by Erick Schonfeld on Jun 17, 2010
The Huffington Post
has acquired its first company in a small cash deal, and it is not another blog or media site, but a pure technology startup called Adaptive Semantics
Prior to the acquisition, the Huffington Post was already Adaptive Semantic’s largest and only outside investor, buying a 20 percent stake in April, 2009. Adaptive Semantic’s two co-founders, Elena Haliczer and Jeff Revesz, will join Huffington Post to oversee its social news and community technology R&D. The acquisition price was not disclosed
“Technology is very critical to us,” says CEO Eric Hippeau. “In this case, the technology has implications for our content. It makes moderation hyper-efficient.” With close to 3 million comments a month, the only way to moderate them is through automation tools (as well as a corp of about 30 professional human moderators).
Other companies that license Adaptive Semantic’s technology for online comment moderation include CNN, Newsweek, and Disqus. They might have to start looking for other solutions. “We will honor the contracts, but very likely will not renew them,” says Hippeau, who doesn’t want to be in the business of licensing technology to other news sites and services.
JuLiA uses “supervised machine learning,” according to Revesz, to flag inappropriate comments, spam, and abusive language. Humans manually tag a few hundred comments, which then get fed into the semantic analysis engine and applied across every comment. This is an ongoing process so that the system continually gets better and better. Not only can it detect abusive language or hate speech, but it can also help find commenters who may be topic experts.
Beyond comment moderation and making sure readers behave themselves on the site, the underlying semantic analysis technology can help bubble up the best contributions from readers. “I am very confident that we are going to find all kinds of ways to apply it,” says Hippeau.
The Huffington Post very much sees itself as a social news network, and its success is tied to engaging its readers in a variety of ways, from leaving comments to sharing posts across the Web via Twitter and Facebook. It recently started awarding readers badges. JuLiA could help to feature the best comments or to award specific badges. For instance, if a reader leaves a lot of comments on posts about Afghanistan, Iraq, and Hillary Clinton, they could get a Foreign Policy badge. That is just a hypothetical example, but the technology opens the door to those kinds of features.
It also could be applied to article recommendations. “The Huffington Post talks a lot about their social graph,” says Haliczer, “how people are connecting to each other and connecting to content. We can look at the content graph and recommend content to people.” Whatever the Huffington Post will end up doing with the technology, it is important enough that the company wants to own it in-house.
Mijn online status
Digital Playground
- Objet Trouve
Ruud's ad hoc collection of undisguised online stuff - Twitter stuff around the web
- FAST Enterprise Search
Search powered by FAST ESP - Blogs Movable Type
Blogs powered by Movable Type - Liferay Portal
Portals powered by Liferay
Links
Editors of Perseus Publishing: We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture (****)
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Donald A. Norman: Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things
Michael A. Banks: Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers (***)
- Nancy Muir / Ian Kimbell: Discover SAP
Charlene Li: Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Don Tapscott: Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World HC
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» Usability Ain’t Everything – A Response to Jakob Nielsen’s iPad Usability Study Johnny Holland – It's all about interaction #yam
Usability Ain’t Everything – A Response to Jakob Nielsen’s iPad Usability Study
Fred Beecher on May 26th, 2010
The conclusion of the Nielsen Norman Group’s April 2010 study of iPad usability is that it has problems and more standards are the solution. Yes, the iPad is imperfect, but resorting to standards as the solution is an antiquated reaction that fails to consider how interactive systems have evolved. We’re not Usability Engineers anymore (not most of us, anyway); we’re User Experience Designers. Experience is more than just usability.
I’ve covered this ground on Johnny Holland before. Just after I got my iPhone I came to many of the same conclusions Nielsen did about the how the iPhone is difficult to learn. But here’s the thing; I didn’t stop there. I talked about how some of the factors that made the iPhone difficult to use also made it fun to use, which is why it has flown off shelves since it was introduced. As I got used to it I began to think more about how playfulness was more delightful than pure usability in some contexts and vice versa. Something I use occasionally for very specific tasks delights me if it is simple and usable. But something I use often or for more amorphous tasks that is simply usable will either provoke no emotional response or, at worst, will become tedious. In that context, a more playful interaction style will keep me engaged and might even lift my mood a little.
