It is very interesting to listen to her. Take a look.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
When I saw the movie title and the hype it created on the newspapers, I was like hmm..another low-budget film that scored big..just like the title suggest, it is an underdog.
Well,I thought to myself, maybe I should watch it which I did in the end out of boredom.
I saw a few things that's noteworthy.
1) Since it was set in India, naturally there is a play and manipulation of the class division in India. As in all the thematic play there is always a contrast. The good, angel vs the bad,devil. In this case, it is the lower class who is the angel as portrayed by the boy Jamal while the bad are those usual thugs, rich and upper class who wants to prevent him from succeeding. But Jamal's perserverance paid off. Shows the lower social strata of India pretty well. The poor will do whatever they takes to succeed including cheating, lying and stealing. How oppression of the poor arise. The income difference between the poor areas and rich areas of India.
2) Based on the gameshow, Who wants to be a millionaire. It is a caucasian show which symbolise equality and fair chance to everyone regardless of class. Jamal is able to join it as it is a liberation for all classes. It is a reality show that show the true human side which the show did. The smirky face of the TV host, that policeman and the thugs, the religious riots.
3) The story unfolds according to the questions asked which pulls memories out of Jamal's memory lane. Very nice way of creating story though it may look confusing to people if they do not pay attention.
4) The way thugs use the children of poor. Feed them so that they can make healthy children disabled and earn money for them. There is abuse of children and child labour.
5) I believe this is a production not out of Bollywood because there is not much dancing and running around the tree which is essential in Bollywood films even though the ending has the dancing.
Quite a startling show. I must say that for people who likes tale-spinning, a good storyline and content is better than any other stuff put together perfectly.
Well,I thought to myself, maybe I should watch it which I did in the end out of boredom.
I saw a few things that's noteworthy.
1) Since it was set in India, naturally there is a play and manipulation of the class division in India. As in all the thematic play there is always a contrast. The good, angel vs the bad,devil. In this case, it is the lower class who is the angel as portrayed by the boy Jamal while the bad are those usual thugs, rich and upper class who wants to prevent him from succeeding. But Jamal's perserverance paid off. Shows the lower social strata of India pretty well. The poor will do whatever they takes to succeed including cheating, lying and stealing. How oppression of the poor arise. The income difference between the poor areas and rich areas of India.
2) Based on the gameshow, Who wants to be a millionaire. It is a caucasian show which symbolise equality and fair chance to everyone regardless of class. Jamal is able to join it as it is a liberation for all classes. It is a reality show that show the true human side which the show did. The smirky face of the TV host, that policeman and the thugs, the religious riots.
3) The story unfolds according to the questions asked which pulls memories out of Jamal's memory lane. Very nice way of creating story though it may look confusing to people if they do not pay attention.
4) The way thugs use the children of poor. Feed them so that they can make healthy children disabled and earn money for them. There is abuse of children and child labour.
5) I believe this is a production not out of Bollywood because there is not much dancing and running around the tree which is essential in Bollywood films even though the ending has the dancing.
Quite a startling show. I must say that for people who likes tale-spinning, a good storyline and content is better than any other stuff put together perfectly.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The curious case of Benjamin Button
At first I am really curious at what the title of the film suggest.
The life of someone, what is so interesting about them?
Not to say that they are'nt interesting, everyone is unique, but what is so extraordinary of about this guy?
Is he a celebrity? A politican?
Well, he is not.
Simply put, fate has its twist on this poor soul called Benjamin Button.
His mother died at childbirth, father abandoned him due to his disease and watched him at a distance until he is dying. He has to abandon his love of his life due to this strange disease. He does'nt feel love. He came out as a crinkly old man baby and died as a youthful dementia baby.
I find the film somewhat long. I sat at the theatre for 3hours.
Some things are really interesting in the film.
1. Like how the old grand clock's second hand is moving anti-clockwise and sort of in sync with Benjamin Button's life.
2. some comic relief from an old man who relay the story of how he was struck by the lightning 7 times.
3. Nice make-up..Really show the contrast between different stages in life.
4. Really poignant moments at times when Benjamin sat with his father at the pier watching sunrise after acknowledging him and when Benjamin was playing with his daughter, knowing he has to leave the 2 out of 3 most important women in his life because he refuse to burden them as he ages. Finally, when he had dementia in a child-form and Daisy has to take care of him.
