YouTube

October 11, 2013

YouTube: It’s All In There

YouTube (www.youtube.com) is a free video-sharing Internet web site visited by more than one billion unique viewers each month, watching more than six billion hours of video, with almost 100 hours of new videos added each month.

Why so popular? Well, for one, you can find a video to show you how to do almost any task, learn a skill, and a lot more. 

And entertainment videos let you see videos of every music genre, movie clips, exercise instruction, and more. Children’s songs are a big hit: a video of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” had more than 250,000,000 views. Luciano Pavarotti’s last performance of “Nesum Dorma” garnered eight million views, Tina Turner’s 2009 performing “Proud Mary” had 5 million views—you get the picture.

Historic events on are also a big hit: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, the 9/11 terrorist attack, and a lot more.

                

Video content is totally user generated, so quality ranges from decidedly amateur to slick and professional.

Uploading a video is easy, and viewing can be either for those you select or for anyone.

Caution here: YouTube depends on user-generated content and does very little censoring, so some videos are not suitable for youngsters. The search Safety Filter is not perfect, so you need to carefully monitor children’s use.

But there’s a lot on YouTube that’s useful, educational and entertaining. Check it out!

More on our web site: www.norma-tony.com

MOOCs

September 14, 2013

 

MOOCs

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offer terrific Internet educational opportunities: use them to take courses from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and UCLA, and many others, all from the comfort of your home, office or any place where you have an Internet connection.

Many MOOCs are free, although college credit may be available for some for a fee. More than a thousand courses are available; topics range from quantum physics to music of the Beatles, sustainable agriculture, Roman architecture, Smart Growth for Private Businesses, and many others.

Need proof? Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) from Stanford attracted 160,000 people from 209 countries for the first class; it’s still popular for teaching modern Artificial Intelligence, techniques of machine learning, robotics, and more. The course is free and given by Peter Norvig, now director of Research at Google, and Sebastian Thrun, Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford.

Yes! There are other less technical courses, such as:

Online Games: Literature, New Media and Narrative, a seven-week course given by Jay Clayton, Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. This course explores what happens to traditional stories and films, such as Lord of the Rings, when they become the focus of an online game. You get a certificate of completion when you finish the course.

Learning materials for MOOCs are available via video, books, lectures, demonstrations, Internet searches, blogs, tweets or Facebook, and most importantly, interaction with other students.

Course listings and more at www.coursera.org. Don’t miss out!

More on our web site: www.norma-tony.com

Why Skype or Oovoo?

August 16, 2013

Why Skype or Oovoo?

Skype and Oovoo let you use the Internet for making voice or video calls anywhere in the world. Use either program to show off the new baby, talk face-to-face with someone you can’t visit in person, read a bedtime story to a child at home, and to “be there” to share projects and ideas and the like.

Educational options abound: “sit in” on a lecture and interact with the instructors, take courses not offered at your school, watch a ballet class from an instructor in London or Paris, take piano or art lessons, practice speaking foreign languages with students from other countries, hold debates, do presentations, collaborate on projects—the list is endless.

Business uses include holding conferences or training sessions, demonstrating products or services, and extending customer services, among many others.

Oovoo (www.oovoo.com) and Skype (www.skype.com) are free for the basic services, but a plus for Oovoo is that you can hold free video chat sessions for up to 12 people, each displayed in his or her own window.

The downside: these calls and videos use the Internet, so there’s no guarantee of privacy—you’ll need to use common sense and care in what you say and what you video.

More on our web site: www.norma-tony.com

Nanny Cams

That cute Teddy Bear sitting on the shelf in your child’s room may be watching you--if it’s a “Nanny Cam.” These cameras are a type of video surveillance camera designed to watch children or elderly adults to ensure their safety.

The simplest Nanny Cam is a video camera set to view the intended scene and wired directly to a remote monitor, such as a camera in the baby’s room and the monitor in the kitchen. But new technology lets you do much more . . . 

Now there are wireless cameras that access your home network to display the live camera view on compatible devices such as a computer, iPad, smart phone, or TV. If your home network can access the Internet (most do), you can get the live view anywhere you can connect to the Internet: the office, golf course, store and such. Other features include motion detection, auto recording, and auto notification. So the camera can be set to automatically start recording video whenever it detects motion in its field of view, and at the same time send an email or text message to a your phone.

You can use all this amazing stuff  for much more than “nanny” duty. Now you can have cameras placed to watch over swimming pools, garages, driveways and just about any place. Cameras can be obvious ( fake cameras sold for this purpose) or masquerade as a book, clock, plant, smoke detector, wall outlets and more. And some cameras have an infrared mode so you can see in the dark. Some cameras feature remote pan, tilt and zoom controls. 

The legal stuff:
There are privacy/legal issues in using surveillance video cameras. Federal law prohibits secretly recording oral communication, so most nanny cams sold can’t record audio. States laws vary though, some allow audio recording after consent of individuals being recorded, others have no special laws regarding the audio.