This is the perspective from which I’ll look at what Nielsen found, identify where it’s valuable, and point out where it’s a little myopic.
“Wacky Interfaces”
Wacky. Yes, “wacky.” As in, “Isn’t it cute how kids these days are trying to create beautiful experiences.” Beauty does not require an unusable interface, but a beautiful experience might ask you to engage with it a little more deeply through a lack of obvious affordances.
For more than a decade, when we ask users for their first impression of (desktop) websites, the most frequently-used word has been “busy.” In contrast, the first impression of many iPad apps is “beautiful.” The change to a more soothing user experience is certainly welcome, especially for a device that may turn out to be more of a leisure computer than a business computer. Still, beauty shouldn’t come at the cost of being able to actually use the apps to derive real benefits from their features and content.
He almost gets it. No, the iPad is no business computer, and that’s exactly why beauty is an asset. People will, much of the time, interact with this device in order to have an experience rather than complete a task. Nielsen’s wholesale discounting of beauty fails to take into account that some apps will be experiential and content based while some will be functional and task based. Engaging with a system is not what people want to do when they have a task to complete. That’s when basic usability is more delightful.
Long-standing GUI design guidelines for desktop user designs dictate that buttons look raised (and thus pressable) and that scrollbars and other interactive elements are visually distinct from the content.
The iPad does not have a Graphical User Interface but a gestural one. GUI design guidelines do not necessarily apply when users can interact directly with the content.
For the last 15 years of Web usability research, the main problems have been that users don’t know where to go or which option to choose — not that they don’t even know which options exist. With iPad UIs, we’re back to this square one.
The iPad is also not the Web. Interacting with apps is completely different from interacting with websites. Most apps have far fewer options than the average website, lessening the potential for confusion. On top of that, people use apps in a much more focused way than they use a website. Users can access the entire Web when they open their browser, but when they open an app they choose to focus on that app’s content and functionality only. In that context, a more deeply engaging, exploratory design can enhance the user’s experience.
“Inconsistent Interaction Design”
I take issue with this finding because Nielsen evaluated multiple applications. That’s like saying it’s bad that Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop are inconsistent. They allow completely different audiences to accomplish completely different tasks. He considers it confusing that the same gesture affects the same type of content differently in different apps. When there’s a limited gestural vocabulary (and there has to be) and a diversity of contexts, it’s easy and usually risk-free to experiment with figuring out the correct gesture if you get it wrong the first time. And because it’s gestural, it’s inherently playful and fun. It’s not a chore like trying to parse Word’s menus or toolbars.
Nielsen says that iPad UIs suffer from the “triple threat” of low discoverability (non-obvious controls), low memorability (difficult to remember inconsistently applied gestures), and accidental activation. I agree with the first and the last, mostly. Non-obvious controls can encourage exploration and playfulness in some contexts, but they can be frustrating in others. Accidental activation is certainly annoying, but it’s usually easy to deactivate whatever was activated. That problem in particular I think is due to the absolute newness of the apps and the platform. At least two iPad developers I’ve heard from indicated that they changed the design of their apps once the iPad was released.
The second problem he identifies, low memorability, I completely disagree with. My pre-literate two-year-old daughter knows how to unlock my iPhone & iPad, navigate to her favorite drawing app, launch it, draw with it, and change the various options. It took very few demonstrations before she learned this. If you look on YouTube there are videos of small children expertly navigating iPhones and iPads. You show them how to do it once, they do it, and they remember it.