5. Somewhat like one of the Hong Kong movies that Any Lau starred in. Made in recent years i believe. Cant really remember.
6. Shed some positive light on the African Americans when they accepted Benjamin as who he was while his biological father actually abandoned him.
7. Set in New Orleans, when Hurricane Katrina hits.
This flim made me think quite a bit.
I will think about the possibilities in life. We do not know if it is possible until we muster up our courage and try again just like the lover of Benjamin who tried to swim across the English Channel in her old age after she failed to do so in her youth.
Even though family's love is in abundance, at some point in life, one still has to go alone.
Even though everything bad happened to one, it does not mean the end of life. Things like disease, growing up with old dying people, people's opinion of you due to appearance and so on, are not what one can control. It is how to deal with it positively and face it positively. Have faith in yourself and everything will roll in jsut fine.
Love is never about race. People cared for each other regardless of race like how Queenie takes care of Benjamin.
Love is also about sacrifice. Benjamin could not bear himself to burden anyone like his foster mum,Queenie and his love of his life, Daisy. He choose to leave, making them feel dislike for him so that they can carry on with their lives. I feel this way of leaving them is a tough decision to make. One will feel double the pain - being misunderstood and having to leave loved ones.
This film will definitely set people thinking about their lives...
The life of someone, what is so interesting about them?
Not to say that they are'nt interesting, everyone is unique, but what is so extraordinary of about this guy?
Is he a celebrity? A politican?
Well, he is not.
Simply put, fate has its twist on this poor soul called Benjamin Button.
His mother died at childbirth, father abandoned him due to his disease and watched him at a distance until he is dying. He has to abandon his love of his life due to this strange disease. He does'nt feel love. He came out as a crinkly old man baby and died as a youthful dementia baby.
I find the film somewhat long. I sat at the theatre for 3hours.
Some things are really interesting in the film.
1. Like how the old grand clock's second hand is moving anti-clockwise and sort of in sync with Benjamin Button's life.
2. some comic relief from an old man who relay the story of how he was struck by the lightning 7 times.
3. Nice make-up..Really show the contrast between different stages in life.
4. Really poignant moments at times when Benjamin sat with his father at the pier watching sunrise after acknowledging him and when Benjamin was playing with his daughter, knowing he has to leave the 2 out of 3 most important women in his life because he refuse to burden them as he ages. Finally, when he had dementia in a child-form and Daisy has to take care of him.
5. Somewhat like one of the Hong Kong movies that Any Lau starred in. Made in recent years i believe. Cant really remember.
6. Shed some positive light on the African Americans when they accepted Benjamin as who he was while his biological father actually abandoned him.
7. Set in New Orleans, when Hurricane Katrina hits.
This flim made me think quite a bit.
I will think about the possibilities in life. We do not know if it is possible until we muster up our courage and try again just like the lover of Benjamin who tried to swim across the English Channel in her old age after she failed to do so in her youth.
Even though family's love is in abundance, at some point in life, one still has to go alone.
Even though everything bad happened to one, it does not mean the end of life. Things like disease, growing up with old dying people, people's opinion of you due to appearance and so on, are not what one can control. It is how to deal with it positively and face it positively. Have faith in yourself and everything will roll in jsut fine.
Love is never about race. People cared for each other regardless of race like how Queenie takes care of Benjamin.
Love is also about sacrifice. Benjamin could not bear himself to burden anyone like his foster mum,Queenie and his love of his life, Daisy. He choose to leave, making them feel dislike for him so that they can carry on with their lives. I feel this way of leaving them is a tough decision to make. One will feel double the pain - being misunderstood and having to leave loved ones.
This film will definitely set people thinking about their lives...
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains
Here is another one which I totally agree with. This article from Wired.com.
Paying attention isn't a simple act of self-discipline, but a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots — and this complex faculty, says Maggie Jackson, is being woefully undermined by how we're living.
In Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, Jackson explores the effects of "our high-speed, overloaded, split-focus and even cybercentric society" on attention. It's not a pretty picture: a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages and tweets is part of an institutionalized culture of interruption, and makes it hard to concentrate and think creatively.
Of course, every modern age is troubled by its new technologies. "The telegraph might have done just as much to the psyche [of] Victorians as the Blackberry does to us," said Jackson. "But at the same time, that doesn't mean that nothing has changed. The question is, how do we confront our own challenges?"
Wired.com talked to Jackson about attention and its loss.
