contributing data, that's going to provide a lot more relevant and real time data, especially if it comes to thunderstorm aspect of it," Thunstrom said. "Thunderstorms can be very small scale. You can have a thunderstorm in the summer pop up over Center City while in South Philly, it's sunny."
Sunday, January 6, 2013
The 7 most immediate questions now that NHL lockout is over
Sunday was set to be Day 113 of the dumb, stupid NHL lockout. While there will be time to examine the most senseless work stoppage in the history of sports, we've focused enough on boardroom talk; let us move to matters that don't require us to consult a lawyer.
It's been a while since we've done that. You remember Jaromir Jagr is in Dallas now, right? Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and members of the Minnesota Wild? And Rick Nash isn't in Columbus anymore? It's been that long. The Staples Center rafters are itching to raise another banner.
Details on the 2013 NHL season will be announced in the next few days and with training camps set to open up later this week things this time around will be a sprint, not a marathon. In the meantime, let's take a look at some of the biggest questions now that the lockout is finally over.
Even during a lockout, when no transactions could be made, Luongo could not escape the never-ending trade rumors that have followed him. Sportsnet's John Shannon reported in October that Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke and Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillies had agreed on a deal that would send the netminder to Toronto once the lockout ended.
Well, here we are. The CBA is set to be ratified in a few days and then player movement can restart. Does Luongo have a bag packed already? Cory Schneider signed a three-year deal with the Canucks in June and the Maple Leafs could really use a goaltender. Or is Luongo's presence too vital for the Canucks in a 48-52 game season to part with? Is it a match made in heaven or another rumor gone bad? If the deal is indeed true, let's hope Burke doesn't tell Luongo to change anything about his fantastic Twitter account.
Looks like the Los Angeles Kings won't have to worry about experiencing the dreaded "Stanley Cup hangover", huh? Every team has had a long enough off season that the only question will be who is in the best shape at the start? Many players spent the lockout either in the minor leagues or in Europe, but plenty of others have just been skating on their own with teammates. Teams like Edmonton and Carolina, who have had a number of youngsters playing in the AHL during the lockout, could shoot right out of the gate. Same for those with strong presences in net. With teams playing a compressed schedule, the need for a strong backup will be incredibly important.
Zach Parise, Ryan Suter. Rick Nash. James van Riemsdyk. Luke Schenn. Jaromir Jagr. Jordan Staal. Those are just a few of the bigger names who will have a new address this season. There won't be a lot of time for introductions and chemistry building on their new rosters, but these players will be relied upon to help lead their individual teams to success. Parise and Suter, along with Nash will be the most-watched "players with new teams" considering what the Minnesota Wild invested in the pair and the package that the New York Rangers gave up for the former Columbus Blue Jacket franchise face. In the Rangers' case, they're Stanley Cup contenders and Nash will be looked upon as the "final piece". For Parise and Suter, they may not be Cup contenders yet, but they acquisitions signaled the beginning of change in the Wild organization, once owner Craig Leipold is hoping pays off in a title.
The vitriol directed at Bettman from members of the NHLPA was unbelievable. From Kris Versteeg labeling him and NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly as "cancers" to Ian White calling Bettman an "idiot" to the numerous other NHLers taking shots at the NHL leadership, the emotions of these CBA negotiations were incredibly high all throughout the process. No one reached Chris Chelios levels of comments, but had this gone on a little longer maybe it would have. So where does that relationship go from here?
A cooling off period is in order and maybe once the games begin the hate will level off, but after a contentious few months, is there any salvaging the "mistrust" between the players and Bettman? He gets booed louder and louder every year when he hands out the Stanley Cup every June, but could you imagine the decibel level when the commissioner walks out on to the winning team's ice this year?
Teams will be able to spend up to $70.2 million (pro-rated) on their roster for this shortened season, with the cap floor set at $44 million. Beginning with next season, the ceiling will lower to $64.3 million. As of right now, eight teams -- Boston, Minnesota, Vancouver, Calgary, Philadelphia, San Jose, Chicago, and Buffalo -- are all over that number, according to CapGeek. Factor in teams being able to use up to two compliance buyouts after June with that money not counting against the salary cap and you can count on an active off-season with plenty of buzz. There might actually be a "Free Agent Frenzy" for once.
While the players and the league fought it out in a boardroom (and through the media), the fans, as usual, were left out in the cold wondering when their favorite NHL teams would return to action. Going through a lockout for the second time in eight years has potentially broken the relationship between some fans and the NHL. It remains to be seen what attendance numbers will look like when the games return, but the damage has been done and it's now up to both the league and players to work together to bring back those lost fans and rekindle the love from the diehards that have grown disgusted yet again.
There's talk that NHL GameCenter Live will be free for this season as an enticement. That's nice and all, but getting butts in the seats with lower ticket prices and major community efforts by players should be the focus to repairing relationships going forward.
The Hummer slalomed as we sped towards the sea west of Misrata. The dark asphalt was covered with sand on the edges, and I prayed Taha could keep the car from sliding out of control as it swung side to side on the twisting road. I kept thinking about what my father had taught me about a tire’s contact patch and how small it is; his father had been a champion racecar driver in Havana in 1920. I’ll never get to see Havana I thought sadly, convinced Taha was about to roll the car.
A white Mazda pickup appeared over a rise, coming straight at us. Taha expertly pulled right and slid the Hummer around him, lining us up on the sea road. We sat there for a second, staring at two T-55 tanks, burnt hulks that sat guard on the road like ghosts. Taha sat crouched in the driver’s seat, his sunglasses barely over the steering wheel as sweat covered his brow.
I was back in the US after two trips to Libya in three months when I pitched Dan Rather with the idea of doing a documentary on Muammar Qaddafi’s death. I used to be one of the UN’s war crimes investigators in Libya after the war. I primarily looked at NATO’s bombing. But we were short staffed, and so I was also given the lead on investigating Qaddafi’s death. The UN wanted to know if he was “EJE’d” or Extra-judicially Executed as they say in international legal circles. It was an odd request I thought. Who gives a shit if he was EJE’d I asked? Should we give the guy a medal? If someone popped Bashar al-Assad earlier in Syria wouldn’t we all just be better off? Maybe so, but this was serious stuff so I went about it seriously doing two trips to Libya—November 2011 and January 2012—along with a team of about a dozen war crimes investigators.
Working for the UN is funny. Everyone thinks we have some great karmic authority. It is as if people say, oh, it’s the UN, how can we help? The reality is sometimes you show up at a site and an old bespectacled Libyan in fatigues and a beret tells you, “Take your fucking paper and shove it up your ass,” in perfect English. We drive around in huge white Land Rovers that scream “HERE I AM, SHOOT ME” and we are often confined to base for security reasons while our colleagues and friends in human rights organizations and the press call us from shisha bars on the beach in Tripoli telling us “It’s safe. Get your ass out here.”