The link between physical motion and cognitive development (especially in children) is well established in cognitive research, making gestural UIs much more easy to remember than your typical desktop GUI. On top of that, the number of gestures that are possible is pretty limited. Even if you don’t perform the correct gesture first, it won’t take long to figure out what the right one is.
“Crushing Print Metaphor”
Nielsen again complains that iPad apps are not like the Web.
The current design strategy of iPad apps definitely aims to create more immersive experiences, in the hope of inspiring deeper attachments to individual information sources. This cuts against the lesson of the Web, where diversity is strength and no site can hope to capture users’ sole attention.
My friend Pete Barry likes to talk about the value of experience. The reason people choose to consume content through these “limited” apps is because the experience they provide is valuable to them in some way. That experience is a benefit rather than a drawback. Besides, the open Web is just two taps away.
“Card Sharks vs. Holy Scrollers”
Nielsen references Jef Raskin’s differentiation between “two fundamentally different hypertext models,” Cards and Scrolls, indicating that iPad apps mostly fall into the Card model. On a Card, all the interaction occurs on a fixed size canvas that is swapped out to provide access to more content or functionality. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what a Scroll is.
Nielsen said:
There’s no real reason we can’t have both design models: cards on the iPad and scrolls on the desktop (and phones somewhere in the middle). But it’s also possible that we’ll see more convergence and that the Web’s interaction style will prove so powerful that users will demand it on the iPad as well.
If I read that right, I actually agree with him. The iPad doesn’t have to force all apps to subscribe to one model; each app can use whichever model is most appropriate for its context of use. I’ve even seen some apps that mix the models, like Early Edition. This newsreader arranges RSS feed articles like a newspaper, with a home page and different pages for each individual feed. Wherever an article appears on any of these pages, you can actually scroll in place to get a sense of what it’s about! Granted, this is something users are likely to discover accidentally, but it’s a pleasing, delightful interaction nonetheless.
Nielsen’s Recommendations
This is what really gets me going. And not in a good way. He has four, but they really roll up into three:
- Make iPad UIs look more like GUIs
- Make iPad interaction design more like the Web
- “Abandon the hope of value-add through weirdness.”
And yes, that third is a direct quote. In 2010. Beauty isn’t weird. Compelling interactions aren’t weird. Both of these are critical components of modern interaction design, where designers seek to go beyond simple usability and create positive emotional experiences that build loyalty and emotional attachment. What is perhaps most confusing about these recommendations, though, are the first two. Jakob Nielsen is a smart guy, and clearly the iPad exists within entirely different contexts of use than a desktop GUI or a website.
What I really want to know is this: why does Nielsen feel that iPad apps should be designed for contexts they won’t be used in?
Posted via web from ebook
Every Google search to be logged and saved for 2 years under Euro MP plan Keep dreaming, impossible!
Every Google search to be logged and saved for two years under new Euro MP plan
By Niall Firth and Andrew Levy
Last updated at 12:03 PM on 7th June 2010
Every Google web search could be stored for up to two years under a controversial new EU plan that has the backing of more than 300 Euro-MEPs.
'Written Declaration 29' is intended to be used as an early warning system to stop paedophiles by logging what they look for using search engines.
But civil liberty groups have hit out at the proposal which they say is a 'completely unjustifiable' intrusion into citizens' privacy.
And they claim that there is no evidence that it would even be effective in trapping paedophiles who would never use search engines like Google to look for child pornography.
Privacy fears: The declaration would mean that every web users internet searches would be logged and stored for up to two years
The declaration, sponsored by an Italian and a Slovakian MEP, claims that it is 'essential to ensure that the internet continues to afford a high level of virtual democracy, which does not present any threat to women and children.'
The motion asks for Directive 2006/24/EC to be extended to all web search engines, which would include Google, as part of a European early warning system for paedophiles.
The directive came into effect in the March following the 2005 London terror attacks and lets EU member states monitor and store personal emails and other internet activity for up to two years for counter-terrorism puposes.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International which campaigns for tougher privacy laws, said: 'Most paedophiles operate through chatrooms and private communication rather than search engines like Google so they would not be affected,' he added.