Wired.com: Is there an actual scientific basis of attention?
Maggie Jackson: In the last 30 or 40 years, scientists have made inroads into understanding its underlying mechanisms and physiology. Attention is now considered an organ system. It has its own circuitry in the brain, and there are specialized networks carrying out its different forms. Each is very specific and can be traced through neuroimaging and even some genetic research.
While there is still debate among attention scientists, most now conclude that there are three types of attention. The first is orienting — the flashlight of your mind. In the case of visual attention, it involves parts of the brain including the parietal lobe, a brain area related to sensory processing. To orient to new stimuli, two parts of the parietal lobe work with brain sections related to frontal eye fields. This is what develops in an infants' brain, allowing them to focus on something new in their environment.
The second type of attention spans the spectrum of response states, from sleepiness to complete alertness. The third type is executive attention: planning, judgment, resolving conflicting information. The heart of this is the anterior cingulate — an ancient, tiny part of the brain that is now at the heart of our higher-order skills. It's executive attention that lets us move us beyond our impulsive selves, to plan for the future and understand abstraction.
We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenalin jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it's easy and tempting to always react to the new thing. But when we live in a reactive way, we minimize our capacity to pursue goals.
Wired.com: What does it mean to be distracted?
Jackson: Literally, it means to be pulled away to something secondary. There's also an a interesting, archaic definition that fell out of favor in the 18th century: being pulled to pieces, being scattered. I think that's a lovely term.
Our society right now is filled with lovely distractions — we have so much portable escapism and mediated fantasy — but that's just one issue. The other is interruption — multitasking, the fragmentation of thought and time. We're living in highly interrupted ways. Studies show that information workers now switch tasks an average of every three minutes throughout the day. Of course that's what we have to do to live in this complicated world.
Wired.com: How do these interruptions affect us?
Jackson: This degree of interruption is correlated with stress and frustration and lowered creativity. That makes sense. When you're scattered and diffuse, you're less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it's hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.
These are the problems of attention in our new world. Gadgets and technologies give us extraordinary opportunities, the potential to connect and to learn. At the same time, we've created a culture, and are making choices, that undermine our powers of attention.
Wired.com: Has a direct link been measured between interruptions and neurophysiology?
Jackson: Interruptions are correlated with stress, and a cascade of stress hormones accompany that state of being. Stress, frustration and lowered creativity are pretty toxic. And there are studies showing how the environment shapes brain development in kids.
But I can't say if attention fragmentation really rewires our brains. When you sit at a desk for six hours multitasking like a maniac, are you actually rewiring parts of your attention networks? That's difficult to say right now.
Wired.com: Is establishing that link the next scientific step?
Jackson: It's one priority for future research. Right now, the field of attention science is especially concerned with attention development in children. The networks develop at different paces. Orienting is largely in place by kindergarten. The executive network is largely in place by age 8, but it develops until the mid-20s. Understanding the sweet spots for helping kids develop attention is where the science is at.
Wired.com: So adults are out of luck?
Jackson: We do know that people's attention networks can be trained, though we're not sure how long-lasting the gains are. There are exercises and computer games designed to strengthen attention, sometimes by boosting short-term memory.
The only sort training going on now in the office world is meditation-based, and that's being used more for stress rather than to boost attention, although it does do that. In terms of mainstream research, there's nothing I'm aware of that's being done to help the average adult, though there's tremendous interest in what's possible.
But there are ways to cut back on the multitasking and interruptions, shaping your own environment and work style so that you better use your attentional networks. If you have a difficult problem or a conundrum to solve, you need to think about where you work best. Right now, people hope they'll be able to think or create or problem-solve in the midst of a noisy, cluttered environment. Quiet is a starting point.
The other important thing is to discuss interruption as an environmental question and collective social issue. In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn't have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we're doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.
Wired.com: The subtitle of your book predicts a "coming dark age." Do you really believe this?
Jackson: Dark ages are times of forgetting, when the advancements of the past are underutilized. If we forget how to use our powers of deep focus, we'll depend more on black-and-white thinking, on surface ideas, on surface relationships. That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding. The possibility of an attention-deficient future society is very sobering.
Comments:
I do often feel distracted and frankly speaking overloaded. It is unlike the case of TV channel surfing where u just ignore the channel if there are ads.
Afterall, TV channels have 2 most general type of information either TV programmes or ads.
