Category: Business

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From Geeks are Sexy Technology News: Amazon targets large groups with Kindle distribution tool


Amazon is introducing a podcast like distribution tool for documents, aimed at schools and businesses.

The new free tool, Whispercast, allows an organization to link multiple devices in a form of network, though files only transfer in one direction. Managers will be able to put individual Kindles into separate groups (for example corporate departments or different school classes) and then automatically send materials to everyone in a particular group. Users will need to be on Wi-Fi rather than 3G to get the content.

The system will work with personal documents, meaning a teacher could create and send a lesson schedule to every pupil, or a human resources department could distribute a new staff manual. The Whispercast service will also allow organizations to send documents to anyone with a device that runs the Kindle app.

As well as personal documents, organizations can distribute Kindle books through Whispercast. For example, a school could buy an electronic textbook “in bulk” and send it to an entire class. It’s not clear if there’ll be special pricing for such purchases.

The idea is that the system will work whether users bring their own Kindles or if the organization buys devices for them. For those who hand out Kindles, there’ll be tools to centrally register them, require a password, control Internet access, and decide what if any material users can buy on the Kindle. There will also be a tool to block users from carrying out a factory reset or deregistering a Kindle and transferring it to their own account.

Amazon is also offering bulk discounts to schools or businesses that buy a batch of Kindles. It’s not offering specific discounts but rather inviting buyers to ask for a quote.

(Image credit: Amazon)

[Whispercast]

from Geeks are Sexy Technology News

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From Droid Life: Apple’s Apology to Samsung Will Happen, Judge Says No Less Than 14pt Arial Font

Apple’s appeal has been lost, and a public apology is all that is left to do in a U.K. case between the iPad and the Galaxy Tab 10.1. According to the judge, Apple’s apology must appear on their official website and in newspapers while featuring the Arial font with a size of no less than 14pt.

As for when we can expect to see an apology, we still await the details. How about that for comedy?

Via: Gizmodo

from Droid Life

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From Discover Magazine: Drug Companies Cherry-Pick Data to Get Approval for Useless Drugs | 80beats

pills

It goes without saying that the drugs you take for a headache, or high blood pressure, or even depression should work better than a Tic-Tac. That’s what drug trials are for: researchers give a group of subjects either the drug under investigation or a placebo to check that the medicine is significantly more effective than a sugar pill. Plus, the trials can reveal any potentially harmful side effects. In theory, this is a great way to weed out useless or actively harmful drugs. But it fails when drug manufacturers cherry-pick their data, publishing papers on the positive trials and sweeping the unsuccessful ones under the rug. And this behavior is completely legal.

Science writer and medical doctor Ben Goldacre wrote a book, with a long excerpt published at the Guardian, about how this process leads to approval for drugs that don’t actually work. And as he explains, when widely used drugs—such as the diabetes medication rosiglitazone—have harmful side effects, they sometimes remain in common use.

In 2003 the Uppsala drug monitoring group of the World Health Organisation contacted [pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline] about an unusually large number of spontaneous reports associating rosiglitazone with heart problems. GSK conducted …

 

from Discover Magazine

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From Ars Technica: Apple v. Samsung judge ends Galaxy Tab ban, Apple may have to pay $2.6M

The judge in the landmark Apple v. Samsung patent case today ended a three-month-old sales ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, giving Samsung a small victory after its crushing $1 billion loss to Apple.

One of the bright spots for Samsung in last month’s verdict was the jury ruling that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not infringe a design patent. The tablet did infringe other Apple patents, but not the one that was the basis of a sales ban on the Tab issued on June 26 by US District Court Judge Lucy Koh. Samsung attempted to get the ban overturned after the jury ruling, but it had also previously appealed the June 26 injunction to a higher court. As a result, Koh was unable to overturn the injunction immediately since she no longer had jurisdiction. Jurisdiction was returned to Koh Friday with a US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing her to decide the issue, and she promptly granted Samsung’s motion to dissolve the sales ban today (PDF).

Koh dismissed an argument from Apple that the court should wait until post-trial motions are resolved before deciding whether to end the sales ban. “The public has no interest in enjoining a non-infringing product, and thus any market disruption caused by dissolution would be insignificant compared to Samsung’s interest in restoring its product to market,” Koh wrote today. In addition to granting Samsung’s motion to dissolve the injunction, she retained the $2.6 million bond Apple posted as a condition of obtaining the preliminary injunction.

from Ars Technica

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From Geeks are Sexy Technology News: Apple Supplier Foxconn Hit by Staff Riot

Around 40 people have been injured in riots at one of Apple’s main suppliers. An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 people were involved in a mass brawl at the Foxconn plant in Taiyuan.

The incident began in a dormitory at the factory where staff lived. The company has been at the center of repeated allegations of poor labor standards and living conditions.

Foxconn says the disturbance began around 11pm local time last night. More than 5,000 police officers attended and regained control by9 am today. Production at the factory has been halted for the moment.

A government official has said early police investigations suggest it was sparked by a personal dispute between staff from different regions of China, while Foxconn says the incident wasn’t work-related.

However, unverified reports on social networks have put the blame on security guards violently attacking a worker in an earlier incident, with staff either rioting as a direct response or using the disturbance as an opportunity to seek revenge. Foxconn claims there was no property damage, though independent photos and videos show broken windows and a burned out van.

A spokesman for a Hong Kong group supporting Chinese labor rights suggested worker protests across the country are becoming more common, though only around five percent of such incidents lead to physical damage.

The Taiyuan factory is said to make some iPhone components, though isn’t the main production point for Apple in the country. Staff at the factory held a brief strike in March over pay and working conditions, reportedly because a promised pay increase didn’t materialize.

 

from Geeks are Sexy Technology News

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: This Escape Pod Could Save Lives In A Tsunami

Safety Capsule Matt Duncan with his four-man Tsunami Survival Pod. Gold Coast Bulletin
Watching footage of the 2011 Japanese tsunami inspired Matt Duncan’s design.Australian business owner Matt Duncan usually builds steel-hulled houseboats, but he was so affected by last year’s devastating tsunami in Japan that he’s turned his focus to seaworthy survival craft. His bright orange Tsunami Survival Pod can accommodate four people for two and a half hours.

Duncan tells the Gold Coast Bulletin that he couldn’t take his eyes off the TV last spring after a tsunami ravaged Japan. “I was home the day the tsunami hit, watching it on television and just thinking, ‘What could I have done to save these people?'” he recalled. He watched hours of footage and observed how different objects responded to the action of the waves and the other debris pulled out to sea.

Within a few days, he’d designed this safety pod, using the spiral-welded steel he uses for his houseboats. It has crumple zones to absorb impacts; racing-style seats and five-point safety harnesses for four passengers; a flashing beacon to alert rescuers; and hooks for helicopters to grab and lift it to safety. It even has one-inch-thick polycarbonate windows so you don’t feel claustrophobic.

He said the pods will retail for $8,500 in Australian dollars, or about $8,872 USD, and they can fit in an average garage. A tsunami usually comes with at least some warning, so someone could conceivably wheel it out and hop in before the water rises. Check out some more images of it here.

[via News.com.au]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now