'The number of ‘false positives’ generated by the proposal would be very high, There would be 100 entirely reasonable searches thrown up for every genuinely suspicious one.
WHAT IS A WRITTEN DECLARATION?
Written Declarations in the European Parliament work in a similar way to Early Day Motions in the UK’s Parliament.
A group of up to five MEPs can submit a written declaration by presenting a text to be signed by their colleagues.
One is only adopted if more than half of MEPs sign up to it.
So far 324 MEPs have signed this declaration and only a further 45 names are required before it is formally adopted.
If the declaration is adopted it is forwarded to the President who will announce it in the EU Parliament
'It would pick up investigations being made by the authorities and the police themselves as well as academics. It would create a lot of white noise which would effectively cripple the police having to look into everything.
'Once the proposal is in place, then governments and authorities will be able to use the information for any purpose they choose.
'It would also be unlawful from a privacy perspective. We have well established laws in Europe that protect private communications. The idea that governments can destroy that protection is unthinkable.'
Some MEPs have already complained that they were not told about any possible privacy issues and the implications of the declaration when they signed.
They point out that the declaration only refers to the directive by its number, 2006/24/EC.
Swedish MEP Cecilia Wikström has complained that she was misled into signing and is urging her fellow MEPs to withdraw their names.
In an open letter to them, she wrote: 'The Written Declaration is supposed to be about an early-warning system for the protection of children.
‘Long-term storage of citizens’ data has clearly nothing to do with “early warning” for any purpose.
Anther Swedish MEP, Christian Engström, has also called on members of the public to contact their local MEP and explain that they had been misled before the declaration reaches the 369 name mark.
Sarah Gaskell, a spokeswoman for Open Europe, an independent think tank calling for EU reform, said the directive raised 'serious privacy concerns'
She said: 'MEPs should have a serious re-think before supporting this declaration which would open up even more of citizens' personal data to monitoring and abuse.
'People already have serious concerns about the EU's role in the erosion of their civil liberties and this declaration would only serve to reinforce those views.
'The Data Retention Directive has been very controversial with some member states refusing to even implement it. Extending it to internet searches as well is very troubling, even it the purpose it is intended for is a good one.'
And Dylan Sharpe, Campaign Director of civil liberties pressure group Big Brother Watch, said: 'Monitoring every internet search is a completely unjustifiable and disproportionate intrusion on our privacy.
'The MEPs responsible for proposing this law under the guise of preventing paedophilia should be ashamed of themselves.
'With Data Retention Directive already in place, this latest move suggests that the EU Parliament is intent on controlling what we look at on the internet.'
One of the MEPs behind the motion, Anna Zaborska, sparked controversy in her native Slovakia after she was once quoted as saying that ‘Aids is God's punishment for homosexuality’.
She has also been attacked for her outspoken views on abortion after she said that she did not believe that women should have them even in rape cases.
The EU motion follows moves by the Home Office last year to use telecoms firms such as Orange and BT to build a database of everyone's phone calls and emails.
Dubbed the 'snoopers charter', the £2bn Internet Modernisation Programme was kicked into the long grass by Labour after anger from civil liberty campaigners.
The coalition document released by the new Government last month was particularly vague about the programme and pledged only to 'end the storage of internet and email records without good reason'.
And it comes after Google admitted earlier this year that its Streetview cars had been inadvertently logging information about people’s online activity.
The internet giant was rapped by the Information Commissioner’s Office which said Google had committed ‘a breach of people's personal data’.
iNavX on th eiPad, a beta likes it, next up investigate if it works with European / Northsea maps
iNavX on the iPad
A Beta tester’s point of view
I haven’t been this excited since since I was a kid waiting for Christmas. The big present was the new 64GB iPad 3G. When Apple made the first announcement, I knew that this could be a solutionto navigation on boats. Not only did I know this, but developer of iNavX marine software for the iPhone, Rich Ray also knew this to be a fact. I have been a Beta tester for him since the early days of GPSNavX, MacENC and iNavX. I knew that iNavX would scale perfectly to the iPad, and that was Rich’s full intention.