But internet is different.There are thousand and one types of information and it is difficult to absorb.
It is like every one is screaming for ur attention and if you miss one, you might miss the critical piece to decipher the rest.
It is never easy to be Gen Y onwards.
Paying attention isn't a simple act of self-discipline, but a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots — and this complex faculty, says Maggie Jackson, is being woefully undermined by how we're living.
In Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, Jackson explores the effects of "our high-speed, overloaded, split-focus and even cybercentric society" on attention. It's not a pretty picture: a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages and tweets is part of an institutionalized culture of interruption, and makes it hard to concentrate and think creatively.
Of course, every modern age is troubled by its new technologies. "The telegraph might have done just as much to the psyche [of] Victorians as the Blackberry does to us," said Jackson. "But at the same time, that doesn't mean that nothing has changed. The question is, how do we confront our own challenges?"
Wired.com talked to Jackson about attention and its loss.
Wired.com: Is there an actual scientific basis of attention?
Maggie Jackson: In the last 30 or 40 years, scientists have made inroads into understanding its underlying mechanisms and physiology. Attention is now considered an organ system. It has its own circuitry in the brain, and there are specialized networks carrying out its different forms. Each is very specific and can be traced through neuroimaging and even some genetic research.
While there is still debate among attention scientists, most now conclude that there are three types of attention. The first is orienting — the flashlight of your mind. In the case of visual attention, it involves parts of the brain including the parietal lobe, a brain area related to sensory processing. To orient to new stimuli, two parts of the parietal lobe work with brain sections related to frontal eye fields. This is what develops in an infants' brain, allowing them to focus on something new in their environment.
The second type of attention spans the spectrum of response states, from sleepiness to complete alertness. The third type is executive attention: planning, judgment, resolving conflicting information. The heart of this is the anterior cingulate — an ancient, tiny part of the brain that is now at the heart of our higher-order skills. It's executive attention that lets us move us beyond our impulsive selves, to plan for the future and understand abstraction.
We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenalin jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it's easy and tempting to always react to the new thing. But when we live in a reactive way, we minimize our capacity to pursue goals.
Wired.com: What does it mean to be distracted?
Jackson: Literally, it means to be pulled away to something secondary. There's also an a interesting, archaic definition that fell out of favor in the 18th century: being pulled to pieces, being scattered. I think that's a lovely term.
Our society right now is filled with lovely distractions — we have so much portable escapism and mediated fantasy — but that's just one issue. The other is interruption — multitasking, the fragmentation of thought and time. We're living in highly interrupted ways. Studies show that information workers now switch tasks an average of every three minutes throughout the day. Of course that's what we have to do to live in this complicated world.
Wired.com: How do these interruptions affect us?
Jackson: This degree of interruption is correlated with stress and frustration and lowered creativity. That makes sense. When you're scattered and diffuse, you're less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it's hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.
These are the problems of attention in our new world. Gadgets and technologies give us extraordinary opportunities, the potential to connect and to learn. At the same time, we've created a culture, and are making choices, that undermine our powers of attention.
Wired.com: Has a direct link been measured between interruptions and neurophysiology?
Jackson: Interruptions are correlated with stress, and a cascade of stress hormones accompany that state of being. Stress, frustration and lowered creativity are pretty toxic. And there are studies showing how the environment shapes brain development in kids.
But I can't say if attention fragmentation really rewires our brains. When you sit at a desk for six hours multitasking like a maniac, are you actually rewiring parts of your attention networks? That's difficult to say right now.
Wired.com: Is establishing that link the next scientific step?
Jackson: It's one priority for future research. Right now, the field of attention science is especially concerned with attention development in children. The networks develop at different paces. Orienting is largely in place by kindergarten. The executive network is largely in place by age 8, but it develops until the mid-20s. Understanding the sweet spots for helping kids develop attention is where the science is at.
Wired.com: So adults are out of luck?
Jackson: We do know that people's attention networks can be trained, though we're not sure how long-lasting the gains are. There are exercises and computer games designed to strengthen attention, sometimes by boosting short-term memory.
The only sort training going on now in the office world is meditation-based, and that's being used more for stress rather than to boost attention, although it does do that. In terms of mainstream research, there's nothing I'm aware of that's being done to help the average adult, though there's tremendous interest in what's possible.
