The key to fixing the U.S. science education gap is outside of class
On Tuesday, a shocking report about the condition of the U.S. education system made headlines in the biggest news outlets. The 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that this generation of school children has a painfully low percentage of scientific proficiency. Approximately two-thirds of children in the fourth grade in 2009 lacked science proficiency, and that number reached almost 80% among high school seniors.
The U.S., it appears, has been sorely neglecting science education.
Touch Technology isn't just for fingers...
Celebrating the company's 50th anniversary, Plantronics on Wednesday unveiled the latest product in its line of wireless headsets for office scenarios, the Voyager Pro UC v2.
Utilizing capacitive touch sensors, the Voyager Pro UC and its new software suite can intelligently interact with softphones and mobile devices based simply upon the user's physical contact with the headset.
Senators Cantwell and Franken introduce bill to revise net neutrality rules
Tuesday, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.) introduced a bill called The Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection act of 2011 on behalf of herself and co-sponsor Senator Al Franken (D-Mn.)
Both Cantwell and Franken have expressed public concern about net neutrality in the wake of the FCC's passage of the Open Internet Order and approval of Comcast's joint content venture with NBC Universal, and this bill seeks to create stronger guidelines for net neutrality.
Your phone number can now become your Google Voice number
Google on Tuesday announced that existing Google Voice users can port their phone numbers over to the Google Voice service for a one-time fee of $20. Previously, users could only be assigned new numbers for the service, and not bring their existing number with them like they can between telephone companies.
"One of the most frequent requests we hear from people who use (or want to use) Google Voice is that they'd like to get all of Google Voice's features without having to give up their long-time phone numbers," said Google Software Engineer Robert Dong in the Google Voice blog today.
Yet again, comScore says Yahoo's sites had more unique views than Google's
Web metrics company comScore on Monday announced its Media Metrix Top 50 U.S. Web properties for the month of December, an important time to watch web traffic due to the holiday-related shopping that takes place. Once again, comScore ranked Yahoo and its related sites as the top Web property with 182 million unique viewers, beating out Google's 179.3 million and Microsoft's 177 million.
Amazon saw a spike in traffic in December that drove it up to the #7 position, and weather-related sites The Weather Channel and WeatherBug both enjoyed big spikes in unique visits due to holiday-related travel planning.
How to wirelessly print photos from Android with new Gmail Cloud Print
Monday, Google announced it will be rolling out its "Cloud Print" mobile Gmail feature over the next few days to U.S. users. Cloud Print lets users pair their Google ID with various printers, and then send print jobs from anywhere the user has a connection.
In mobile Gmail's options menu, there is now a button simply marked "print" which lets the user send a print job to his Cloud Print tray from his Android or iOS mobile device. From here, the user can select the destination printer and begin printing the contents of selected emails, and .pdf or .doc attachments. This is an incredibly useful feature, as it eliminates the need for printer drivers for mobile devices.
Huawei accuses Motorola of trying to sell its secrets to Nokia-Siemens
Chinese telecommunications company Huawei filed a lawsuit against Motorola on Monday alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement, and breach of contract related to Motorola's $1.2 billion wireless infrastructure deal with Nokia Siemens Networks.
In July, Motorola agreed to sell its GSM and CDMA wireless infrastructure business to Nokia Siemens for $1.2 billion, a deal which promised to vastly improve Motorola's cash situation as it moved toward the completion of its split into two companies.
Duke Nukem Forever, the most delayed video game ever, launches May 3
Last September, 2K Games and Gearbox Software announced they would finally be releasing Duke Nukem Forever on Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 after a delay of more than a decade. On Friday, the companies published the title's final release dates: May 3 in North America, and May 6 worldwide.
Even after 2K and Gearbox demonstrated the game's release at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, there was a considerable amount of doubt and speculation from the public about the game's release. After all, it unofficially holds the title of "most delayed game of all time," with nearly thirteen years between the title's first announcement and its eventual release. Naturally, the sudden news that it would be released should be met with a large amount of skepticism.
Amazon renames its DIY Kindle publishing platform to attract more content
Amazon on Friday announced that its Kindle Digital Text Platform, or DTP, will be renamed Kindle Direct Publishing. All other aspects of the self-publishing platform appear to remain unchanged.
One year ago, Amazon launched Kindle DTP in more than one hundred countries worldwide, pushing Amazon's proprietary Kindle e-book format into the hands of independent publishers and content creators who might otherwise have considered publishing their materials on a more open format, like ePub, which Barnes & Noble's Pubit! self publishing platform uses for creating Nook-compatible e-books.
Earth Alerts disaster tracker for Windows gets 2011 update
South Wind Technologies on Thursday released version 2011.1.0 of Earth Alerts, a free windows-based application for tracking the world's natural disasters.
The program can be set up to look for disruptive nature patterns in the areas the user has chosen, these could be earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, tropical cyclones, wildfires, landslides, severe weather, or simply local weather.
Google CEO Schmidt casually steps down, shocks tech world
Google's Chief Executive officer Eric Schmidt will be stepping down from his position on April 4 of this year, and the site's co-founder Larry Page will once again assume the role of CEO.
Thursday afternoon, Schmidt announced that he will be moving to the role of Executive Chairman of Google's board of directors, where he will focus on "wherever [he] can add the greatest value." This might mean making deals, forging partnerships, broadening business relationships, or performing government outreach. Schmidt also says he will act as an advisor to Page and co-founder Sergey Brin.
T-Mobile announces Galaxy S 4G, first device capable of fully utilizing 4G
T-Mobile currently only has two phones capable of taking advantage of its HSPA+ "4G" network, the myTouch 4G and the G2, but on Thursday the carrier announced the first phone to be able to support the network's theoretical maximum speeds.
Today, as part of the carrier's 4G expansion that is expected to include 25 new consumer devices this year, T-Mobile and Samsung announced Galaxy S 4G, which could be the next 4G smartphone T-Mobile will offer.
OpenERP launches latest version of its open enterprise resource planning suite
Belgium-based commercial open source software vendor OpenERP today announced the availability of OpenERP v6, the latest version of the company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite. OpenERP v6 includes updates to almost all of the components in the suite, including its CRM, Purchase Management, Manufacturing, Warehouse Management, Project Management, Accounting, Marketing, Human Resources, and Point of Sale modules.
OpenERP says this version has more than a hundred new features in total, which are the result of thousands of customer and community suggestions and more than a year's worth of development from its community of 800 individual developers.
Former HP CEO Hurd faces renewed investigation from angry shareholders
Responding to a shareholder lawsuit, Hewlett-Packard will begin an investigation into the departure of former Chairman, President, and CEO Mark Hurd. Hurd resigned from his positions in the company last August amid sexual harassment claims brought against him by a former HP contractor Jodie Fisher.
it is believed that Hurd's departure was the result of a failure to cooperate with HP's executive board as it investigated the incidents, and that Hurd offered Fisher a settlement before a full investigation could be conducted.
A look at Web app alternatives to the most popular software
The Web apps that are easiest to find happen to be the ones that duplicate the functionality of software packed into operating systems (clock, calculator, notepad, etc.), so they really don't have much to offer users in terms of value. But there are actually quite a few Web apps that approximate the functionality of some of the most-purchased third-party desktop software, and are free, to boot.
Here, we take a look at the Web's best alternatives to the most popular boxed software on Amazon.com.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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