As the six weeks of waiting spiraled down, Rich was very busy working on the new application. Unlike some other developers, he decided to keep this application a “universal app”, which means it will run on the iPad, iPod Touch or the iPhone. The consumer only has to pay once.
Finally delivery day for the new iPad was upon us. I personally met the FedEx lady and received the package. Rich wasn’t far behind and a couple of days later I had the first beta for the iPad.
Rich had taken full advantage of the added space that the iPad offers with a "Compass Banner"/ "Instrument Banner" on the top and a "Tab" menu bar on the bottom. The various charts display superbly on the bright sharp screen.
First things
The first thing I did was download all the charts I would need. This was done through XTraverse, an online supplier iNavX uses to move docs and charts back and forth. I was able to download Navionics and Canadian raster charts. (This appwas designed to display many different chart formats). I had previously downloaded the charts I would need from NOAA.Adding new routes took a bit of learning, but not too bad once you get the hang of it. It is a simple matter of either showing all the waypoints you already have in iNavX (“settings”>toggle on/off on top of screen), and tapping on them to make up a new route, or creating new waypoints by tapping on the chart and selecting the "waypoint" button. A popup window appears asking you if you want to add to the route. Simply tap out your course.
At first blush the charts looked stunning on the iPad. You are struck with the clarity of viewing on the iPad’s 1024 x 748 pixel display. Apple has done a superb job on this screen making it viewable from the most oblique angles. The method of multitouch, making finger gestures on screen to get the desired information, made it a great experience. The iPad also has the advantage of portrait or landscape view. Up here in the Northwest, we do a lot of north and south cruising, making portrait view very useful.
Laying in a course
Now it is just a matter of tapping on routes and picking the one you want to navigate.
In this case we are going from Shelter Bay to Friday Harbor. Nuts, Wrong way! Okay, no problem. I simply touch on the route title which opens up Friday Harborto Shelter Bay, showing me all my waypoints (on each w/p, the degrees magnetic and distance). I hit the little roundabout arrow above, which reverses the route and I am ready to go. At page top, I hit the “go to” button and then in the upper left touch “Routes”. I touch "chart" in the Tab Bar and there I am. I have activated the my first route.
Getting under way
I felt the iPad would not be just an "in between" computer on your boat, as some have suggested. A correctly written program could be completely self-contained, fitting all your needs.
With that in mind, here is a typical trip.
First thing, get the iPad ready to go. Launch iNavX then... to the setup page (which is the first page that you will find in this program) and pick your desired chart. In this case, because of it’s simplicity, I pick the Navionics charts which covers the entire US, and are priced appropriately. The Pacific Northwest is my cruising grounds, so I pick Puget Sound. The chart loads up right away. I tap on “chart” and that forces the program to center on my vessel. One thing that I have learned, the GPS inside this iPad is not like the GPS in the iPhone. Although I have found that to be adequate, this is a superior unit. Even sitting inside my house, this GPS acquires a signal. It is much more sensitive, and I found the accuracy to be quite good.
We cast off the lines, and since this is a beta test, I am looking for any anomalies or problems. As I come up on my first waypoint, I have the iPad propped up in a vertical position. As a side note, I made a small wooden tray, which consists of cutting a slot in a pice of wood, a half inch wide and 7/8" deep that the iPad sits in ... either vertical or horizontally, with a wooden base and soft rubber feet on the bottom, so it stays stable in my cockpit.