But there are ways to cut back on the multitasking and interruptions, shaping your own environment and work style so that you better use your attentional networks. If you have a difficult problem or a conundrum to solve, you need to think about where you work best. Right now, people hope they'll be able to think or create or problem-solve in the midst of a noisy, cluttered environment. Quiet is a starting point.
The other important thing is to discuss interruption as an environmental question and collective social issue. In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn't have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we're doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.
Wired.com: The subtitle of your book predicts a "coming dark age." Do you really believe this?
Jackson: Dark ages are times of forgetting, when the advancements of the past are underutilized. If we forget how to use our powers of deep focus, we'll depend more on black-and-white thinking, on surface ideas, on surface relationships. That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding. The possibility of an attention-deficient future society is very sobering.
Comments:
I do often feel distracted and frankly speaking overloaded. It is unlike the case of TV channel surfing where u just ignore the channel if there are ads.
Afterall, TV channels have 2 most general type of information either TV programmes or ads.
But internet is different.There are thousand and one types of information and it is difficult to absorb.
It is like every one is screaming for ur attention and if you miss one, you might miss the critical piece to decipher the rest.
It is never easy to be Gen Y onwards.
Monday, February 09, 2009
New product with an edge
This is what I saw on Wired.com and I find it interesting.
OLPC's Hidden Killer App: Ultimate E-Book Reader
As the One Laptop Per Child project scrambles to revitalize itself after numerous setbacks, staff layoffs and dismal sales, it could find the footing it needs to survive by playing to its product's hidden strength as a low-priced, take-it-anywhere e-book reader.
The OLPC's XO Children's Machine is still a little clunky around the edges, and the availability of free, modern e-books is slim. But several open source projects are emerging that promise to improve the XO's capability as an e-book reader.
Once the kinks around software and content are ironed out, the XO could be pitched to commuters, students and travelers as a purely consumer device — "it's the rugged Kindle!" — the OLPC project can generate much-needed revenue to fund its educational, open-hardware goals.
"It is a great e-book," says Walter Bender, former president of OLPC software and content who is now the head of Sugar Labs, the non-profit group that continues to develop the XO's "Sugar" interface.
Bender says he can't speak for OLPC regarding its sales strategy, but he does say that its laptop has a significant advantage: Unlike e-books devices like Amazon's Kindle or Sony's Reader, the XO is a fully featured computer.
"So while you can use it to read a PDF or wiki page," he says in an e-mail, "you can also use it to annotate pages, write commentary, or even publish your own book: consumer as producer."
Like Bender, those involved directly with the project are quick to point out that OLPC is still primarily focused on serving the developing world and not consumers. But they also acknowledge that the little green-and-white machine fills a niche.
The XO laptop's greatest asset is the quality of its hardware. It's beefy and difficult to damage. The battery lasts around six hours under normal use — not as long as the Kindle or Sony's Reader, but comparable to newer netbooks — and it lasts a few hours longer if you turn off the backlight behind the LCD screen. The XO's screen was designed for high visibility with the backlight off, especially outdoors in daylight. You can also flip the screen around and put the XO into tablet mode. When you do, it's comfortable to hold and scroll through pages using the keypads under your thumbs.
It's cheap, too. An XO Children's Machine, when purchased through the Give 1, Get 1 program, costs $200 — cheaper than Amazon's Kindle ($360) and Sony's Reader ($270).
OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has been making the rounds with a mocked-up design of the next generation XO, a booklike dual screen computer with a hinge. Negroponte says the new hardware will be ready in 2010.
In the meantime, the XO's creators aren't interested in pimping out their hardware to turn a quick profit, but they do see the potential.
"We're not planning on selling machines directly to people in the U.S., but the XO is an awesome e-book reader," says OLPC director of community content S.J. Klein. "Our primary interests are in making sure there are amazing new books for people to use, and in making the experience as interesting and engaging as possible."
The availability of books for the device is one major stumbling point. For example, you can't buy a bestseller at Amazon and expect it to work on your XO. The files are saddled with Digital Rights Management, or DRM, restrictions that limit you to reading on an approved device — such as Amazon's Kindle.
There are free books to be had, though. The Internet Archive currently has one million books available for free, and the nonprofit continues to add to its library at a rate of 1,000 books a day. There are also thousands of free books available through sites like Gutenberg.org, Manybooks.net and Feedbooks.com.
The XO also has the ability to read offline web pages, so a user can download stories from news websites and read them on a train or on the beach.
Still, the software is young and presents usability problems.