It’s currently legal in every state to make a video-only recording of anything in your home, at any time, without informing anyone. The fact that the camera is hidden has no effect on this concept; however, privacy issues do come into play, and it’s best not to include in the field of view scenes outside your home boundaries, such as the street or the neighbor’s back yard. We advise using common sense, but you already do that, right?

So - for as little as $69.95, you can use video cameras to address many issues of security and safety (even keeping track of your pet).

2013 International CES

We’re just back from the 2013 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Here’s what caught our eyes and ears as we roamed the conference halls and sat in at the press conferences:

NEW New:
    Small, truly portable power supplies that use fuel cell technology to recharge or power small mobile devices such as smart phones, iPads, iPods (but not yet laptops). These fuel cells provide 6-15 recharges before you need to replace the fuel capsule.
    A window cleaning robot. This little device crawls around your window on tiny suction cups built into tractor treads. It really does do windows.
    Earphones that use bone conduction to hear music or cell phone, leaving the ear canals unobstructed for hearing ambient sound, conversations, traffic noises.

 
TV: The new crop of TVs are bigger, brighter and, oh my, is the display sharper than we’ve ever seen. Large 55" versions of the long-anticipated  OLED (organic light emitting diodes) displays were especially notable. Want big? How about 80" and 90" displays (with price tags to match). A few “ultra HD” 4K and 8K sets were also on display. Look for improved sound quality from the TV’s built-in speakers. And most TVs are “smart,” connecting to the Internet with a built-in browser or included apps from TV and music providers such as Netflix or Pandora.

 Bling: One exhibitor proudly proclaimed “Bling My Thing!” Not what you think, but referring to a way to decorate your mobile devices as a fashion statement. Colorful crystal-encrusted covers for your smartphones, iPads and even earphones were everywhere. Likewise, wild and crazy colorfully designed covers for a variety of devices. Want a pink or purple wireless pedometer? We saw them--and lots more.

 
Home Networks: Products from Netgear expand the reach of your home wireless network to eliminate those annoying dead zones. Simple, plug-in and self installing.

Home Automation: Central control and monitoring, local or remote, for entertainment, heating and A/C, lighting, security and more in your home are available from several vendors, but prices are still high for the better quality systems and most need professional installation.

More details coming. Stay tuned.

Tips and Tricks for Internet Searching

You know the information is on the Internet somewhere, but with BILLIONS of Web pages and sites, how do you find what you want?

Use search engines -- those specialized Web sites such as Google.com, Yahoo.com, Bing.com or ask.com. Enter words or phrases related to info you want, and the search engine displays a list of Web sites that include your search words or phrases.

Each search engine has its own set of rules so may not display the same results. Try more than one site or use meta search engines, such as Metacrawler.com or DogPile.com, which simultaneously search several search engines.

Or, narrow your search by using:

* phrases in quotes that search for a whole phrase rather than individual words.

* the + or - signs to include or exclude specific words.

* advanced search to specify languages, file formats or other parameters.

* a wild card symbol * when not sure of word ending.

* natural language, such as “My computer locks up when I try to save a Word document to a thumb drive.”

* a comprehensive list of search engines www.search-engine-index.co.uk.

* parental controls for safe searching; also www.askkids.com.

* help menu from each site.

Be patient and persistent to get results.

Explore (surf) the Internet with www.awwwards.com for sites that have won awards for good design and useful content, or try www.stumbleupon.com. But be sure your anti-virus and anti-malware is installed and up to date.

Apple iPad

The newest iPad (www.apple.com) is named simply iPad , but behind that simple name lies an amazing array of new features--so of course we had to buy one . . .

 Here’s some of what we like: The iPad physically looks almost identical to the iPad 2, but it’s a shade thicker and a bit heavier. The hallmark feature is the 9.7" Retina display that provides 3.1 million pixels total (1536 X 2048), four times more than the iPad 2 and one million more than HDTV. Couple this with the new quad core processor and a new operating system, you get a sharper, more colorful photo display, smoother video, movie and gaming displays, sharper text and improved Internet browsing.

Also new: a dictation feature that’s active with any app requiring keyboard entry. Just tap the Microphone Icon, speak, and iPad types. Major cool.

The forward-facing camera is also greatly improved. Video is now offered at 1080p HD and is amazing when viewed on the iPad's screen or, using an optional HDMI connector, on your TV screen. And--the iPad still has the features that made iPad 2 so popular: such as a GPS locator, Bluetooth connectivity, motion detector, contacts, calender, multi-touch swipe navigation and the like.

There are two basic configurations for iPad: WiFi only or WiFi + 3G/4G, each with a choice of three memory capacities: 16GB, 32GB or 64GB (Photos, videos, music, movies and apps tend to accumulate so--think carefully about intended usage.) iPad prices range from 16GB WiFi only at $499 to the 64GB WiFi + 3G/4G variety at $829.

We love our iPad for the new display, faster processor, improved camera and new operating system. Check it out!