Getting from point A to B
I double click on the first waypoint I am approaching. Up comes a popover which gives me several options. The first one is “next Bouy 6” which advances to the next waypoint. As previously mentioned, if I were working with routes, it would allow me to add/edit this waypoint, zoom in, zoom out or activate tides andcurrents in my area. This current version of iNavX does not have auto next (as yet), so when I come upon awaypoint, it is a simple matter of double tapping and hitting “next” to advance the w/p.Since I have activated the instrument strip at the top, which is user selectable, I am now reading the COG (Corse over Ground), SOG (speed), XTE (my cross track error), BTW (bearing to w/p), DTW (distance to w/p) etc. I have the option to put in HPD so I can see just how valid my satellite signal is.
For this section of the trip, I have elected to use the iPad’s built-in GPS. The compass banner is taking direction from the GPS. (When HDG is set to “off” the compass reverts to GPS.)
Reflections
It will be an interesting test today because usually in the Northwest, you don’t have to worry about sun, as it’s normally cloudy, making screen viewing easier. However today is the exception with sunlight streaming in. I gave up a long time ago trying to see a laptop screen, or any other type of display in the cockpit. I finally broke down and bought a sunlight viewable display, which has worked beautifully on the boat.
Would the iPad work outside? Well here it sits right in front of me. Sunlight is hitting both the outdoor screen and the iPad. So far no problem viewing. It is a remarkable screen, the only problem is reflection, I might have to turn it a bit to keep a direct reflection off, but all in all very easy to read. If you take it out where the sun is hitting it directly, it's a challenge.
Right away I notice that my track is being laid down behind my course, and just for the heck of it, I switch over to the tracks page, where I can see that iNavX is keeping accurate account of my trip. My tracks can be imported and exported. I have stats, such as count, distance averaged, and elapsed time. If I tap on a track in the lower Tab Bar, up comes a popover that gives me that particular track, the date, Lat/Lon, speed over ground, and heading.
Instruments
I tap instruments on the Tab Bar. This allows me to pull up a page where data is prominently displayed. At a glance, I get to see all the instrumentation that I have previously selected in "set up". Interestingly enough, iNavX can take in any other NMEA source (think: wind, depth, speed... NMEA capable instruments). How did you get that data without a wire? Later.
Right now I want to take a look at my heading. I press on the line labeled HDG. It tells me that I am doing 225 degrees magnetic, in a popover that presents in a large beveled rectangle, very readable type (great for us who have stacked up a number of decades).
I am now about halfway through my trip. I notice a number of little things that might not be working quite as they should. I press the big home button at the bottom and type up an email complete with pics illustrating areas that need attention.
No wires
Its time to give TCP/IP a try. This is what makes iNavXreally shine. For this test I am using my MacBook running MacEnc using the TCP/IP feature. This allows me to take all the NMEA data piped into MacENC and transmit it wirelessly to the iPad. Since my iPad and my MacBook both have Wifi in them, Apple has initiated what they call ad hoc (special purpose) networking. I am able to set up my MacBook as an ad hoc transmitter, and my iPad as an ad hoc receiver. At this point I am transmitting all the data, (GPS and AIS ) over to the iPad. Back in iNavX on the iPad, I enter "set up" and I pick TCP/IP. I put in the IP address that I see on my MacBook, and hit the link button. I notice in the monitor that data starts streaming across my monitor window. I close out and tap the chart button. Now my position cursor displays and I notice that the AIS targets are popping up all around me. Best of all ...no wires!
Great AIS
This triggers new features in iNavX. With AIS showing, I go back to my navigational screen and hit instruments in the bottom TabBar. I notice that TCT is displayed. I click on it and up comes a complete list of all myAIS targets. I can click on any one of those targets and get all the information about a particular vessel in a popover window. With another feature, click on the spyglass and iNavX takes you right to the target on the chart. Of all the nav programs out there, this has the best display of AIS. Back on the screen, I click once on an AIS target and get all his information. I see a predictor line from his bow (previously set for five minutes) to help determine CPA, closest point of approach.