Sugar, the XO's Linux-based desktop environment, can be confusing for adults used to their Windows and Mac desktops. It comes with some bare-bones reader software built in, but to get type to display optimally, you have to learn how to install fonts — using a Linux command line, no less. Some e-books also have to be re-formatted with larger type or narrower margins before you can read them without a heap of zooming and scrolling.
"I definitely agree that one of the strengths of the OLPC is the e-book reader ability," says Aleksandar Kalev, a software developer working on an e-book viewer for the XO. "However, I don't think that, for the moment, it could compete with the dedicated e-readers."
The device is too big and a bit too sluggish, and Sugar is too young of an operating system, he says.
Sugar Labs plans to release a new version of the Sugar desktop for the XO in March 2009, featuring an improved default reader. There are also several open source software alternatives in the works that significantly improve the e-book experience.
The most promising is GnuBook, which uses HTML and JavaScript to render pages in an easy-to-browse interface. There's also the more mature FBReader, which integrates directly with online libraries. The Evince community, which produces a document viewer for Linux, has been working closely with the OLPC project as well.
Whatever innovations come about, they will happen with the project's educational goals in mind, says OLPC's Klein.
"We want it to be an awesome experience for everyone, but especially for teachers and people reading in classrooms," he says.
"And especially classrooms that don't have walls or paper."
Comments:
For any technology to reach critical mass, there must be a competitive edge which compels people to use it.
Here is one example.
OLPC's Hidden Killer App: Ultimate E-Book Reader
As the One Laptop Per Child project scrambles to revitalize itself after numerous setbacks, staff layoffs and dismal sales, it could find the footing it needs to survive by playing to its product's hidden strength as a low-priced, take-it-anywhere e-book reader.
The OLPC's XO Children's Machine is still a little clunky around the edges, and the availability of free, modern e-books is slim. But several open source projects are emerging that promise to improve the XO's capability as an e-book reader.
Once the kinks around software and content are ironed out, the XO could be pitched to commuters, students and travelers as a purely consumer device — "it's the rugged Kindle!" — the OLPC project can generate much-needed revenue to fund its educational, open-hardware goals.
"It is a great e-book," says Walter Bender, former president of OLPC software and content who is now the head of Sugar Labs, the non-profit group that continues to develop the XO's "Sugar" interface.
Bender says he can't speak for OLPC regarding its sales strategy, but he does say that its laptop has a significant advantage: Unlike e-books devices like Amazon's Kindle or Sony's Reader, the XO is a fully featured computer.
"So while you can use it to read a PDF or wiki page," he says in an e-mail, "you can also use it to annotate pages, write commentary, or even publish your own book: consumer as producer."
Like Bender, those involved directly with the project are quick to point out that OLPC is still primarily focused on serving the developing world and not consumers. But they also acknowledge that the little green-and-white machine fills a niche.
The XO laptop's greatest asset is the quality of its hardware. It's beefy and difficult to damage. The battery lasts around six hours under normal use — not as long as the Kindle or Sony's Reader, but comparable to newer netbooks — and it lasts a few hours longer if you turn off the backlight behind the LCD screen. The XO's screen was designed for high visibility with the backlight off, especially outdoors in daylight. You can also flip the screen around and put the XO into tablet mode. When you do, it's comfortable to hold and scroll through pages using the keypads under your thumbs.
It's cheap, too. An XO Children's Machine, when purchased through the Give 1, Get 1 program, costs $200 — cheaper than Amazon's Kindle ($360) and Sony's Reader ($270).
OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has been making the rounds with a mocked-up design of the next generation XO, a booklike dual screen computer with a hinge. Negroponte says the new hardware will be ready in 2010.
In the meantime, the XO's creators aren't interested in pimping out their hardware to turn a quick profit, but they do see the potential.
"We're not planning on selling machines directly to people in the U.S., but the XO is an awesome e-book reader," says OLPC director of community content S.J. Klein. "Our primary interests are in making sure there are amazing new books for people to use, and in making the experience as interesting and engaging as possible."
The availability of books for the device is one major stumbling point. For example, you can't buy a bestseller at Amazon and expect it to work on your XO. The files are saddled with Digital Rights Management, or DRM, restrictions that limit you to reading on an approved device — such as Amazon's Kindle.