We flew to Libya via Rome in November, shortly after Qaddafi was killed. There were 12 investigators, a chief of security, and a close protection guy that had the guns. The chief of security was a massive dark-skinned Brazilian and the close protection guy was a dashingly handsome Tunisian who never stopped smiling. We flew to Rome from Geneva when the Italian police showed up. It was a buffet of heavily accented English.
We flew on one of the oldest MD-80s on the planet. The MD-80 has a staircase in the rear of the aircraft. Fabulous design. The ass of the plane is a huge cone that just swings aside to let the stairs down. The cone on this plane didn’t seem to seal great. There was a constant whistling in the plane and it was icy cold inside.
We carried blue UN passports called “LPs” or Laissez Passer, literally LET PASS. They are a curious document that not every country accepts. I took mine out at passport control and faced a young man in mismatched camouflage: blue navy pattern pants with desert shirt. Rebel chic, I thought. “Please mister,” he asked, “which is the Libyan VISA?” I stared at him a second, flipped past a half dozen or so orange and green striped Afghan VISAs and finally found the blue-green Libyan one.
We drove to the UN base and my jaw hit the floor. Every UN facility has to be MOSS certified by meeting the Minimum Operational Security Standards. Part of that means they need to be able to secure a compound, and the only one they could find in Tripoli was a five-star beach resort. It was stunning. I had a lovely villa. There was a state of the art gym, swimming pool, Jacuzzi, and sauna. Coming from Afghanistan where I had lived in relative squalor I thought I had finally found a mission where life could be as good as the work.
As we prepared to set out the next day we all gathered for the morning security briefing. The Brazilian reviewed where everyone would be and when and made sure we had our phones set and radios on.
“What’s the freek?” I asked, wanting to know what the frequency was for the radio in the Land Rovers. In dangerous places like Afghanistan where cell phones may not cover everything you need a way to communicate so handheld radios are crucial. But they only have a range of a mile or so. To remedy this the UN places repeaters throughout the country and every vehicle has a powerful radio that is always in touch with base via the repeaters. No matter where you go you always know that radio works and your life may depend on it.
It's been a while since we've done that. You remember Jaromir Jagr is in Dallas now, right? Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and members of the Minnesota Wild? And Rick Nash isn't in Columbus anymore? It's been that long. The Staples Center rafters are itching to raise another banner.
Details on the 2013 NHL season will be announced in the next few days and with training camps set to open up later this week things this time around will be a sprint, not a marathon. In the meantime, let's take a look at some of the biggest questions now that the lockout is finally over.
Even during a lockout, when no transactions could be made, Luongo could not escape the never-ending trade rumors that have followed him. Sportsnet's John Shannon reported in October that Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke and Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillies had agreed on a deal that would send the netminder to Toronto once the lockout ended.
Well, here we are. The CBA is set to be ratified in a few days and then player movement can restart. Does Luongo have a bag packed already? Cory Schneider signed a three-year deal with the Canucks in June and the Maple Leafs could really use a goaltender. Or is Luongo's presence too vital for the Canucks in a 48-52 game season to part with? Is it a match made in heaven or another rumor gone bad? If the deal is indeed true, let's hope Burke doesn't tell Luongo to change anything about his fantastic Twitter account.
Looks like the Los Angeles Kings won't have to worry about experiencing the dreaded "Stanley Cup hangover", huh? Every team has had a long enough off season that the only question will be who is in the best shape at the start? Many players spent the lockout either in the minor leagues or in Europe, but plenty of others have just been skating on their own with teammates. Teams like Edmonton and Carolina, who have had a number of youngsters playing in the AHL during the lockout, could shoot right out of the gate. Same for those with strong presences in net. With teams playing a compressed schedule, the need for a strong backup will be incredibly important.
Zach Parise, Ryan Suter. Rick Nash. James van Riemsdyk. Luke Schenn. Jaromir Jagr. Jordan Staal. Those are just a few of the bigger names who will have a new address this season. There won't be a lot of time for introductions and chemistry building on their new rosters, but these players will be relied upon to help lead their individual teams to success. Parise and Suter, along with Nash will be the most-watched "players with new teams" considering what the Minnesota Wild invested in the pair and the package that the New York Rangers gave up for the former Columbus Blue Jacket franchise face. In the Rangers' case, they're Stanley Cup contenders and Nash will be looked upon as the "final piece". For Parise and Suter, they may not be Cup contenders yet, but they acquisitions signaled the beginning of change in the Wild organization, once owner Craig Leipold is hoping pays off in a title.
The vitriol directed at Bettman from members of the NHLPA was unbelievable. From Kris Versteeg labeling him and NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly as "cancers" to Ian White calling Bettman an "idiot" to the numerous other NHLers taking shots at the NHL leadership, the emotions of these CBA negotiations were incredibly high all throughout the process. No one reached Chris Chelios levels of comments, but had this gone on a little longer maybe it would have. So where does that relationship go from here?
A cooling off period is in order and maybe once the games begin the hate will level off, but after a contentious few months, is there any salvaging the "mistrust" between the players and Bettman? He gets booed louder and louder every year when he hands out the Stanley Cup every June, but could you imagine the decibel level when the commissioner walks out on to the winning team's ice this year?
Teams will be able to spend up to $70.2 million (pro-rated) on their roster for this shortened season, with the cap floor set at $44 million. Beginning with next season, the ceiling will lower to $64.3 million. As of right now, eight teams -- Boston, Minnesota, Vancouver, Calgary, Philadelphia, San Jose, Chicago, and Buffalo -- are all over that number, according to CapGeek. Factor in teams being able to use up to two compliance buyouts after June with that money not counting against the salary cap and you can count on an active off-season with plenty of buzz. There might actually be a "Free Agent Frenzy" for once.
While the players and the league fought it out in a boardroom (and through the media), the fans, as usual, were left out in the cold wondering when their favorite NHL teams would return to action. Going through a lockout for the second time in eight years has potentially broken the relationship between some fans and the NHL. It remains to be seen what attendance numbers will look like when the games return, but the damage has been done and it's now up to both the league and players to work together to bring back those lost fans and rekindle the love from the diehards that have grown disgusted yet again.
There's talk that NHL GameCenter Live will be free for this season as an enticement. That's nice and all, but getting butts in the seats with lower ticket prices and major community efforts by players should be the focus to repairing relationships going forward.