Time for GRIB
So far so good in the trip. I am now navigating through narrow passages in the San Juans and iNavX has me plotted accurately. The day looks sunny and bright, but I want to know the weather window for today and tomorrow. My 3G signal on the iPad looks good, so I reach down and press forecast in the bottom TabBar. Up comes a menu page with "request GRIB". I select surface wind. The request goes out and about a minute later I have a GRIB file waiting for me. I download the file and return to the chart. Navionics charts are so easy to manipulate, I just use a pinch hand gesture, which reduces my scale down to about 1:10,000K revealing a GRIB file picture of wind arrows very closely spaced, along with Isobars showing me atmospheric highs and lows. Towards the top there is a blue bar that indicates the day and 12 hour Pacific Coast time. I just hit the double arrow button to the right and it takes me to the next 6 hour period. I hit it again, next and so on. I get an idea of what the weather is doing. Now, I am nearing the end of my trip.
TidesI want to check the tides. I simply tap on the chart, nearing the entrance to Friday Harbor. My popover comes up and I select “tides”. At that point, iNavX goes directly to AyeTides and offers me a listing of tides and currents in my area. I get all the information that I need in a detailed account. I tap the AyeTides return button and I am right back to my position in iNavX.
When I arrive at Friday Harbor, I see an email with an iNavX update ready for download. What could be easier or more efficient.
Digi
To keep the iPad wireless and leave the computer at home, Rich came up with a nifty solution. A WiFi bridge called the Digi Wi-Sp was pulled into action. It's a little black box about 1 1/2" X 2 1/2". Plug in your serial cable and it'll transmit your data via an ad hoc network to your iPad.One little problem, it's not the easiest item to set up. After giving it a try I had to enlist Rich's help. He offers the same help to any of his customers.
All data must plug into one serial outlet. If you want GPS and AIS, you have two solutions. Get one of the new class B AIS units (Tx/Rx) as they offer both AIS and GPS in their data stream, or if you have a Milltech AIS, you can use their "Y" cable. On another trip, this allowed me to hand hold the iPad back at the helm... Talk about freedom!
IPad or computer?
So the debate, will the iPad be able to take over for the computer. I feel that it will definitely be up to the job. I think that this program was very carefully written to be able to do just that. It is a basic application. It doesn’t have every single bell and whistle, however the authorhas energetically improved this program as time has gone on, even to the point where a few have complained about too many updates. Of course for me, there could never be "too many". Those updates mean new improvements and features that he will be adding constantly.iNavX can be daunting when starting out. The app seems basic, however the more you get into it the more you find. To help offset this, email help is almost instantaneous, there is a complete guide and forums are helpful. You also have the advantage of sitting at home and laying out all your courses, which is very conducive on the iPad.
So right now as a solid navigator I would have no trepidation about cruising anywhere. The accuracy and the main working functions are all there. It can only get better from this point. Now getting down to what is going to make this a super navigation device. That would be making it truly wireless, so you can walk anywhere on your vessel and have your navigation right in your hands.
Update
Just as I was finishing this article, Rich added beautiful analog instruments to display wind, depth and speed. It never ends.
.
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Sony sees e-books overtaking traditional publishing in five years! That soon? #yam
Sony sees e-books overtaking traditional publishing in five years
by Darren Allan
Sony thinks that the e-book market will become larger than traditional print publishing inside of the next five years.
Or Steve Haber, the President of Sony’s Digital Reading division, believes this is the case anyway.
He reckons that books will go the same way as the music industry, with digitisation an inevitable process that will accelerate over the next few years.
Talking to The Telegraph, Haber explained that three years back, he said this process would take a decade.
He’s now revising that prediction down to five years, shaving a couple of years off his original guesstimate if you take the time passed between then and now into consideration.
The reason for this rethink is the more rapid spread of e-reader devices, such as the successful Amazon Kindle, and Sony’s Reader (of course); but also tablets like the iPad, which can be used to buy and read e-books.