There are free books to be had, though. The Internet Archive currently has one million books available for free, and the nonprofit continues to add to its library at a rate of 1,000 books a day. There are also thousands of free books available through sites like Gutenberg.org, Manybooks.net and Feedbooks.com.
The XO also has the ability to read offline web pages, so a user can download stories from news websites and read them on a train or on the beach.
Still, the software is young and presents usability problems.
Sugar, the XO's Linux-based desktop environment, can be confusing for adults used to their Windows and Mac desktops. It comes with some bare-bones reader software built in, but to get type to display optimally, you have to learn how to install fonts — using a Linux command line, no less. Some e-books also have to be re-formatted with larger type or narrower margins before you can read them without a heap of zooming and scrolling.
"I definitely agree that one of the strengths of the OLPC is the e-book reader ability," says Aleksandar Kalev, a software developer working on an e-book viewer for the XO. "However, I don't think that, for the moment, it could compete with the dedicated e-readers."
The device is too big and a bit too sluggish, and Sugar is too young of an operating system, he says.
Sugar Labs plans to release a new version of the Sugar desktop for the XO in March 2009, featuring an improved default reader. There are also several open source software alternatives in the works that significantly improve the e-book experience.
The most promising is GnuBook, which uses HTML and JavaScript to render pages in an easy-to-browse interface. There's also the more mature FBReader, which integrates directly with online libraries. The Evince community, which produces a document viewer for Linux, has been working closely with the OLPC project as well.
Whatever innovations come about, they will happen with the project's educational goals in mind, says OLPC's Klein.
"We want it to be an awesome experience for everyone, but especially for teachers and people reading in classrooms," he says.
"And especially classrooms that don't have walls or paper."
Comments:
For any technology to reach critical mass, there must be a competitive edge which compels people to use it.
Here is one example.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Bride wars
Hmmm...
It is a chick flick alright.
It started with two young girls dreaming of their perfect wedding. As they grow up, they wanted their weddings to be at a perfect place.
AS they start preparing for it, they realise it is hard to be perfect. It has to be consistent and it is tiring to keep up and control. There are things that arent controllable in life.
People grow up too. People's mentality and attitude changes. Some just cannot remember that and keep on comparing the present image of a person with the old one. That person is bound for disappointment. You are living in the past.
Rivalry started when both had their weddings scheduled on the same day when an errant clerk of the wedding planner made the mistake.
Friendship come under s stringent tough test when good friends are turned against each other. They knew each other's weakness and strengths. That just turn the rivalry game fun.
In a relationship, there are people giving and people taking it. However, it cannot be the same person who sacrifice while the other take things for granted and assumed it is the duty of others to give way to them. People will explode and feel indignant being taken advantage. It is a horrifying event that will injure a relationship.
That's all I learnt in the movie. Apart from the laughter and the tricks they played on each other.
Hmm....
Storyline and moral of the story aside, there are something Val and I noticed.
Kate Hudson is a splitting image of her mother.
Anne Hathaway is too thin.
We both like separate type of guys (not a new thing but worthy writing down). She likes the brother of Kate Hudson while I like Kate Hudson's future husband.
Yeah.....so much for a sunday...
It is a chick flick alright.
It started with two young girls dreaming of their perfect wedding. As they grow up, they wanted their weddings to be at a perfect place.
AS they start preparing for it, they realise it is hard to be perfect. It has to be consistent and it is tiring to keep up and control. There are things that arent controllable in life.
People grow up too. People's mentality and attitude changes. Some just cannot remember that and keep on comparing the present image of a person with the old one. That person is bound for disappointment. You are living in the past.
Rivalry started when both had their weddings scheduled on the same day when an errant clerk of the wedding planner made the mistake.
Friendship come under s stringent tough test when good friends are turned against each other. They knew each other's weakness and strengths. That just turn the rivalry game fun.
In a relationship, there are people giving and people taking it. However, it cannot be the same person who sacrifice while the other take things for granted and assumed it is the duty of others to give way to them. People will explode and feel indignant being taken advantage. It is a horrifying event that will injure a relationship.
That's all I learnt in the movie. Apart from the laughter and the tricks they played on each other.
Hmm....
Storyline and moral of the story aside, there are something Val and I noticed.
Kate Hudson is a splitting image of her mother.
Anne Hathaway is too thin.
We both like separate type of guys (not a new thing but worthy writing down). She likes the brother of Kate Hudson while I like Kate Hudson's future husband.
Yeah.....so much for a sunday...