The Hummer slalomed as we sped towards the sea west of Misrata. The dark asphalt was covered with sand on the edges, and I prayed Taha could keep the car from sliding out of control as it swung side to side on the twisting road. I kept thinking about what my father had taught me about a tire’s contact patch and how small it is; his father had been a champion racecar driver in Havana in 1920. I’ll never get to see Havana I thought sadly, convinced Taha was about to roll the car.
A white Mazda pickup appeared over a rise, coming straight at us. Taha expertly pulled right and slid the Hummer around him, lining us up on the sea road. We sat there for a second, staring at two T-55 tanks, burnt hulks that sat guard on the road like ghosts. Taha sat crouched in the driver’s seat, his sunglasses barely over the steering wheel as sweat covered his brow.
I was back in the US after two trips to Libya in three months when I pitched Dan Rather with the idea of doing a documentary on Muammar Qaddafi’s death. I used to be one of the UN’s war crimes investigators in Libya after the war. I primarily looked at NATO’s bombing. But we were short staffed, and so I was also given the lead on investigating Qaddafi’s death. The UN wanted to know if he was “EJE’d” or Extra-judicially Executed as they say in international legal circles. It was an odd request I thought. Who gives a shit if he was EJE’d I asked? Should we give the guy a medal? If someone popped Bashar al-Assad earlier in Syria wouldn’t we all just be better off? Maybe so, but this was serious stuff so I went about it seriously doing two trips to Libya—November 2011 and January 2012—along with a team of about a dozen war crimes investigators.
Working for the UN is funny. Everyone thinks we have some great karmic authority. It is as if people say, oh, it’s the UN, how can we help? The reality is sometimes you show up at a site and an old bespectacled Libyan in fatigues and a beret tells you, “Take your fucking paper and shove it up your ass,” in perfect English. We drive around in huge white Land Rovers that scream “HERE I AM, SHOOT ME” and we are often confined to base for security reasons while our colleagues and friends in human rights organizations and the press call us from shisha bars on the beach in Tripoli telling us “It’s safe. Get your ass out here.”
We flew to Libya via Rome in November, shortly after Qaddafi was killed. There were 12 investigators, a chief of security, and a close protection guy that had the guns. The chief of security was a massive dark-skinned Brazilian and the close protection guy was a dashingly handsome Tunisian who never stopped smiling. We flew to Rome from Geneva when the Italian police showed up. It was a buffet of heavily accented English.
We flew on one of the oldest MD-80s on the planet. The MD-80 has a staircase in the rear of the aircraft. Fabulous design. The ass of the plane is a huge cone that just swings aside to let the stairs down. The cone on this plane didn’t seem to seal great. There was a constant whistling in the plane and it was icy cold inside.
We carried blue UN passports called “LPs” or Laissez Passer, literally LET PASS. They are a curious document that not every country accepts. I took mine out at passport control and faced a young man in mismatched camouflage: blue navy pattern pants with desert shirt. Rebel chic, I thought. “Please mister,” he asked, “which is the Libyan VISA?” I stared at him a second, flipped past a half dozen or so orange and green striped Afghan VISAs and finally found the blue-green Libyan one.
We drove to the UN base and my jaw hit the floor. Every UN facility has to be MOSS certified by meeting the Minimum Operational Security Standards. Part of that means they need to be able to secure a compound, and the only one they could find in Tripoli was a five-star beach resort. It was stunning. I had a lovely villa. There was a state of the art gym, swimming pool, Jacuzzi, and sauna. Coming from Afghanistan where I had lived in relative squalor I thought I had finally found a mission where life could be as good as the work.
As we prepared to set out the next day we all gathered for the morning security briefing. The Brazilian reviewed where everyone would be and when and made sure we had our phones set and radios on.
“What’s the freek?” I asked, wanting to know what the frequency was for the radio in the Land Rovers. In dangerous places like Afghanistan where cell phones may not cover everything you need a way to communicate so handheld radios are crucial. But they only have a range of a mile or so. To remedy this the UN places repeaters throughout the country and every vehicle has a powerful radio that is always in touch with base via the repeaters. No matter where you go you always know that radio works and your life may depend on it.
Let girls be girls
Putting the words "gender" and "games" into the same article can often be a very combustible mix, especially if you also add the hint of "sexism", but as the dad of a three-year-old daughter, I've begun to notice how few games let you switch easily between male and female lead characters.
We often play games together on a tablet or phone, and I first saw what an effect the gender of the lead character had on my daughter with the game Temple Run. The default character is a male explorer, but my daughter had noticed that there were female faces on the upgrade page. One night, I absentmindedly played it for ages on the iPad while watching football, collecting enough coins to unlock the cunning escape artist Scarlett Fox. Once I'd done that, I selected her as the character to play with, and then waited to see what my daughter's reaction would be.
When she picked it up the next day, she nearly exploded with joy. "It's a girl – just like me!" she shouted (even though in truth you only see the character very briefly from the front before a pretty gender-neutral ponytail becomes the only indication that she is female).
But I really noticed how much it meant to her the next time I let her play it on my phone. The game wasn't synced on this device, so Scarlett wasn't available. When she started playing it, she was horrified. She'd had a glimpse of being able to play as a woman, and she didn't want to go return to the game's default position – that escaping from rabid mutant-skulled monkeys is a man's job.
Now we've started on Sid Meier's Pirates for the iPad. I didn't intend it as a shared game, but she spotted the pirate icon on the screen and kept asking if she could play pirates. I explained that it involved lots of reading, which made her suspect it might secretly be work for a while, but eventually I showed the app to her, saying she could watch me play it for a little bit. Of course, within 90 seconds, she'd seized the iPad, taken control of my fleet, and was barking out orders for me. Kids can be like that. She won her first sword-fight when she said she wanted to try one, which filled me with a mixture of pride at how quickly she'd picked up how to do it, and horror at how naturally fighting had come to her.
I've started a new game and named the pirate after her, but that is the most customisation I can do. The story will remain that a resolutely male Mr Emma is trying to avenge his family's disgrace, and win the hand of the daughter of one of the colony overlords. I'd love her to be able to have the adventure as a swashbuckling female pirate instead.
Now, there is of course an open question about whether a three-year-old should be trying to escape from rabid mutant-skulled monkeys, or playing pirate games at all. It is very difficult to gauge the right level of exposure to games. We enjoy playing them together and have a lot of fun, but she does plenty of other things like puzzles, card games, drawing and jumping into muddy puddles too.
I was a good few years older before I had access to handheld electronic games, although I remember a friend having a Casio watch that played a Space Invaders style game when I was at school that we all coveted. My dad, on the other hand, didn't get a TV at home until he was in his teens. Our children grow up taking the technology around them for granted, and I think there is a lot of value in getting my daughter familiar with computers and touchscreen tablets. There are apps on the phone that are helping to teach her phonics and learn to do maths, and she can already both write and type a few words. Kids aren't scared that they are going to "break" a computer or "do the wrong thing" in the way that adults tend to be when approaching technology.
