CourseCast of the Week

Episode 127, 11/16/2009

Title/Description: Tech News Headlines

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 127, recorded November 14th, 2009.

This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.cengage.com/coursetechnology for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

Visit the CourseCasts Website at coursecasts.course.com where you will find links to the full stories covered in this CourseCast, related discussion questions for use in your technology courses, and the CourseCast Archives.

• Twitter and LinkedIn have connected their social networks. Now LinkedIn updates can be posted on Twitter, and Tweets can be routed to Linked in. The new partnership benefits both companies by beefing up the business aspects of Twitter, and broadening LinkedIn's visibility.
  LinkedIn and Twitter link up [Reuters]
• Have you heard about the new online dating service for shallow snobs? Beautifulpeople.com is a global dating service that only allows attractive people to join. Applicants are screened by the community who rates the person based on a photo and a paragraph. If you are voted too ugly to join, the site will still allow you to browse BeautifulPeople as a guest. The site has become so popular that its servers are unable to accept any more applications.
  Britons among the "ugliest people", dating site says [Reuters]
• The new video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" set a new record for first day sales. The popular first-person shooter combat game from Activision sold 4.7 million copies for a total of $310 million in 24 hours. Compare this to the hottest movie from last year, "The Dark Night" that raked in only half as much.
  Activision says "Call of Duty" sets launch record [Reuters]
• Call of Duty isn't the only product to do well despite tough economic times. Worldwide shipments of smartphones set a new record in the third quarter with 43.3 million units shipped, 13% growth, and Nokia taking the lion share of the sales.
  World Smartphone Market Grows Despite Economy [NewsFactor]
  Smartphone sales up 13% in third quarter [Computerworld]
• A 19-year-old New Yorker was arrested and held for 12 days in connection with an armed robbery. His lawyer was able to get him off the hook when it was discovered that the young man had updated his Facebook status from his father's apartment at the time of the crime. Thus the precedent is set for the use of Facebook as an alibi.
  Facebook provides alibi for robbery suspect [Reuters]
• Many television shows and movies are now available online, but it's often difficult to find what you would like to watch. A new well-financed start-up has arrived to act as the first "TV Guide for the Web." Check out Clicker.com to see what's hot, what's new, and what's recommended in TV, movies, and video on the Web and to browse by title or category a catalogue of hundreds of thousands of TV episodes, movies, and music videos from 1,200 networks.
  Clicker Aims to Be the Path to TV Online [NYTimes]
• Windows 7 is facing its first serious unpatched vulnerability that security analysts anticipate will soon be exploited by hackers. The vulnerability allows hackers to crash the computer through malicious code embedded in Web pages. Microsoft recommends that users block ports 139 and 445 on their Windows 7 PCs which would block any attack, but would also keep users from accessing the Web.
  Microsoft confirms first Windows 7 zero-day bug [Computerworld]
• Microsoft's Bing search engine is fighting hard to regain market share with new features announced this week. The most interesting new feature is the addition of Wolfram Alpha search results for health and food-related queries. Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine that answers factual queries with computed and structured data rather than with a list of links.
  Can New Bing Features Unseat Google? [NewsFactor]
• Google Latitude is an online application that provides location-specific information based on GPS. This week Google announced two new features for Google Latitude. The first is the ability to store and retrieve a Location History so users can review where they have been. The second feature is Location Alerts which notifies users when a friend is at a nearby location.
  Tracking Features Added To Google Latitude [NewsFactor]
• Some University's are blocking the use of Amazon's Kindle ebook reader arguing that the device is difficult for blind students to use. While the Kindle does feature the ability to read books aloud, it requires a sighted helper to enable the feature.
  Schools Shun Kindle, Saying Blind Can't Use It [NewsFactor]
• Intel, on the other hand, is focusing on helping people who are visually impaired or blind with a different type of e-reader. The Intel Reader is a portable device that allows the user to snap a picture of a book or newspaper page, store it, and then reads it aloud.
  Intel makes an e-reader for the visually impaired [Computerworld]
• Apple corporation continues to impress and grow. This week Apple CEO Steve Jobs was named CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine, and the company announced that it will open 40 to 50 new retail stores in 2010.
  Steve Jobs Conquers the Decade - Now What? [Ecommerce Times]
  Apple Plans To Launch 40 to 50 Retail Stores in 2010 [NewsFactor]
• Will the Smartbook be the next Netbook? Lenovo unveiled a new tiny notebook PC, called a smartbook, which falls in between a netbook and smartphone in size. Lenovo's smartbook is the first to use a tiny but powerful processor from Qualcomm called the Snapdragon, which is anticipated to spark numerous smartbooks from a variety of manufacturers in 2010.
  Qualcomm Shows Off World's First 'Smartbook' [NewsFactor]
• Google has purchased the VoIP company Gizmo5 which it plans to set to work on adding new features to Google Voice.
  Google to Deepen Voice With Gizmo5 Buy [Ecommerce Times]
• Happy holidays from Google! The search giant will be providing free Internet access to travelers at 47 U.S. airports through the holiday season.
  Google offers free Wi-Fi in U.S. airports during the holidays [Computerworld]
• Google has created a new programming language named Go. The language includes the best features of popular languages like Python and C++, and is designed to make systems programming for Web servers, storage systems, and databases much easier and faster.
  Google creates programming language to simplify app dev [Computerworld]
  Google's Go is promising, but still in diapers [Computerworld]
• iPhones that have been jail broken to run on other networks, or run unauthorized software are no longer safe. A vulnerability discovered last week has hackers scrambling to pillage the phones and steal user information.
  Hackers pillage jail broken iPhones [Computerworld]

That's it for this week's CourseCasts. Email me with your comments and suggestions for the show at coursecasts@gmail.com. Let me know how you use CourseCasts in your classes and I'll give you and your school a shout out on my next CourseCast. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!