Given the iPad’s initial success, with two million units shifted in just two months, Haber’s prediction might not be far off the mark.
Big publishing houses don’t think so, of course, pointing out that while the e-book market is certainly growing at a pace, it’s still relatively very small compared to print publishing.
Technology does have a way of accelerating exponentially, though…
Story link: Sony sees e-books overtaking traditional publishing in five years
Posted via web from ebook
Publishers want universal e-books; won't cooperate to get them #yam
Publishers want universal e-books; won't cooperate to get them
The industry-wide struggle over e-book formats continues, despite the fact that publishers are inundated with choices over how and where to distribute their e-books. In fact, such a wide selection is part of the reason why publishers are up in arms over the lack of a good universal option: they don't want to have to choose between Amazon, Apple, and Barnes and Noble; nor do they want to spend the extra time and resources trying to do all three. They want to choose one format and have it be available everywhere, but the industry may be standing in its own way before a widely accepted universal format becomes available.
There are already several open e-book formats out there—ePub and MobiPocket are just a couple. The major e-book devices even support them; with a little bit of effort, you can get an ePub version of a book onto your Kindle or iPad in no time. The problem is the "effort" part—e-book sellers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple heavily market their own stores and make it even easier for customers to simply buy the proprietary formats.
The downside, of course, is that customers are then locked into specific formats and devices. As noted in a recent Reuters piece, a Kindle book may be readable on a Kindle app on the iPad, but it's still limited to the Kindle "universe"—other devices that lack Kindle apps won't be able to handle those formats, and vice versa.
"Our fondest wish is that all the devices become agnostic so that there isn't proprietary formats and you can read wherever you want to read," Penguin Group CEO David Shanks told Reuters. "First we have to get a standard that everybody embraces."
Getting their collective act together
Some believe the industry itself needs to get its act together before pointing fingers at Amazon or Apple. "Indeed, there are several open formats, but the problem is that they still need work," self-published author Cesar Torres told Ars. Torres believes that if publishers worked together to get behind a particular open format, the format would improve and device makers would be more motivated to offer wider support.
"The problem still lies with publishing houses and their inability to talk to one another. Everyone is doing their own thing without any regard for readers or customers," Torres said. "Apple and Amazon would be toast if publishers really got their act together."
There's another element that's holding back publishers from unifying on a more widely compatible, open format. The old guard of publishers is at odds with the more progressive ones over how to handle e-books, adding to strife within the industry. Brooklyn-based writer Edward Champion expressed frustration after attending this year's BookExpo CEO panel, noting that moderator Jonathan Galassi "maintained the old warhorse position that hardcovers would still be desired by 100 percent of book purchasers," and that Authors Guild president Scott Turow seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that customers want e-books the same day hardcover versions are released.
Both Champion and Torres seem to agree certain publishers are simply scared of the dangers of the online world. "Most publishers don't want e-books at all," Torres said. They want to keep paper around as long as possible (sound familiar?) and, in lieu of that, they insist on heavy DRM on their e-books as they are dragged kicking and screaming into the digital world.
That stance is clear when you read Penguin Group president Susan Peters Kennedy's comments to Reuters. She staunchly noted that publishers aren't keen on making the same "mistakes" as the music industry and falling into a battle over piracy. "It's always treated as if the publishers are the Luddites. The devices have not caught up with the content. Contrary to popular opinion, the book is actually so far more flexible," Kennedy said.
With that kind of attitude, it's no surprise that users are increasingly "pirating" e-books that they already own in paper format. Traditional books are indeed more flexible, but that's because of the industry's own disagreement on how to handle e-books. What's worse: a PDF of a book floating around on BitTorrent because there are no other legal ways to acquire a digital copy, or an ePub version of the same book available for purchase on the major bookstores' and publishers' websites? Some cooperation from publishers could go a long way, but they apparently don't yet realize that.
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