But it is the gender thing that has intrigued me most. Mike Hoye has made himself a hero among techie dads by hacking a computer game to allow his daughter to play it as a girl. He said that "It's annoying and awkward, to put it mildly, having to do gender translation on the fly" when reading out the text adventure game they were playing together, and so he edited the game's binary code to change all of the pronouns and replace all the references to "swordsman" and "my lad".
I was really taken aback by how strong my daughter's affinity with the female character was at such an early age – it obviously really meant something to her, even though I've never really noticed her pay much attention to gender before. She chose a Barbie once when we let her pick a toy to buy from a local table-top sale, but she also likes robots, dinosaurs, a lion cub she has that she has to feed milk to, and she says that she wants to go and watch football when she is "a little bit more grown-up". I hope she'll grow up to be the kind of girl who hands in this kind of response to homework assignments suggesting toys only belong to boys or girls.
I'm not skilled enough to do something like Mike Hoye did – and you'd struggle to do it with Apple's closed iOS systems anyway. But I'd really like to just have more games which made it easy to switch genders, and had strong female lead characters for us to play together as she grows up.
David Graeber — of Occupy Wall Street fame — has written, in Debt: The First 5,000 Years, a grand intellectual project and a call for action. He investigates debt across time and across cultures and finds it to be a primary institution, preceding exchange, money and any notion of “the economy.” Debt is a building block for ever more elaborate social organization, because it creates fluid structures of subordination. Though in principle the sum of all debts should equal the sum of all credits, in practice debtors are many and creditors few. Today, there is growing concern about income inequality in America — but it is wealth inequality that captures the relation of debtors and creditors.
Debt is central to most Americans’ life experience. We obtain housing, education, transport and medical services through our access to credit — and as such we spend most of our lives deeply indebted. How dispiriting debt is; it gnaws at us, this non-dischargeable burden.
But most Americans begin life woefully undercapitalized for the life we lead — we are unable to purchase homes, raise families, provide for medical care or retirement, or even buy cars and refrigerators, from our own resources. Rather, we stealthily borrow to enjoy “basic” requirements, taking comfort, I suppose, in the notion that everyone does it. And Americans are, of course, rich. The life cycle of most Americans involves getting a job and then using one’s anticipated future income to access credit, which is then used for obtaining life’s necessities (and then some). The resulting debt persists thereafter; we no longer celebrate paying off mortgages, we refinance and extend up through the hour of our death.
And so, as a matter of identity, we Americans find ourselves to be either debtors or creditors. David Graeber’s brilliant gift to the Occupy Movement, his slogan/manifesto, expresses this division: “We are the 99 percent!”
Debt is a larger phenomenon, of course, than our personal obligations. Our institutions are also indebted. Pity our “poor” universities, saddled by witless borrowings to pay for tony student centers, luxo-dorms, and pampered professors. Cities and towns cut back on public services as debt takes greater bites from budgets. States watch their credit ratings slide with each new social program. Indeed, a progressive’s take on the current budgetary stalemate (the proverbial Fiscal Cliff) involves a cynical embrace of public debt reduction by the “fiscal conservatives” in order to justify rollback of social entitlements.
The current financial stress has revealed all these points of weakness. And even at the highest level of social organization — the interactions among sovereign nation-states — we find debt everywhere. There is the unconscionable and unpayable debt owed by the world’s poorest countries; if any debt merits a Jubilee it is certainly this. But even rich countries (the United States first among them) are significantly indebted.
The United States remains a special case — for the technical reason that its debt is expressed in dollars, the value of which the United States partly controls. And so we have the curious situation of complete fiscal and political dysfunction, while the United States continues to borrow at seductively low rates — signaling that (at least for the moment) our usual creditors are not perturbed by our antics. Graeber also explores these “higher” categories of debt — though he perhaps too easily presumes that national debt differs from common debt in degree and not in kind.
We often play games together on a tablet or phone, and I first saw what an effect the gender of the lead character had on my daughter with the game Temple Run. The default character is a male explorer, but my daughter had noticed that there were female faces on the upgrade page. One night, I absentmindedly played it for ages on the iPad while watching football, collecting enough coins to unlock the cunning escape artist Scarlett Fox. Once I'd done that, I selected her as the character to play with, and then waited to see what my daughter's reaction would be.
When she picked it up the next day, she nearly exploded with joy. "It's a girl – just like me!" she shouted (even though in truth you only see the character very briefly from the front before a pretty gender-neutral ponytail becomes the only indication that she is female).
But I really noticed how much it meant to her the next time I let her play it on my phone. The game wasn't synced on this device, so Scarlett wasn't available. When she started playing it, she was horrified. She'd had a glimpse of being able to play as a woman, and she didn't want to go return to the game's default position – that escaping from rabid mutant-skulled monkeys is a man's job.
Now we've started on Sid Meier's Pirates for the iPad. I didn't intend it as a shared game, but she spotted the pirate icon on the screen and kept asking if she could play pirates. I explained that it involved lots of reading, which made her suspect it might secretly be work for a while, but eventually I showed the app to her, saying she could watch me play it for a little bit. Of course, within 90 seconds, she'd seized the iPad, taken control of my fleet, and was barking out orders for me. Kids can be like that. She won her first sword-fight when she said she wanted to try one, which filled me with a mixture of pride at how quickly she'd picked up how to do it, and horror at how naturally fighting had come to her.
I've started a new game and named the pirate after her, but that is the most customisation I can do. The story will remain that a resolutely male Mr Emma is trying to avenge his family's disgrace, and win the hand of the daughter of one of the colony overlords. I'd love her to be able to have the adventure as a swashbuckling female pirate instead.
Now, there is of course an open question about whether a three-year-old should be trying to escape from rabid mutant-skulled monkeys, or playing pirate games at all. It is very difficult to gauge the right level of exposure to games. We enjoy playing them together and have a lot of fun, but she does plenty of other things like puzzles, card games, drawing and jumping into muddy puddles too.
I was a good few years older before I had access to handheld electronic games, although I remember a friend having a Casio watch that played a Space Invaders style game when I was at school that we all coveted. My dad, on the other hand, didn't get a TV at home until he was in his teens. Our children grow up taking the technology around them for granted, and I think there is a lot of value in getting my daughter familiar with computers and touchscreen tablets. There are apps on the phone that are helping to teach her phonics and learn to do maths, and she can already both write and type a few words. Kids aren't scared that they are going to "break" a computer or "do the wrong thing" in the way that adults tend to be when approaching technology.
But it is the gender thing that has intrigued me most. Mike Hoye has made himself a hero among techie dads by hacking a computer game to allow his daughter to play it as a girl. He said that "It's annoying and awkward, to put it mildly, having to do gender translation on the fly" when reading out the text adventure game they were playing together, and so he edited the game's binary code to change all of the pronouns and replace all the references to "swordsman" and "my lad".
I was really taken aback by how strong my daughter's affinity with the female character was at such an early age – it obviously really meant something to her, even though I've never really noticed her pay much attention to gender before. She chose a Barbie once when we let her pick a toy to buy from a local table-top sale, but she also likes robots, dinosaurs, a lion cub she has that she has to feed milk to, and she says that she wants to go and watch football when she is "a little bit more grown-up". I hope she'll grow up to be the kind of girl who hands in this kind of response to homework assignments suggesting toys only belong to boys or girls.
I'm not skilled enough to do something like Mike Hoye did – and you'd struggle to do it with Apple's closed iOS systems anyway. But I'd really like to just have more games which made it easy to switch genders, and had strong female lead characters for us to play together as she grows up.
David Graeber — of Occupy Wall Street fame — has written, in Debt: The First 5,000 Years, a grand intellectual project and a call for action. He investigates debt across time and across cultures and finds it to be a primary institution, preceding exchange, money and any notion of “the economy.” Debt is a building block for ever more elaborate social organization, because it creates fluid structures of subordination. Though in principle the sum of all debts should equal the sum of all credits, in practice debtors are many and creditors few. Today, there is growing concern about income inequality in America — but it is wealth inequality that captures the relation of debtors and creditors.
Debt is central to most Americans’ life experience. We obtain housing, education, transport and medical services through our access to credit — and as such we spend most of our lives deeply indebted. How dispiriting debt is; it gnaws at us, this non-dischargeable burden.
But most Americans begin life woefully undercapitalized for the life we lead — we are unable to purchase homes, raise families, provide for medical care or retirement, or even buy cars and refrigerators, from our own resources. Rather, we stealthily borrow to enjoy “basic” requirements, taking comfort, I suppose, in the notion that everyone does it. And Americans are, of course, rich. The life cycle of most Americans involves getting a job and then using one’s anticipated future income to access credit, which is then used for obtaining life’s necessities (and then some). The resulting debt persists thereafter; we no longer celebrate paying off mortgages, we refinance and extend up through the hour of our death.
And so, as a matter of identity, we Americans find ourselves to be either debtors or creditors. David Graeber’s brilliant gift to the Occupy Movement, his slogan/manifesto, expresses this division: “We are the 99 percent!”
Debt is a larger phenomenon, of course, than our personal obligations. Our institutions are also indebted. Pity our “poor” universities, saddled by witless borrowings to pay for tony student centers, luxo-dorms, and pampered professors. Cities and towns cut back on public services as debt takes greater bites from budgets. States watch their credit ratings slide with each new social program. Indeed, a progressive’s take on the current budgetary stalemate (the proverbial Fiscal Cliff) involves a cynical embrace of public debt reduction by the “fiscal conservatives” in order to justify rollback of social entitlements.
The current financial stress has revealed all these points of weakness. And even at the highest level of social organization — the interactions among sovereign nation-states — we find debt everywhere. There is the unconscionable and unpayable debt owed by the world’s poorest countries; if any debt merits a Jubilee it is certainly this. But even rich countries (the United States first among them) are significantly indebted.
The United States remains a special case — for the technical reason that its debt is expressed in dollars, the value of which the United States partly controls. And so we have the curious situation of complete fiscal and political dysfunction, while the United States continues to borrow at seductively low rates — signaling that (at least for the moment) our usual creditors are not perturbed by our antics. Graeber also explores these “higher” categories of debt — though he perhaps too easily presumes that national debt differs from common debt in degree and not in kind.
Friday, January 4, 2013
I Switched To The Nexus 4
Over the past few years I’ve invested a lot into Apple’s products and services. If you come by my house, you’d find four of the latest Apple TVs, two iMacs, the latest MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro, more than five AirPort Express stations and Apple’s Time Capsule. You could touch every single iPhone, from the first up to the iPhone 5, iPads ranging from first generation to fourth and we recently added two iPad minis.
My iTunes Library comprises well over 8000 songs — all purchased via the iTunes Store.No matter whom you would ask, everybody will confirm that I’m what some folks call an Apple fanboy.
When the latest Google flagship Android device shipped, I almost expected it to turn out as yet another “take-a-look-and-sell-it-on-ebay” experience. Little did I know.
It’s now almost two weeks since I switched the Nexus 4 on for the first time — and meanwhile I completely moved to it, leaving my iPhone 5 at home. Do I miss anything? Nope. Except iMessage. More on that later.
My motivation is not to bash Platform A over Platform B. On the contrary: I will try to summarise my very personal findings and experiences based on years of using iOS. I’ve seen the Apple platform evolve while Android was playing catch-up for so long. When iOS 6 came out, for the first time I complained about the lack of innovation in this major new release. I asked myself, whether we might see Apple beginning to lose its leading position in mobile platforms.
I’m not the average smartphone owner, who makes just a couple of calls every now and then or runs an app once in a while. By the nature of my job and out of curiosity, I deal a lot with social media outlets, social networks and constantly try new services. With that said, my judgement might not be suitable for everyone. In case you consider yourself being a demanding power user, though, you might find this helpful.
I know there are benchmarks which measure all kinds of technical performance on a very detailed level. That’s not what I’ve done and, honestly, I’m not interested into that much. I’m talking about the performance I feel in my daily use.
Using the Nexus 4 with Android 4.2.1 is a pure pleasure when it comes to performance. I don’t exactly know what Google has done with “Project Butter” in Jelly Bean, but the result is astonishing. In the past, Android felt laggy, sometimes even slow and responses to gestures didn’t feel half as immediate as on iOS.
I’d say both platforms are at least even. In some cases, Android even feels a bit ahead of iOS 6. I especially got this impression when it comes to rapidly switching between apps — which I constantly do now — and scrolling through a huge number of more complex content.
While Android still doesn’t give you bouncing lists and scroll views — primarily, because Apple has a patent for this specific behaviour — every transition between views has been reworked, polished and modernised. In most cases, it feels more modern, clean and up-to-date than its iOS counterpart.
In fact, I think iOS has reached a point where usability starts to significantly decrease due to the many workarounds that Apple has introduced. All of these just to prevent exposing a paradigm like a file system or allowing apps to securely talk to each others. There is a better way of doing this. Apples knows about it but simply keeps ignoring the issues.
On Android, it’s quite the opposite. One can see the most obvious example when it comes to handling all sorts of files and sharing.
Let’s assume I receive an email with a PDF attachment which I’d like to use in some other apps and maybe post to a social network later.
On iOS, the user is forced to think around Apple’s constraints. There is no easy way to just detach the file from the email and subsequently use it in what ever way I want. Instead, all iOS apps that want to expose some sort of sharing feature, do have to completely take care for it themselves. The result is a fairly inconsistent, unsatisfying user experience.
On iOS, you might use the somewhat odd “Open in…” feature — in case the developer was so kind to implement it — to first move the file over to Dropbox, which gives you a virtual cloud-based file system. If you’re lucky, the other app, from which you want to use the file next, offers Dropbox integration, too, so you can re-download it and start from there. All because Apple denies the necessity of basic cross-app local storage.
I can detach the file to a local folder and further work with it from there. Leveraging every single app that handles PDF files. In case I receive a bunch of MP3 files, I can do the same. And every app that somehow can handle audio playback, can reuse those mp3 files.
Another great example: Sharing stuff on social networks. On iOS, I have to rely on the developers again. Flipboard, as one of the better examples, gives me the ability to directly share with Google+, Twitter and Facebook. On my Nexus 4, I have 20+ options. That is, because every app I install can register as a sharing provider. It’s a core feature of the Android operating system.
But it goes even further: On Android, I can change the default handlers for specific file types — much like I’m used to from desktop operating systems.
If, for example, you’re not happy with the stock Photo Gallery application, that shows up whenever an app wants you to pick an image, you can simply install one from over a hundred alternatives and tell Android to use it as its new default. The next time you post a photo with the Facebook app — or have to pick an image from within any other app — your favourite gallery picker shows up instead of Android’s own.
All of this is entirely impossible on iOS today. I’ve stopped counting how often I felt annoyed because I clicked a link to a location in Mobile Safari and would have loved the Google Maps app to launch. Instead, Apple’s own Maps app is hard-coded into the system. And there’s no way for me to change it.
First, the obvious one: The lack of a centralised quality control and review. It’s great for encouraging variety, but obviously it also allows for some really cheap productions to be published to the store. Usually, you can spot those immediately from the screenshots on Google Play.
The second reason is more low-level: The way developers declare user interfaces (it’s primarily done in an XML configuration file) allows for rapidly hammering together dirty UIs. That’s what happens a lot and users can see and feel it. iOS developers tend to be more aware to involve designers and iOS UIs cannot be crapped together as easily.
However, I no longer feel as though the apps I use most greatly fall behind their iOS counterparts.
The Facebook app is identical in terms of the look and feel and its features. As a plus, it has better cross-app integration. The Google+ app is better on Android, but that’s to be expected. Flipboard is fantastic on Android, plus better integration. The same is true for Pulse News. The list goes on: Instagram, Path, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Quora, Pocket, Amazon Kindle, Spotify, Shazam and Google Talk. They are all great on Android. Plus better integration. Plus home screen widgets. You sense a scheme here?
And if you want to experience some real UI magic — even if you just need an argument when you’re bumping into an iPhone owner the next time — install Zime, a highly addictive calendar for Android which features a smooth 3D animation and really innovative UI.
My iTunes Library comprises well over 8000 songs — all purchased via the iTunes Store.No matter whom you would ask, everybody will confirm that I’m what some folks call an Apple fanboy.
When the latest Google flagship Android device shipped, I almost expected it to turn out as yet another “take-a-look-and-sell-it-on-ebay” experience. Little did I know.
It’s now almost two weeks since I switched the Nexus 4 on for the first time — and meanwhile I completely moved to it, leaving my iPhone 5 at home. Do I miss anything? Nope. Except iMessage. More on that later.
My motivation is not to bash Platform A over Platform B. On the contrary: I will try to summarise my very personal findings and experiences based on years of using iOS. I’ve seen the Apple platform evolve while Android was playing catch-up for so long. When iOS 6 came out, for the first time I complained about the lack of innovation in this major new release. I asked myself, whether we might see Apple beginning to lose its leading position in mobile platforms.
I’m not the average smartphone owner, who makes just a couple of calls every now and then or runs an app once in a while. By the nature of my job and out of curiosity, I deal a lot with social media outlets, social networks and constantly try new services. With that said, my judgement might not be suitable for everyone. In case you consider yourself being a demanding power user, though, you might find this helpful.
I know there are benchmarks which measure all kinds of technical performance on a very detailed level. That’s not what I’ve done and, honestly, I’m not interested into that much. I’m talking about the performance I feel in my daily use.
Using the Nexus 4 with Android 4.2.1 is a pure pleasure when it comes to performance. I don’t exactly know what Google has done with “Project Butter” in Jelly Bean, but the result is astonishing. In the past, Android felt laggy, sometimes even slow and responses to gestures didn’t feel half as immediate as on iOS.
I’d say both platforms are at least even. In some cases, Android even feels a bit ahead of iOS 6. I especially got this impression when it comes to rapidly switching between apps — which I constantly do now — and scrolling through a huge number of more complex content.
While Android still doesn’t give you bouncing lists and scroll views — primarily, because Apple has a patent for this specific behaviour — every transition between views has been reworked, polished and modernised. In most cases, it feels more modern, clean and up-to-date than its iOS counterpart.
In fact, I think iOS has reached a point where usability starts to significantly decrease due to the many workarounds that Apple has introduced. All of these just to prevent exposing a paradigm like a file system or allowing apps to securely talk to each others. There is a better way of doing this. Apples knows about it but simply keeps ignoring the issues.
On Android, it’s quite the opposite. One can see the most obvious example when it comes to handling all sorts of files and sharing.
Let’s assume I receive an email with a PDF attachment which I’d like to use in some other apps and maybe post to a social network later.
On iOS, the user is forced to think around Apple’s constraints. There is no easy way to just detach the file from the email and subsequently use it in what ever way I want. Instead, all iOS apps that want to expose some sort of sharing feature, do have to completely take care for it themselves. The result is a fairly inconsistent, unsatisfying user experience.
On iOS, you might use the somewhat odd “Open in…” feature — in case the developer was so kind to implement it — to first move the file over to Dropbox, which gives you a virtual cloud-based file system. If you’re lucky, the other app, from which you want to use the file next, offers Dropbox integration, too, so you can re-download it and start from there. All because Apple denies the necessity of basic cross-app local storage.
I can detach the file to a local folder and further work with it from there. Leveraging every single app that handles PDF files. In case I receive a bunch of MP3 files, I can do the same. And every app that somehow can handle audio playback, can reuse those mp3 files.
Another great example: Sharing stuff on social networks. On iOS, I have to rely on the developers again. Flipboard, as one of the better examples, gives me the ability to directly share with Google+, Twitter and Facebook. On my Nexus 4, I have 20+ options. That is, because every app I install can register as a sharing provider. It’s a core feature of the Android operating system.
But it goes even further: On Android, I can change the default handlers for specific file types — much like I’m used to from desktop operating systems.
If, for example, you’re not happy with the stock Photo Gallery application, that shows up whenever an app wants you to pick an image, you can simply install one from over a hundred alternatives and tell Android to use it as its new default. The next time you post a photo with the Facebook app — or have to pick an image from within any other app — your favourite gallery picker shows up instead of Android’s own.
All of this is entirely impossible on iOS today. I’ve stopped counting how often I felt annoyed because I clicked a link to a location in Mobile Safari and would have loved the Google Maps app to launch. Instead, Apple’s own Maps app is hard-coded into the system. And there’s no way for me to change it.
First, the obvious one: The lack of a centralised quality control and review. It’s great for encouraging variety, but obviously it also allows for some really cheap productions to be published to the store. Usually, you can spot those immediately from the screenshots on Google Play.
The second reason is more low-level: The way developers declare user interfaces (it’s primarily done in an XML configuration file) allows for rapidly hammering together dirty UIs. That’s what happens a lot and users can see and feel it. iOS developers tend to be more aware to involve designers and iOS UIs cannot be crapped together as easily.
However, I no longer feel as though the apps I use most greatly fall behind their iOS counterparts.
The Facebook app is identical in terms of the look and feel and its features. As a plus, it has better cross-app integration. The Google+ app is better on Android, but that’s to be expected. Flipboard is fantastic on Android, plus better integration. The same is true for Pulse News. The list goes on: Instagram, Path, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Quora, Pocket, Amazon Kindle, Spotify, Shazam and Google Talk. They are all great on Android. Plus better integration. Plus home screen widgets. You sense a scheme here?
And if you want to experience some real UI magic — even if you just need an argument when you’re bumping into an iPhone owner the next time — install Zime, a highly addictive calendar for Android which features a smooth 3D animation and really innovative UI.
A special thank you from Post Arcade
A few weeks ago, we set out on our annual mission to collect new and used video games for the Child’s Life departments of Canadian hospitals as part of the Post Arcade Video Game Drive for Kids. And boy, did you people step up and deliver this year.
I’m incredibly pleased to report that thanks to the generosity of National Post readers, Postmedia employees, our corporate partners and our friends in the Canadian video game industry, we set a new record for video games and consoles this year.
In total, we collected more than 1,100 games and 36 consoles which will be distributed to nine hospitals across Canada. In fact, we started shipping out dozens of boxes of games this week which should be making their way to the kids any day now.
In the four years since we launched this little initiative, we have now collected nearly 3,000 games and roughly 75 consoles which are now living inside Canadian children’s hospitals, entertaining thousands of kids every year while they await treatment.
The nine hospitals which will be receiving games from our drive this year are: North York General Hospital in Toronto, Markham-Stouffville Hospital, the Rouge Valley Health System, the Montreal Children’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Surrey Memorial Hospital, the B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and the Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) in Toronto.
Earlier this week, I was speaking with the Child’s Life co-ordinator at one of the hospitals we work with, who told me that our game drive is her department’s primary source for video games, and that it is your generosity that brightens the day of hundreds of kids every year.
I would like to thank every single person who donated even a single game to our initiative this year, but I would also like to spend a little extra time giving a couple of shout outs to some of the amazing people who pitched in to help make this our most successful game drive ever.
First off, I’d like to thank our friends at Sony Computer Entertainment Canada, who once again stepped up with an amazing donation of several hundred games. Sony has been a terrific supporter of our drive each of the past few years and their support is always mind blowing. Thank you. We salute you.
We would also like to send a special shout out to Ubisoft Canada, who sent me enough games to fill my aging Honda Civic from their Toronto and Montreal studios. Special thanks to the employees of Ubisoft Toronto for bringing in their own used games and making our cause a part of their holiday charity programs. You guys are truly amazing.
One of the coolest gifts we received this year was an incredible care package from our friends at The Source. Imagine our surprise when we opened up those boxes and found five brand new Wii U consoles inside! Thank you for helping us give the hottest gift of the Christmas season to kids who need it most.
We received a bunch of games from National Post and Postmedia employees this year, including Post Arcade’s own Controller Freak, Chad Sapieha (thanks Chad!). But there’s one guy in the Financial Post newsroom who goes above and beyond for this drive every year, and his name is Jonathan Ratner. He doesn’t do it for the kudos, he does it because he’s an awesome dude, so we felt he deserved a shout out. Thanks Jon.
It goes without saying, but I can’t do this whole drive on my own. There are a bunch of folks at the National Post who help out year in and year out, and none of this would be possible without them. Please join me in thanking Becky Frame and Nicole Lever from our promotions department who helped out with promoting the drive, sorting the games and lugging giant boxes of games all over the office. Take a bow ladies. I would also like to thank our receptionist Lisa Hall and our mailroom guru Chris Hart for their help and for letting our game drive disrupt their daily duties.
I’d also like to thank Financial Post Editor Grant Ellis, Editor in Chief Steve Meurice and our Publisher Doug Kelly for their continuing support of the drive and for letting me take time away from the Tech Desk to help the kids.
Thank you to my friend Momin Qureshi of the Fan 590 and 680 News in Toronto for letting me come on the radio to talk about the drive. That interview was a huge help in spreading the word. Thank you also to Jordi Morgan, the host of Maritime Morning out in Halifax, for helping us take the drive national.
One of the most amazing donations this year came from the employees of the Apple Store at Square One in Mississauga. Led by my new friend Emiliano, the employees at the Apple Store banded together to gather a huge collection of games for the kids. Simply amazing.
Finally, each year we get a couple of donations that are special. Not because they’re the biggest, or the most expensive, but because they are donations that come straight from the heart. I’d like to share with you a story about one of the most touching notes I received this year. A friend of mine named Carly sent us a donation of games in honour of her father, David. When Carly was growing up, she and her dad had epic Super Mario marathons, would go the arcade to play Outrun together and would enjoy snowboarding tournaments on the original PlayStation. Sadly, David passed away earlier this year, so Carly took the money she would have spent on him for Christmas and used it to support a few charities he would have liked, including ours. So to Carly, thank you, your dad’s donation is going to make hundreds of kids happy and we’re dedicating this year’s game drive to his memory. This one’s for you David.
Finally, I would like to extend a thank you to all of the child’s life co-ordinators at hospitals across Canada. We do this drive once a year, but you’re out there every day trying to make life better for young Canadians forced to spend time in hospitals. You people are the real heroes in all of this, and we’re just happy to be able to play a small part in what you do.
The bottom line is that none of this would have been possible without the kindness and support of dozens of people. So to everyone who donated, who helped get the word out or who spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, thank you for making life just a little bit easier for some kids in need.
The lake, however, grew obvious with the use of a real-time infrared Enhanced Vision System by Astronics that had been installed in the airplane.
A night vision device, called the Max-Viz-600, showed the lake as a black area on a cockpit display.
The equipment helps pilots see better at night or in bad weather conditions, said Eric Nickelson, chief flight instructor with Cessna Employees’ Flying Club, as he piloted the 182.
It also can help pilots see livestock in a field or wildlife or aircraft on a runway or taxiway. It can show the top of a mountain, section lines for roads, or an unlit landing strip.
“You know exactly where you are,” Nickelson said. “It’s a benefit if, God forbid, there’s an engine failure at night.?… There’s a lot of peace of mind.”
Astronics’ Max-Viz-600 provides additional situational awareness for pilots of Cessna 172, 182 and 206 single-engine aircraft.
I’m incredibly pleased to report that thanks to the generosity of National Post readers, Postmedia employees, our corporate partners and our friends in the Canadian video game industry, we set a new record for video games and consoles this year.
In total, we collected more than 1,100 games and 36 consoles which will be distributed to nine hospitals across Canada. In fact, we started shipping out dozens of boxes of games this week which should be making their way to the kids any day now.
In the four years since we launched this little initiative, we have now collected nearly 3,000 games and roughly 75 consoles which are now living inside Canadian children’s hospitals, entertaining thousands of kids every year while they await treatment.
The nine hospitals which will be receiving games from our drive this year are: North York General Hospital in Toronto, Markham-Stouffville Hospital, the Rouge Valley Health System, the Montreal Children’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Surrey Memorial Hospital, the B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and the Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) in Toronto.
Earlier this week, I was speaking with the Child’s Life co-ordinator at one of the hospitals we work with, who told me that our game drive is her department’s primary source for video games, and that it is your generosity that brightens the day of hundreds of kids every year.
I would like to thank every single person who donated even a single game to our initiative this year, but I would also like to spend a little extra time giving a couple of shout outs to some of the amazing people who pitched in to help make this our most successful game drive ever.
First off, I’d like to thank our friends at Sony Computer Entertainment Canada, who once again stepped up with an amazing donation of several hundred games. Sony has been a terrific supporter of our drive each of the past few years and their support is always mind blowing. Thank you. We salute you.
We would also like to send a special shout out to Ubisoft Canada, who sent me enough games to fill my aging Honda Civic from their Toronto and Montreal studios. Special thanks to the employees of Ubisoft Toronto for bringing in their own used games and making our cause a part of their holiday charity programs. You guys are truly amazing.
One of the coolest gifts we received this year was an incredible care package from our friends at The Source. Imagine our surprise when we opened up those boxes and found five brand new Wii U consoles inside! Thank you for helping us give the hottest gift of the Christmas season to kids who need it most.
We received a bunch of games from National Post and Postmedia employees this year, including Post Arcade’s own Controller Freak, Chad Sapieha (thanks Chad!). But there’s one guy in the Financial Post newsroom who goes above and beyond for this drive every year, and his name is Jonathan Ratner. He doesn’t do it for the kudos, he does it because he’s an awesome dude, so we felt he deserved a shout out. Thanks Jon.
It goes without saying, but I can’t do this whole drive on my own. There are a bunch of folks at the National Post who help out year in and year out, and none of this would be possible without them. Please join me in thanking Becky Frame and Nicole Lever from our promotions department who helped out with promoting the drive, sorting the games and lugging giant boxes of games all over the office. Take a bow ladies. I would also like to thank our receptionist Lisa Hall and our mailroom guru Chris Hart for their help and for letting our game drive disrupt their daily duties.
I’d also like to thank Financial Post Editor Grant Ellis, Editor in Chief Steve Meurice and our Publisher Doug Kelly for their continuing support of the drive and for letting me take time away from the Tech Desk to help the kids.
Thank you to my friend Momin Qureshi of the Fan 590 and 680 News in Toronto for letting me come on the radio to talk about the drive. That interview was a huge help in spreading the word. Thank you also to Jordi Morgan, the host of Maritime Morning out in Halifax, for helping us take the drive national.
One of the most amazing donations this year came from the employees of the Apple Store at Square One in Mississauga. Led by my new friend Emiliano, the employees at the Apple Store banded together to gather a huge collection of games for the kids. Simply amazing.
Finally, each year we get a couple of donations that are special. Not because they’re the biggest, or the most expensive, but because they are donations that come straight from the heart. I’d like to share with you a story about one of the most touching notes I received this year. A friend of mine named Carly sent us a donation of games in honour of her father, David. When Carly was growing up, she and her dad had epic Super Mario marathons, would go the arcade to play Outrun together and would enjoy snowboarding tournaments on the original PlayStation. Sadly, David passed away earlier this year, so Carly took the money she would have spent on him for Christmas and used it to support a few charities he would have liked, including ours. So to Carly, thank you, your dad’s donation is going to make hundreds of kids happy and we’re dedicating this year’s game drive to his memory. This one’s for you David.
Finally, I would like to extend a thank you to all of the child’s life co-ordinators at hospitals across Canada. We do this drive once a year, but you’re out there every day trying to make life better for young Canadians forced to spend time in hospitals. You people are the real heroes in all of this, and we’re just happy to be able to play a small part in what you do.
The bottom line is that none of this would have been possible without the kindness and support of dozens of people. So to everyone who donated, who helped get the word out or who spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, thank you for making life just a little bit easier for some kids in need.
The lake, however, grew obvious with the use of a real-time infrared Enhanced Vision System by Astronics that had been installed in the airplane.
A night vision device, called the Max-Viz-600, showed the lake as a black area on a cockpit display.
The equipment helps pilots see better at night or in bad weather conditions, said Eric Nickelson, chief flight instructor with Cessna Employees’ Flying Club, as he piloted the 182.
It also can help pilots see livestock in a field or wildlife or aircraft on a runway or taxiway. It can show the top of a mountain, section lines for roads, or an unlit landing strip.
“You know exactly where you are,” Nickelson said. “It’s a benefit if, God forbid, there’s an engine failure at night.?… There’s a lot of peace of mind.”
Astronics’ Max-Viz-600 provides additional situational awareness for pilots of Cessna 172, 182 and 206 single-engine aircraft.
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